It turns out that you can share Boston Globe stories with non-subscribers for free

On several occasions recently, I’ve argued that The Boston Globe ought to make a few gift links available each month so that subscribers can share them. Among other things, it might entice some casual readers into subscribing.

That’s the practice at The New York Times and The Washington Post, both of which allot subscribers 10 gift links per month. The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic let subscribers share an unlimited number of stories. Surely the Globe could offer, oh, five or six.

Well, the other day I heard from a reader who told me that the Globe does allow sharing in a limited way. If you email someone the link to a Globe article by copying the URL at the top of your web browser and sending it with your email program, they will hit the paywall. But if you use the email thingie embedded at the top of each article (as in the illustration above), it will produce a link that can be opened by a non-subscriber. I’ve tested it with some of my social media followers, and it works.

What won’t work is if you use any of the other sharing bottons for Facebook, Bluesky and the rest. You’ll get a link, but it won’t get anyone around the paywall. But, uh, let me just also say that the link you get when you use the email button can be shared on social media or anywhere else, and anyone who opens it will have free access to that article.

I’m not going to use those free links on social media. Globe executives have the right charge for their journalism the way they see fit, and this is clearly an unintended backdoor. On the other hand, I’m not inclined to keep this information to myself. I imagine they’ll implement a fix at some point. But it’s there — at least for now.