Beyond the New York Times dispute, Wordle: the digital picket line
Earlier this week journalists at the New York Times took a one day strike over pay and conditions. The action organised by the New York Times Guild mobilised large numbers. Let’s hope the NY Times recognises their legitimate issues.
As part of the action the Union asked people who do Wordle, the on-line word puzzle, not to do so. Because of time differences this meant Thursday and Friday. Did it work. Somewhere someone will have the figure for how many logged on to Wordle on those days but I certainly noticed fewer people doing it and reporting the result on twitter.
It raises the wider question of whether digital picket lines can work. Just as in a physical picket line scabs can sneak in or just cross the line, when someone is working from anywhere, it can’t be certain they are respecting the picket unless they post something on-line. Either a solidarity message or evidence they are ignoring it.
If the latter this can clearly be noted and raised. The weakness of the digital picket line is that its more difficult to enforce than a physical one. The strength is that it can be global. Work in progress
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