I hate to be the bearer of bad news, that’s why I’ll just let the internet do it for me. Be careful when fishing for the facts, because clickbait can catch someone hook, line and sinker.
“Clickbait” is a pejorative term used to describe those insane, over-the-top stories that a person would see on their social media feeds. “Clickbait” is one of those words that didn’t use to exist prior to the ever-growing popularity of the internet — the same way the word “selfie” wasn’t a thing before smart phones, or how the word “twerk” wasn’t a thing before the death of good taste.
The stories are crazy, without the objective to inform. The objective is to generate online advertising revenue by luring people in with sensational headlines with hopes that those people buy into the advertisements in the margins.
For example, if I were to scroll through Facebook and come to a headline that reads “Betty White challenges Connor McGregor to a fight,” it would be safe to assume that is probably clickbait. Don’t get me wrong — it would be really shocking and possibly entertaining if she did, but more than likely it would be false, or at least some misconstruing of something one of the stars said.
Besides knowing what clickbait and its underlying objective is, it’s also important to know that these stories are not acts of journalism in any way, shape or form. Real journalism requires, independence from business interests and a transparent reporter. Clickbait does not follow this code of ethics, and therefore is not journalism.
Advertising is not the issue. Reliable news sources have advertising on them. To make a paycheck in my line of work, where it’s becoming more and more difficult to make a living, advertising is inevitable.
Clickbait makes a scam out of what real journalists do, and it fills the people’s heads with misinformation.
If the same people who generated all these fake news stories took their writing talents — because they do have talent — and applied said talents to generating honest, unbiased and reliable news then maybe there would be less division over trusting the media.
I have many friends on my social media platforms who will share these political “facts” about whomever they’re targeting, and they’ll more or less caption it with “I’m right, they’re wrong. This says so.”
The problem with most of these posts that I see are the sources. They’re sharing sources that are so one-sided, and often completely false, that the person reading never gets to view any other sides of the story than what the authors political predispositions want them to view.
Let’s say I have a conservative friend who posts a link to something about the state of gun control. I take a look at the name of the website, and it says something like “conservativesgunsamerica.clinteastwood.whatever” I would be willing to bet that there are no liberal points of view in that article whatsoever.
Now, if the same person who wrote that article actually produced a piece that fairly presented arguments addressing gun control, maybe my conservative friend would start to see the oppositions points of view, as well as their own. Vice versa, if a more liberal person read the same unbiased piece, maybe they too would have their minds opened up to more ideas than just their own.
If a person only ever looks at an argument from one side then they’re only going to understand that one side — that’s it. And that’s a problem that clickbait is only perpetuating.
Clickbait, political or not, can be quite entertaining and persuasive. With that, keep in mind the dangers that come with it. Skepticism is required in today’s abundance of fictional “facts.”
Andrew Ward can be reached at [email protected]