How Distorted And Fake News In The Age of Click-Bait Makes Life Hard On Citizens

[HuckleB]

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-age-of-click-bait/

"...

At the extreme end are sites that make no attempt to report actual news. They make up and report fake news, news items optimized for clicks unhindered by reality. I was recently asked by an SGU listener, for example, about this story about a Spanish man who died of an allergic reaction to a GMO tomato that had a fish gene in it. He was sincerely concerned about the implications of this story for the safety of GMOs.

He had no idea the story was entirely fake. In fact, there are no GMO tomatoes on the market. The insertion of a cold tolerance gene from a Winter Flounder into produce, like strawberries and tomatoes, was a research concept, but was never brought to fruition. The idea, however, has been used for anti-GMO propaganda, and this fake news outlet was just playing on those fears.

This raises another manifestation of the click-bait era that Rawlinson did not cover. He was mostly concerned about real and fake news outlets. There is another type of outlet, however, and that is the narrative-driven outlet. These outlets don’t sell just any click-bait, but rather they are tailoring their click-bait to a particular audience by catering to a certain narrative.

Fox News is perhaps the outlet most people think of when the idea of selling a narrative as news is brought up. The phenomenon is insidious – not only does it reinforce a particular worldview (which admittedly is nothing new) the process is an interactive one between them and their audience. They align their narrative to their target audience, but over time they also align their audience to their narrative.

..."

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[HuckleB]

1. IOW, how homeopathy endures at DU.

Yikes.

[LanternWaste]

9. It's pretty cool how conveniently we can blame people's disagreement with our own positions

It's pretty cool how conveniently we can blame people's disagreement with our own positions on marketing, click-bait and woo. And in doing so, it allows us to feel even more clever about ourselves than might otherwise be the case.

[HuckleB]

10. So you think pushing worthless scams is ok?

I don't. Thus, there is nothing convenient about it. It is reality, whether you like it or not. Promoting homeopathy is unethical, and that's being very kind. Utilizing dishonest click-bait links to promote is not ok. Promoting bad non-peer reviewed studies claiming an organic industry advocate organization found glyphosate in breakfast foods is also not ok. Attacking people who care about getting the science right as "Monsanto Trolls" is not ok. It's all the same kind of ugliness that Fox News pushes. It's not ok. Period.

Thanks for the kick!

[L. Coyote]

2. Fox News in the context of click bait and fake crap, makes sense now.

Fox is just like click bait, except they don't want you to click another channel. They are just saying what gets them the most attention so they can do their propaganda thingie.

[HuckleB]

5. Indeed. Unfortunately, the practice has spread all too quickly.

[L. Coyote]

6. It's a negative feedback loop, everyone competing for clicks means competing to most outrageous.

The three basic principles of advertising and propaganda, manipulate, manipulate, manipulate.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6gBy1kGztSM/SbhjPAQIx0I/AAAAAAAAAeM/Fl5UwYPFDz4/s400/B.+Kliban+19.jpg

[Demonaut]

3. I hate click bait........it's evil

[HuckleB]

8. +1

[lapislzi]

4. Up-worthy is UNworthy

I detest that garbage, especially when it clots up my FB feed. I've started hiding all of it and I'm much happier. It's become the social media equivalent of your grandmother e-mailing you old-people jokes from her AOL mail.

[HuckleB]

7. That stuff is really annoying, indeed.

[HuckleB]

11. .