great write up. i've always felt that people on tv and writers on the net should really only talk about their own opinions- if there is something "people are outraged about", then have them on to discuss it.
I hate when articles hide behind an invented "Twitter backlash", and then include 4-5 tweets with a handful of retweets. 6,000 tweets are sent every single second. You could build a narrative for anything with that logic.
If your best example is a grammatically challenged tweet that racked up 4 favs and a retweet... you're probably inventing a controversy.
Here's some insane examples from the first page of a Google News search for "Twitter Backlash":
Ever try searching for trending outrage hashtags on Twitter? Generally it's 99.9% outrage over the outrage, with no real tweets expressing the original supposed outrage.
This is a consequence of writers at Business Insider and other brands being ranked by the number of clicks their pieces generate. Writing for them is more of a social science than journalism, with specific words and phrasing A/B tested and Web page designs optimised to get you to stay on the page just a tiny bit longer (so Google doesn't penalise them for bounce rate). Ever recall how BI articles end with an unrelated, click bait video?
Pretty much this in a nutshell. Indeed, if you ever want to know (another) reason a lot of news sites seem to be posting articles to troll or bait their reader, that's because the per click model incentivises stirring up angry mobs rather than starting a civil debate.
So for any writers without anything meaningful to say... well, just find the most obnoxious, audience baiting thing possible, back it up with a bunch of thinly sourced 'support' posts and watch your article trend on Reddit within an hour or two. Or maybe on Twitter.
It's also why comment sections were virually unmoderated until recently... a civil debate brings less comments than a heated flame war between lunatics.
> It's also why comment sections were virually unmoderated until recently... a civil debate brings less comments than a heated flame war between lunatics.
I've heard second-hand information about my national media platforms that they're (the media companies) actually seeding flame wars in comments on purpose - angry people coming back to respond to other angry people = much more eyeballs = more ad dollars flowing in.
I also see it in major newspapers like The Guardian. Particularly around political stories, like Jeremy Corbyn and his new shadow cabinet, they seem predisposed to describe every comment made about them as putting the politicians "under fire" or some other such melodramatic term. And then when you read the actual quotes in the article, they are fairly tame, gentle criticisms.
This happened twice just this week, once with the (constructive, rather softball) comments made by a union leader about Corbyn himself (to which the reaction was something along the lines of "oh no, he's losing the support of his base!"), to the rather mild back-and-forth about John McDonnell's sarcastic crack about Mao in Parliament (which the media basically manufactured into a fake story, all the while implying that McDonnell is a crypto-communist, while he is nothing of the sort).
Anyway, rather than it being about a specific subject, I guess my point is that I am pretty down on journalists in general these days, because chasing the story and filling the news cycle (in any medium) seems to have taken priority over actually substantive reporting of things that matter.
This sort of thing is why I think Corbyn's strategy of opening distaining the media may ultimately pay off. I'm hoping that people will tune more and more of this noise out and then start going directly to source when they want to hear what someone has to say.
>John McDonnell's sarcastic crack about Mao in Parliament (which the media basically manufactured into a fake story, all the while implying that McDonnell is a crypto-communist, while he is nothing of the sort).
Is anyone saying he's a crypto-communist? All I've seen is that it's yet another example of Corbyn's shadow cabinet being fantastically terrible at politics. It's not feeding the "Labour are outright marxists" narrative, it's feeding the "Corbyn is incompetent and sooner or later the house of cards will fall" narrative.
I guess I was being a bit hyperbolic. But Chuka Umunna's comment about how "I would never quote a communist" and the GHCQ noting the figures about deaths during the Great Leap Forward seemed to be a tacit implication that McDonnell was somehow endorsing Mao, rather than taking a swipe at Osborne.
Do you feel the same way about software devs who work for food delivery/laundry service startups and the like? Writing clickbait is no better or worse than "changing the world" one delivery at a time. Everyone's just chasing easy money.
That's why I label them "dishonest" in my head, and blacklist the worst offenders. Yes, I won't use your service if you bullshit too much in your copy.
How is a "sharing" economy, or the vast majority of startups, helping anyone but stakeholders? Without citing a particular piece of content it's hard to say anyone's lying, just being way too dramatic for more clicks. Because that is the current incentive structure for web publishing. Bullshit outrage pieces make way more money than long form investigative peices that are significantly harder to make, and exponentially less people read. Just like working on big hard problems takes more time/talent/research. Easy money and complaining for everyone!
Does secret deliberately provoke negative behavior? How about yik yak? Until the incentive structure changes for writers, they'll keep writing that stuff. Just the way it is.
Yeah, to be honest, I do. Although I think the reasons there are different.
There is an infection of using superlative language at every turn, and it is especially bad (but not limited to) how conversation happens in the US, and countries like Britain that increasingly model their politics and culture on the US[0].
The current culture makes nuance and explanation hard, because those don't fit into sound bytes. When we live in a world where Jeff Bezos can declare, with a straight face, that 3000 words is a "long read", we're kinda screwed when it comes to politicians being able to make any point that isn't a slogan painted on the backdrop they are speaking in front of, or a startup to declare "we are just building a service that is one iteration better than the existing ones on the market, and people will pay us good money to use it".
I mean you can do that, and you can probably even make good money at it, but you won't get the fawning press or the billion-dollar hyperinflated valuations.
[0]: A strong statement, especially to make in passing, I know. But happy to lay out my reasoning on that point for anyone who wants it, and I promise it's not just the usual bellyaching about "creeping Americanisation" that gets thrown around a lot.
This is nothing new, though. I think it's a mistake to blame social media, advertising, or clickbait - this has been happening far longer than any of them.
Watch the news on TV or read a newspaper; how many times do they tell you that people are outraged, or asking questions, or something is up for debate, without showing so much as a tweet?
Reminds me of this article in general. The author sure did get a lot of mileage out of that one Tweet. This is a best case scenario for her as a writer. Free publicity!
I'm baffled that you would think Twitter had the ability to be anything else. The site basically mandates that you compress all your messages into trivialize-able sound bites.
Not true. Twitter allows you to makes a brief introduction to a linked article. I use twitter almost exclusively to follow individuals I respect, so I can be aware of new things they have written (or that they recommend).
I think it's important to study the media's role in creating and extending the reach of outrage, but it's equally important not to deny that there is a growing movement of people who are interested in limiting free speech and get very outrageous about it.
That's a very uncompelling argument, not to mention patronizing. The criteria he sets up is literally "it's fascist if you want anything done about the things you're mad about," which is ridiculous because it removes any ability to change the status quo. If there were a professor who were openly defending fascism, calling for him to be removed would be fascist.
In fact, if you change "Calling for people to be fired for expressing their beliefs" to "Calling for senators to be voted out of office for expressing their beliefs" then that's fascist. You can play this game for all his examples:
> Calling to defund a newspaper for publishing an editorial you disagree with
Divestment from companies funding apartheid, something student protesters commonly supported in the late 80s
> Tearing down fliers that you disagree with
Removing neo-Nazi propaganda posters
> Calling for students to be expelled for wearing offensive Halloween costumes
Calling for people to boycott Chick-Fil-A because of its owner's anti-gay agendas
In the examples you are listing, the activists are using force to change the world into something they want, as opposed to using free speech to try to convince others. A while ago, I read the book Hitler - Memoirs of a Confidant by Otto Wagener. It really surprised me. From this book, I get the impression that Hitler was an idealist who really wanted to create a better world (at least for the Germans who he saw as being totally unfairly treated by France etc. after WW1).
It can still be fascism, even if you see yourself as doing good. Actually, I think well-meaning idealists are sometimes some of the worst people out there. They see themselves as good and being correct, and they get really nasty and intolerant towards people who see things differently.
There's the old saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", but I often get the impression that many people don't really grasp this.
While many historians do consider them significant, take Wagener's memoir with a pinch of salt, the author was writing the hagiography of a man he was infatuated with:
"Hitler turned his large, unfathomable eyes on me; once again, as they had in Nuremberg, they impressed me with their deep and infinite goodness, as if they constantly wanted to give something without saying anything."
Even Hitler never painted as rose-coloured a view of himself as Wagener does.
I agree that his argument is very thin in most cases. I linked to the original article more for the video of the students and professor being outraged than for the Harvard professor's analysis.
His examples are all over the place. Boycotts most definitely aren't fascism. In fact, not allowing boycotts seems much closer to fascism than allowing them.
The posters are a different story. I don't know if I'd call it "fascism" to tear down posters (neo-nazi, or gay rights... it doesn't matter -- decisions should be content agnostic). It's vandalism for sure. It's also super ineffective.
There was recently a case where feminists defaced ads in the London tube that showed a model in a bikini and asked "Are you beach ready?". The end result was bringing international attention, support and sales for the company that made the ads.
In short, speech including boycotts isn't fascism. Tearing down posters is vandalism, probably not fascism. Tearing down posters is ineffective whatever you call it.
Your best bet is just to get rid of all social media. I honestly think that the drama that social media encourages is unhealthy and subtly ruining people's lives.
It gives the impression that certain political groups are more influential than they are. It encourages outrage culture and the censorship that follows that movement. It's a lazy tool for certain types of journalists.
There's so many more constructive things to do than use social media. Delete your accounts, wait a month for any addictive urges to pass and enjoy life again.
For me, "social media" implies that I can use the platform to wish you a happy birthday. It should also allow me to show the world what I care about (people I know, topics I like, etc) just by visiting my profile.
HN allows neither, so I wouldn't count it as so. I'd probably classify it as "news site with comments", but not "social media".
I hear more people complain about outrage than actual outrage. It's especially hilarious when I go to sensitivity training and a bunch of privileged co-workers complain about being afraid to have fun.
Do you not see that by finding your co-worker's discomfort "hilarious" and labeling them "privileged" that you are doing your part to perpetuate and create outrage?
Their discomfort comes from people telling them to stop checking sex jokes into the code base, posting comments about women's panties, making dick jokes, etc.
Honestly I have a hard time believing that a company that would have sensitivity training would allow any of that behavior to continue beyond a single offense.
That being said, my point is that you are not helping anything regardless of the validity of the original complaints. You display flippant indignation by finding this "hilarious". Would it not help educate your co-workers to treat them reasonably instead of sarcastically confrontational? Has that approach ever yielded results?
That's one of the main things about outrage culture. Outrage will never convince anyone that they're wrong, it will only make them double down on their original ideas.
- Being told the term "you guys" is a micro-aggression that disenfranchises marginalized peoples.
- Being scolded for using the term "man hours."
- Being around people who think that a red hand at a crosswalk is emblematic of systemic racism.
- Working with people who look down at spending Thanksgiving with family, and instead rant about how you're celebrating the murder of the native peoples.
... and any other similar non-issue that psychos left and right today are touting as the biggest issues facing people today.
Then I disagree with the premise of the article, and the dozen or so friends on my Facebook feed that attended Mt Holyoke are proof that this sort of outrage is a real thing.
I think this is a great example of what I mention up thread. kelukelugames helped to spread the outrage with their tone and dog whistles about "privilege". seattle_spring then picked it up and ran with it. Had kelukelugames presented their argument in a less troll-y way, the outrage may have reached a temporary endpoint instead of spreading.
Okay, now what? The media outlets and authors responsible for this will continue doing it - and probably got (and will get) high praise for the traffic numbers.
She gets some more attention for calling attention to this, and increases our collective cynicism a little more (and rightly so).
It's tempting to call this a victimless crime, but it's really not. The victims are those who are actually outraged, often by actually outrageous things, like US police taking people's money, beating them up, and killing them. Or by regulatory capture in energy and banking. Or by US foreign policy hypocrisy. Or any number of other things.
Honestly, if there was some way for me to fine media outlets in general and specific authors in particular for this behavior, I would do it. It is wrong to shovel shit into people's minds especially if you have an official "press" designation. You've violated trust, and if the media doesn't police itself, then the media itself is going to be replaced with something that does.
I'm always suspicious when news articles embed tweets as "evidence". The one case that sticks out for me was Tim Hunt losing his job because of his joke at a conference. I wonder if UCL also fell for media manufactured outrage in the decision to hastily get rid of him, or whether there really were tens of thousands of twitter keyboard warriors venting their offence all over the situation.
Either way, for my own sanity I now have to avoid twitter and any article that even remotely looks like it might be about someone being offended about something.
So it appears that media manufacture outrage for cheap clicks, therefore outrage is not a real problem.
I don't follow this line of reasoning. Let's say the same media often create a fake sexism/ism scandal out of something innocent or unrelated. Can we conclude that sexism/ism is not a problem anymore?
I was thinking earlier today that I felt like I was now understanding why my parents made me believe in Santa Claus. It's because you need to learn only on that you can't trust people like that. Maybe they should make a law or something that 1 out of every 100 news must be fake, so that people would be more compelled to check out facts.
Also journalism = marketing now. Headlines, scoops, shocking videos...
> Maybe they should make a law or something that 1 out of every 100 news must be fake
In the world I live in, the proportion is far higher. Especially if you are talking about the mainstream media. Hell, easily one of 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers is fake.
>Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. . . . I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (11 June 1807).
Business insider average titles: this is huge, this is big, this could be a big problem, this is insane, this is awesome, this is awful..
BI is technically...utter garbage...And kind of worrying
You should see Turkish news on web sites. "Scientists are in shock! Shock shock shock! Evry european talks about this! Here is what everybody should give attention!"
I don't understand ... The article references the author's tweet, notes it got little traction and then decides it was the source of the stories and speaks for the rest of the people that likely (and more 'successfully') tweeted about it.
I can't be the only person who sees the irony in that this great post is written by someone who works for Upworthy, an outlet who more than any other spawned the science of using superlatives in clickbait headlines to increase Facebook engagement.
Another angle to this is that there are agencies, who manipulate media and stir up controversies like these just to get attention for their clients' brands and products.[1]
This whole story (including this post) may just as well be part of a smart promotion stunt for Sephora lipstick. Some agency might be getting paid for generating all this attention, stirring up controversy around the brand, with the media and bloggers masterfully manipulated into cooperation. There's no way to know...
I think it is utterly disgusting what the media do to manufacture outrage. They ought to apologise unreservedly. But what can we do about it? A lot! We, as consumers with power, ought to boycott any of them that don't get the message.
Ultimately lots of disagreements have this cyclic structure. Like people accusing those who call for tolerance of being intolerant of intolerance. Or those who oppose science by accusing scientists of not doing science right. Or those telling people to think for themselves, and find out the truth (from the sources they deem to be correct). Or people who claim that those campaigning against racism are the real racists for making everything about race. There's probably some deep point, but I can't be bothered to think about it. It's easier to just be enraged at how stupid people are. Those stupid f*ers who can't even have a civil discussion!
95 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 161 ms ] threadIf your best example is a grammatically challenged tweet that racked up 4 favs and a retweet... you're probably inventing a controversy.
Here's some insane examples from the first page of a Google News search for "Twitter Backlash":
http://www.prweek.com/article/1372418/apple-faces-twitter-ba...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/ruby-rose-faces-b...
http://www.eonline.com/news/711079/raven-symone-angers-twitt...
http://www.her.ie/life/bloomingdales-forced-to-apologise-to-...
So for any writers without anything meaningful to say... well, just find the most obnoxious, audience baiting thing possible, back it up with a bunch of thinly sourced 'support' posts and watch your article trend on Reddit within an hour or two. Or maybe on Twitter.
It's also why comment sections were virually unmoderated until recently... a civil debate brings less comments than a heated flame war between lunatics.
I've heard second-hand information about my national media platforms that they're (the media companies) actually seeding flame wars in comments on purpose - angry people coming back to respond to other angry people = much more eyeballs = more ad dollars flowing in.
This happened twice just this week, once with the (constructive, rather softball) comments made by a union leader about Corbyn himself (to which the reaction was something along the lines of "oh no, he's losing the support of his base!"), to the rather mild back-and-forth about John McDonnell's sarcastic crack about Mao in Parliament (which the media basically manufactured into a fake story, all the while implying that McDonnell is a crypto-communist, while he is nothing of the sort).
Anyway, rather than it being about a specific subject, I guess my point is that I am pretty down on journalists in general these days, because chasing the story and filling the news cycle (in any medium) seems to have taken priority over actually substantive reporting of things that matter.
Is anyone saying he's a crypto-communist? All I've seen is that it's yet another example of Corbyn's shadow cabinet being fantastically terrible at politics. It's not feeding the "Labour are outright marxists" narrative, it's feeding the "Corbyn is incompetent and sooner or later the house of cards will fall" narrative.
There is an infection of using superlative language at every turn, and it is especially bad (but not limited to) how conversation happens in the US, and countries like Britain that increasingly model their politics and culture on the US[0].
The current culture makes nuance and explanation hard, because those don't fit into sound bytes. When we live in a world where Jeff Bezos can declare, with a straight face, that 3000 words is a "long read", we're kinda screwed when it comes to politicians being able to make any point that isn't a slogan painted on the backdrop they are speaking in front of, or a startup to declare "we are just building a service that is one iteration better than the existing ones on the market, and people will pay us good money to use it".
I mean you can do that, and you can probably even make good money at it, but you won't get the fawning press or the billion-dollar hyperinflated valuations.
[0]: A strong statement, especially to make in passing, I know. But happy to lay out my reasoning on that point for anyone who wants it, and I promise it's not just the usual bellyaching about "creeping Americanisation" that gets thrown around a lot.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/11/the-guardian...
Watch the news on TV or read a newspaper; how many times do they tell you that people are outraged, or asking questions, or something is up for debate, without showing so much as a tweet?
Close down Twitter, the 140 characters are exactly enough why those things get blown out of proportion. Also why ADD "journalists" adore Twitter.
To be fair though there is a culture of "outrage" that exists. The media may be implicit in propagating it but they don't always create it.
For example, this recently happened:
http://hlrecord.org/2015/11/fascism-at-yale/
I think it's important to study the media's role in creating and extending the reach of outrage, but it's equally important not to deny that there is a growing movement of people who are interested in limiting free speech and get very outrageous about it.
In fact, if you change "Calling for people to be fired for expressing their beliefs" to "Calling for senators to be voted out of office for expressing their beliefs" then that's fascist. You can play this game for all his examples:
> Calling to defund a newspaper for publishing an editorial you disagree with
Divestment from companies funding apartheid, something student protesters commonly supported in the late 80s
> Tearing down fliers that you disagree with
Removing neo-Nazi propaganda posters
> Calling for students to be expelled for wearing offensive Halloween costumes
Calling for people to boycott Chick-Fil-A because of its owner's anti-gay agendas
It can still be fascism, even if you see yourself as doing good. Actually, I think well-meaning idealists are sometimes some of the worst people out there. They see themselves as good and being correct, and they get really nasty and intolerant towards people who see things differently.
There's the old saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", but I often get the impression that many people don't really grasp this.
"Hitler turned his large, unfathomable eyes on me; once again, as they had in Nuremberg, they impressed me with their deep and infinite goodness, as if they constantly wanted to give something without saying anything."
Even Hitler never painted as rose-coloured a view of himself as Wagener does.
His examples are all over the place. Boycotts most definitely aren't fascism. In fact, not allowing boycotts seems much closer to fascism than allowing them.
The posters are a different story. I don't know if I'd call it "fascism" to tear down posters (neo-nazi, or gay rights... it doesn't matter -- decisions should be content agnostic). It's vandalism for sure. It's also super ineffective.
There was recently a case where feminists defaced ads in the London tube that showed a model in a bikini and asked "Are you beach ready?". The end result was bringing international attention, support and sales for the company that made the ads.
In short, speech including boycotts isn't fascism. Tearing down posters is vandalism, probably not fascism. Tearing down posters is ineffective whatever you call it.
It gives the impression that certain political groups are more influential than they are. It encourages outrage culture and the censorship that follows that movement. It's a lazy tool for certain types of journalists.
There's so many more constructive things to do than use social media. Delete your accounts, wait a month for any addictive urges to pass and enjoy life again.
HN allows neither, so I wouldn't count it as so. I'd probably classify it as "news site with comments", but not "social media".
Stopping inappropriate behavior is not outrage.
That being said, my point is that you are not helping anything regardless of the validity of the original complaints. You display flippant indignation by finding this "hilarious". Would it not help educate your co-workers to treat them reasonably instead of sarcastically confrontational? Has that approach ever yielded results?
That's one of the main things about outrage culture. Outrage will never convince anyone that they're wrong, it will only make them double down on their original ideas.
- Being told the term "you guys" is a micro-aggression that disenfranchises marginalized peoples.
- Being scolded for using the term "man hours."
- Being around people who think that a red hand at a crosswalk is emblematic of systemic racism.
- Working with people who look down at spending Thanksgiving with family, and instead rant about how you're celebrating the murder of the native peoples.
... and any other similar non-issue that psychos left and right today are touting as the biggest issues facing people today.
"Hey, we should refer to our db nodes as the primary and secondaries, cause master & slave has some historical baggage"
"Yeah, K, not really a big deal"
Not
"OMG YOU CALLED THE DB NODE SLAVE YOU'RE RACIST ARRHRHRGRGRGGRGR"
That doesn't mean Westboro Babtist Church is not a problem. It just means the majority is sane.
She gets some more attention for calling attention to this, and increases our collective cynicism a little more (and rightly so).
It's tempting to call this a victimless crime, but it's really not. The victims are those who are actually outraged, often by actually outrageous things, like US police taking people's money, beating them up, and killing them. Or by regulatory capture in energy and banking. Or by US foreign policy hypocrisy. Or any number of other things.
Honestly, if there was some way for me to fine media outlets in general and specific authors in particular for this behavior, I would do it. It is wrong to shovel shit into people's minds especially if you have an official "press" designation. You've violated trust, and if the media doesn't police itself, then the media itself is going to be replaced with something that does.
The internet means information travels faster than ever before, but also inadvertently causes "interesting things" to outpace "the truth".
Properties like Upworthy/Buzzfeed/ect. exacerbate this. Von D is right not to capitulate.
P.S. So too, are we.
Also, if you get offended by "underage red", maybe your mind is dirty is a bit weird defense. What is the name meant to imply?
And finally, if we should be outraged by anything isn't underage red better than war on christmas?
Either way, for my own sanity I now have to avoid twitter and any article that even remotely looks like it might be about someone being offended about something.
I don't follow this line of reasoning. Let's say the same media often create a fake sexism/ism scandal out of something innocent or unrelated. Can we conclude that sexism/ism is not a problem anymore?
Aren't safe-spaces real? Is this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QqgNcktbSA staged? I don't remember things like that from my university years.
Also journalism = marketing now. Headlines, scoops, shocking videos...
In the world I live in, the proportion is far higher. Especially if you are talking about the mainstream media. Hell, easily one of 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers is fake.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (11 June 1807).
Some fairly weak logic.
This whole story (including this post) may just as well be part of a smart promotion stunt for Sephora lipstick. Some agency might be getting paid for generating all this attention, stirring up controversy around the brand, with the media and bloggers masterfully manipulated into cooperation. There's no way to know...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying
Oh wait...
Ultimately lots of disagreements have this cyclic structure. Like people accusing those who call for tolerance of being intolerant of intolerance. Or those who oppose science by accusing scientists of not doing science right. Or those telling people to think for themselves, and find out the truth (from the sources they deem to be correct). Or people who claim that those campaigning against racism are the real racists for making everything about race. There's probably some deep point, but I can't be bothered to think about it. It's easier to just be enraged at how stupid people are. Those stupid f*ers who can't even have a civil discussion!