Products · Product
CNN website
Raised as a usability problem by 20 people on Hacker News over 11 years (2016–2026), in 19 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Ads and videos load late and shift the page while readingUnreviewed
20162026- Article pages are bloated with ads and tracking, making them slow and cluttered2024-11-17
- Intrusive ads, autoplaying videos, and scroll-hijacking make the site hard to read2019-12-15
- Ads and videos load late and shift the page while reading2016-09-08
Videos autoplay and the browser setting fails to stop themUnreviewed
20162026- Video autoplays on article pages, forcing users to scramble to pause it2019-07-30
- Autoplaying video keeps playing hidden audio and can't be blocked after scrolling2017-09-04
- Autoplay videos keep playing despite blockers, forcing users to disable JavaScript2017-05-25
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 20 complaints
- Mobile pages take a minute to load and keep jerking around2026-09-10
- Full CNN pages take about a minute to load on mobile2026-09-10
- Consent popup offers only accept, with no way to opt out or decline2026-02-04
- Cookie prompt only offers accepting tracking, then hits a subscribers-only wall2026-01-18
- Huge cookie banner takes up much of the page2026-01-05
- Article pages are bloated with ads and tracking, making them slow and cluttered2024-11-17
- Site refuses to load when browser content filter blocks its privacy component2023-12-09
- Laggy on phones, with clutter scattered around the content, so the author rarely visits2022-10-21
- Simple articles require downloading a whole web application to render2021-09-23
- The regular CNN site is unusable for the commenter2021-04-10
- Hundred vendor checkboxes and an accept-all button but no reject-all option2020-01-28
- Intrusive ads, autoplaying videos, and scroll-hijacking make the site hard to read2019-12-15
- Video autoplays on article pages, forcing users to scramble to pause it2019-07-30
- Free news sites are cluttered with popups that make them hard to browse2019-03-21
- Articles open as videos that repeat text bullets instead of readable text2017-09-11
- Autoplaying video keeps playing hidden audio and can't be blocked after scrolling2017-09-04
- Autoplay videos keep playing despite blockers, forcing users to disable JavaScript2017-05-25
- Videos autoplay on news sites and the browser setting mostly fails to stop them2016-12-06
- Ads and videos load late and shift the page while reading2016-09-08
- Article takes minutes to load; popups and ads block reading the content2016-03-23