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Thursday, February 11, 2021

New app allows users to block 800 New York Times journalists on Twitter to ‘fight against disinformation’

 

A new app hit the market that lets users block New York Times journalists from appearing on Twitter feeds in a bid to “fight against disinformation.”

“It’s time to block,” the Block the New York Times app’s Twitter account tweeted on Monday. “Twitter users have begun mass-blocking New York Times-linked accounts to control the flood of corporate disinformation online. Now, a new app automates the process.”

The app allows users to block 800 corporate journalists associated with the New York Times.

The tweet from the app’s account links to a page set up to appear similar to the New York Times’s homepage but instead mocks the outlet with hoax stories, including one titled, “Ten Thousand Typos A Year: One Man’s Quest to Correct the Record of the Paper of Record.” The links on the website then guide users to download the app.

“Long marketed as the ‘paper of record,’ the New York Times Company now faces an economic and reputational reckoning,” the app’s creators wrote. “Employees are revolting, traffic is plummeting, colleagues are scathing, and readers are blocking.”

The New York Times has come under increased scrutiny in recent years for bias, which was inflamed by former President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks of it being a “fake newspaper” and practicing “bad journalism.”

Reaction on twitter has been mixed, with expressing the view that as much as they loathe the New York Times, they do not believe in blocking. Even without blocking, the associated website blocknyt.com is informative. It features articles on NY Times abuses of power, retractions, and errors of omission in reporting the news. And the site uses a masthead that looks just like the NY Times itself. For which it may well get sued .

The New York Times did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment

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