Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

The New York Times Is Abandoning Its Cooking Community Facebook Group

The New York Times Is Abandoning Its Cooking Community Facebook Group

The group has often devolved into drama, debate, and politics, and now the New York Times is looking for volunteer moderators to take over.

The New York Times is abandoning ship on its Cooking Community Facebook Group and handing it over to volunteer moderators.

The newspaper announced on Tuesday that its branding would be removed from the private group once it chose 10 to 20 moderators to take over the task of managing the group's over 77,000 members. While the Times has said the decision came down to practical concerns about staffing, the group has also been riddled with controversies and debates involving class, race, and privilege.

"One thing is clear: The interest in this group is about much more than recipes or The New York Times," the announcement said.

"As it continues to grow and change, it should be run by people who are an engaged and informed part of the community. And so it is time to hand this group over to you, its members."

A spokesperson for the newspaper told BuzzFeed News that, "as we said in the post, the interest in the group is about much more than recipes or The New York Times. As it continues to grow and change, we felt it should be run by people who are an engaged and informed part of the community."

Sam Sifton, the paper's assistant managing editor, told media columnist Ben Smith that there was no crisis — the group has just evolved beyond discussing Times recipes. It also frees up the staff who were moderating the group to focus on other tasks.


The group was started in 2019 and quickly attracted members. As the group has grown, there's been recurring drama over how to discuss the cultural aspects of food.

Last October, members staged a miniature political revolt after a post that encouraged members to vote for a particular candidate in the US election was removed. That spun off a debate about the political nature of food and set off a wave of people posting images of food styled to say "vote."


One particularly tense post about the use of MSG and anti-Asian sentiment led to hundreds of comments. People went back and forth about whether MSG causes reactions in some people (a myth that has been largely debunked).


Another recurring, and much sillier, controversy is a debate about charcuterie boards and what actually constitutes a real charcuterie board. Can vegan cheese go on a charcuterie board? Is a trendy pancake board still a "charcuterie" board? Is it elitist to gatekeep charcuterie boards?


Altogether, these debates come down to the fact that food and how we consume it can't be divorced from its cultural meanings, a fact the group has long grappled with.

May Low, who joined the group last year, told BuzzFeed News she often sees racist behavior, sometimes in how people discuss food from nonwhite cultures.

"Most of the people there are white-presenting. To them anything that’s foreign or quote-unquote 'ethnic,' they kind of yuck it," she said. She said she also saw racism when a poster repeated debunked myths about Chinese garlic.

"That’s just one of the many microaggressions and microaggressions against food that’s not white-centered," she said.

Low said she's posted three times in the group about a need for stronger moderation and for a more diverse group of moderators. Those posts were met with a lot of support, but also comments from detractors. After one of the posts, a Times staffer reached out to Low and said they shared her concerns.

The message to Low said the staff were working on how to fix the issue and had decided to turn moderation over to group members. When this week's announcement was posted, Low realized that meant the Times was giving up on the group completely. That, Low said, was a frustrating response.

"You failed your social responsibility to moderate the group, and then when you were asked to do it, you felt that the best way to do that was to back away and you get to decide who then subsequently moderates, all under the guise of claiming to care about diversity and equity issues," she said. "And now you’re asking people to do free labor."

Another long-standing member, Robin Davidson, told BuzzFeed News the group is largely fun, enjoyable, and full of nice people, but the moderation can be lacking when it's needed.

"They aren’t moderated much because frankly it’s a huge membership, and I suspect, having moderated pages myself, it was overwhelming to deal with every drama," she said.

"There are people from all over and all walks of life, so obviously opinions and understanding will differ. Kind tolerance is necessary. Some people don’t have it."

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×