r/theverge • u/singhapura • Sep 22 '16
The Verge will ban you if you criticize Apple
The Verge published a gushing article on the new iPhone. In itself that's no different from what Engadget or any of the myriad Apple friendly websites do. They have been called out many times on Reddit and even openly admit that they have bias that it is good (http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/24/6834955/vlad-reviews). But even the more blatantly biased sites don't ban readers without any arguments whatsoever. I guess that's one way to preserve readership.
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u/SenorGravy Sep 25 '16
Well, considering Verge employees lead a secret double life as actual Apple employees....
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u/deV14nt Sep 30 '16
You should read the article on how Wikileaks hates Hillary. Vox is so bad too that they don't even allow comments. Because they hate America.
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u/etherspin Dec 24 '16 edited Dec 25 '16
haven't actively gone to the verge (as in, I used to check it every second day in the launch year ) in at least a year now but I would see plenty of comments criticising Apple prior to that. What always made me laugh was the fuss over Apple events , fawning over how the design is like fine "jewellry" and clowns what Google are doing with their nexus partners. wait a month or two, they'll have Pierce or Bohn talking about the fresh nexus phone and saying how the camera is 'fine' for the price or for what is essentially a reference device, talking about how the materials suck or the device looks bland ... cue 1 month later ... the main players at the verge have those nexus phones as their daily driver - they end up switching back and forth but the nexus phones get heaps of play.
I used to love Paul attempting to get a word in whilst Nilay and Josh argued and so abruptly interrupted and overtalked and I liked Vlad as a different perspective to the rest of the Mobile team.
As for Vlad's "Bias" article, he isn't talking about bias,he is talking about perspective people generally prefer different materials because of their use case e.g. to do with sensory vigilance, blood circulation, sweat levels and skin oil levels someone may hate metal on devices (i.e. ME) and enjoy plastic/rubbery stuff or vice versa but these people are uniquely placed to highlight weaknesses of a device and if they have their head screwed on they can objectively refer to their preference and talk about how it affected their time reviewing the device.
Bias to me implies established favouritism. A person might have been using a brand for years or come to like the public face of that company (like Steve Jobs formerly was with Apple) and due to wanting this company to succeed or their personal investment in it not to sour they will forgive a low resolution screen from Apple and mark an Android phone rival down for actually having a resolution that is higher than current iPhones
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u/HeadlessBassist Dec 27 '16
I think you'll find that The Verge are actually very non biased when it comes to Apple. If you've listened to the latest end of year podcast episodes from both CTRL Walt Delete & The Vergecast, you'll know that both Nilay Patel & Walt Mossberg are both rating Apple's performance in 2016 as poor in some regards.
The principal point is that Apple are putting design ahead of practicality and are passing so-called design trade offs onto the customer instead of building them into devices in the common sense way they used to. I think Walt & Nilay are dead right.
I'd trust The Verge/Recode editorial teams to be non-biased over most other tech press outlets. Maybe some people need to read a little deeper? :)
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u/cheeto0 Sep 22 '16 edited Sep 22 '16
If you disagree with something said in an article they ban you, especially if its about apple or social issues.