New York Times shut down Tor Onion service
88 comments
·March 14, 2025yawnxyz
duskwuff
The fact that reading the NYT requires a paid subscription takes away a lot of the value of a Tor service. (Can you even buy a subscription over Tor? I doubt it; it'd be a fraud risk.)
Scoundreller
For a while, there was no paywall on NYT over Tor
pogue
Is there an Onion archive.today?
Scoundreller
Yes, the tor browser will auto-advise you that a .onion link is available.
noident
WhatsApp and Telegram are hardly replacements for Tor access. A government can block them easily.
The onion service's days were numbered after they fired Runa Sandvik. I'm surprised it lasted this long. Looking at the pay and current labor disputes, it seems like the New York Times isn't a good place for a skilled software engineer to work these days.
They'll keep running SecureDrop over an onion service, right...?
sharkjacobs
> Users who wish to continue reading Times journalism where their access to the main website may be blocked can do so through WhatsApp or Telegram.
elsewhere,
> Apple Says It Was Ordered to Pull WhatsApp From China App Store
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/technology/apple-whatsapp...
lxgr
The service itself isn’t available in China either anyway, I think.
lxgr
Despite the symbolism, does this change anything about their reachability from Tor?
Is there any practical advantage to a website in being explicitly reachable as a hidden service on Tor, as opposed to simply not blocking exit node IPs?
heavyset_go
Assuming your adversary is a state with access to certificates, a malicious or compromised exit node could lead to your de-anonymization and access to information you may want to keep confidential or hidden.
Your connection to an onion service is end-to-end encrypted and authenticated, as well, which means no MitM can trick you or sniff your traffic.
luma
Journalists speak truth to power, meanwhile the NYT aligns itself with power at every opportunity. For example, they knew the NSA was spying on us but never ran the story to protect GW's chances at reelection. Presumably they didn't want to be seen as anti-establishment with the new powers and are reverting to their time-proven behavior. NYT will lick the boot when presented, same as ever.
Lammy
https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-...
“The Agency’s relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper’s late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policy—set by Sulzberger—to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible.”
dmix
You don't need employees anymore just anonymous sources from "government insiders" by journalists who gain social/work credit from being friends with intelligence officials. The quid pro quo is implied and unquestioned because it sells papers. NYT/WSJ/WaPo are the main vectors for that stuff (big journalist outfits get big juicy sources) and they do it proudly.
michaelt
I don't think "about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover" was a way to funnel CIA info into the NYT - which, as you say, wouldn't need direct employment.
It sounds more like CIA spies wanted to go poking around in foreign countries, interviewing people and photographing things, which being an NYT reporter allowed them to do.
chneu
I'm not saying I disagree, but please see how dangerous your thinking can be.
That basically takes away a major tool of journalists and allows you to paint whoever you disagree with as wrong simply because they don't wish to go public.
Very, very dangerous way of thinking. Allowing sourcesto stay anonymous is a major tool for journalists.
reaperducer
From 1950 to 1966
That was 75 years ago. If you're going to grind an axe, at least pick one from this century.
spyspy
Disclaimer I worked at NYT but this is just unsubstantiated garbage. Say what you will about the company and journalism as a whole but you’d be hard pressed to find a better group of truth-seekers out there. waves hands at every other “news” outlet
nouripenny
Consider Bob McChesney's 3 biases of professional journalism: reliance on official sources, fear of context, and "dig here, not there".
https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-rise-of-professional-jo...
dmoy
Robert Fisk kept writing and talking about that wrt NYT right after 9/11: https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2003/fisk-i-think-...
ants_everywhere
The propaganda outlets have really been pushing hard the line that you can't trust professional journalists, and people who get their news from influencers just seem to accept it uncritically.
boredpeter
[dead]
davidw
I found this story pretty enlightening
https://css.seas.upenn.edu/new-york-times-a-case-study-in-in...
It's certainly not that they come up with outright lies. They have a ton of good people who work there. But there's something rotten higher up in the way they put their finger on the scales.
AuryGlenz
That article makes awful conclusions.
Biden’s age was a bigger factor because it was absolutely clear he was in rapid cognitive decline. No doubt it’s also happened to Trump at his age (as it does to everyone), but Biden essentially hid from any unscripted press the entirety of his Presidency.
Trump does the opposite. We can all judge his actual cognitive faculties because he’s constantly tweeting or in front of cameras. It’s pretty clear to anyone with a brain that most of the things the Biden administration did, Biden himself had very little to do with. Trump, again, is the opposite.
The NYT honestly should have been covering Biden’s decline more. It bordered on a coverup. The fact that people were surprised at his debate performance points to that.
croes
> to find a better group of truth-seekers
Pretty useless if those who need it the most can’t read it.
dataf3l
ok put your money where your mouth is, call your coworker and lets see they revert the onion service then...
spyspy
The key word you missed in my comment is “worked”.
mvdtnz
Thank you for including the disclaimer. Without it I wouldn't understand how anyone could believe such utter tosh. Do they have a brainwashing program during induction or something?
MrMcCall
Seeking the truth and reporting it ALL are two different things.
Telling 90% of the truth means telling the least important 90%.
The love of money corrupts all but the noblest of people's hearts.
oefrha
Often times I hear a fairly important piece of negative news about <group>, then look up which MSMs have reported it. Chances are I can find it on CNN, but it’s completely missing from NYT, or only one tangential sentence/paragraph in a related piece. Lying by omission is powerful.
rediguanayum
Consider that technology may have moved on, and there are other better ways to communicate with journalists: https://www.nytimes.com/tips e.g. Signal and to read NYTimes e.g. high quality VPN.
skwirl
If you went back to 2004 and told people the NYT was trying to help re-elect George W Bush they would nervously back away slowly from you.
andreygrehov
The answer is ad revenue. If you go against what your subscribers believe in, you lose money. If you lose money, you might lose your job. If you lose your job, you can't pay your mortgage.
londons_explore
I suspect plenty of government money directly flows to newspapers as part of various campaigns to sway public opinion on certain politically important topics.
Perhaps moreso outside the USA where just a handful of paid articles can sway some topic important for US foreign policy.
throwaway48476
Middle East governments are huge newspaper advertisers. The Chinese government has a propaganda page in the wsj.
starik36
Your post is nonsense. NYT has endorsed a democrat for every election in recent history. Why would they "protect" GW's chances at reelection???
Endorsements
2024: Kamala Harris (Democrat)
2020: Joe Biden (Democrat)
2016: Hillary Clinton (Democrat)
2012: Barack Obama (Democrat)
2008: Barack Obama (Democrat)
2004: John Kerry (Democrat)
2000: Al Gore (Democrat)
1996: Bill Clinton (Democrat)
1992: Bill Clinton (Democrat)luma
I take them at their actions, not their empty words. Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_con...
> In an interview in 2013, [NYT Executive Editor] Keller said that the newspaper had decided not to report the piece after being pressured by the Bush administration
Bush told them not to run the story while he was running for president. As always, the boot was presented and they licked it clean.
darkhorse222
Your excerpt is a bit misleading, here's a wider cut:
When it published the article, the newspaper reported that it had delayed publication because the George W. Bush White House had argued that publication "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny." The timing of the New York Times story prompted debate, and the Los Angeles Times noted that "critics on the left wondering why the paper waited so long to publish the story and those on the right wondering why it was published at all." Times executive editor Bill Keller denied that the timing of the reporting was linked to any external event, such as the December 2005 Iraqi parliamentary election, the impending publication of Risen's book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, or the then-ongoing debate on Patriot Act reauthorization. Risen and Lichtblau won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006.
In an interview in 2013, Keller said that the newspaper had decided not to report the piece after being pressured by the Bush administration and being advised not to do so by The New York Times Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman, and that "Three years after 9/11, we, as a country, were still under the influence of that trauma, and we, as a newspaper, were not immune."
setgree
> [The NY Times] knew the NSA was spying on us but never ran the story to protect GW's chances at reelection
This is a really strong claim -- the part about the 'why'. Strong claims generally require strong evidence. I'm perfectly willing to believe they spiked the story for other, more plausible reasons, but come on, their editorial endorsing John Kerry is right there for everyone to read:
> There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure...When the nation fell into recession, the president remained fixated not on generating jobs but rather on fighting the right wing's war against taxing the wealthy. As a result, money that could have been used to strengthen Social Security evaporated, as did the chance to provide adequate funding for programs the president himself had backed...The Bush White House has always given us the worst aspects of the American right without any of the advantages. We get the radical goals but not the efficient management.
So what exactly is the theory here that they spiked an NSA story to help this guy win re-election?? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/john-kerry-for-pr...
throwaway48476
I know PBS frontline did a documentary on this.
notepad0x90
Isn't it a paywalled service? How do people use it? they access it anonymously and then pay with a card?
null
cantrecallmypwd
Another act of bending the knee, just like when they axed Chris Hedges in the patriotic military invasions.
null
freen
Chilling effects and all that.
Complying in advance with the expectation of attacks on first amendment rights only emboldens autocrats and smooths their path to total control.
https://lithub.com/resist-authoritarianism-by-refusing-to-ob...
lordofgibbons
NYTimes lost any and all credibility when they hired a literal Israeli Military Intelligence propagandist to write the their headline shock inducing piece on 40 beheaded babies, infants in ovens, and mass rape.
These have all been widely been debunked, including by Israeli media. But NYT never retracted their propaganda piece. This gave a free hand for the IDF, with U.S backing, to commit mass murder on an industrial scale in Gaza.
How are they even relevant anymore, and why do people pay to consume literal foreign propaganda? The purpose of the news media is to inform, but these guys are doing the complete opposite.
https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1761740292015767736 https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schw...
realusername
It's always been a very bad newspaper internationally, we could mention the Irak war cover or the constant attacks of EU countries.
throwaway48476
Or covering for Stalin and denying the famine in ukraine.
yieldcrv
To continue on this
Israeli Jewish citizens criticize the war
People abroad criticize the war
But outside the country, many Jewish people abroad defend it and have this wildly incendiary defense mechanism against the people abroad, as if every critique from anyone is part of a thinly veiled movement to disrupt their right to existence
Why cant the rest of us be assumed to be at parity with Israeli citizen’s critique?
so unproductive
> deepened our understanding of reaching audiences that might otherwise be blocked from accessing our journalism > Users who wish to continue reading Times journalism where their access to the main website may be blocked can do so through WhatsApp or Telegram.
https://archive.is/ is still the de-facto way to read NYT articles...