Patterico's Pontifications

11/16/2016

You’ll Never BELIEVE Which Site Has Been Criticized for Clickbait Headlines!!!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:30 am



The L.A. Times this morning published an article about a list of misleading Internet sites to avoid, put together by a Massachusetts college professor.

During the election, many people fell prey to fake news stories on social media — even the president-elect ended up retweeting fake statistics. A professor of communication has created a list of unreliable news sites to help people do better.

Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, put together a publicly available Google doc cataloging “False, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources.” It’s been making the rounds on social media as people seek to cleanse their newsfeeds of misinformation.

The usual suspects are there: Breitbart, Drudge Report, etc. [CORRECTION: Drudge is not listed; a Drudge knock-off is. Coffee BEFORE blogging, Patterico!] (No Gateway Pundit. I guess Jim Hoft has the professor’s seal of approval.) Oddly enough, there are barely any left-leaning sites on the list — the main exception being openly satirical sites, like the Borowitz report. Missing from the list is, for example, the L.A. Times itself . . . an organization that I spent years revealing as fact-challenged. Andrew Breitbart once asked me to count up how many corrections I had obtained from them over the years. I stopped counting around 42. And that was years ago — and that’s just the stuff that a) was bad enough for me to write them about and b) they agreed with me about after reading my email correcting them.

But here’s the part that really made me laugh. The professor has different categories for inclusion, including irresponsible outrage sites, unreliable sites, openly satirical sites, and sites that “sometimes use clickbait-y headlines and social media descriptions.” Guess which site was tagged for clickbait-y headlines?

list-of-supposedly-fake-sites

That’s right. One RedState.com.

Guess which site was not tagged for clickbait-y headlines?

Buzzfeed.

I think my point is clear enough. Don’t you?

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

57 Responses to “You’ll Never BELIEVE Which Site Has Been Criticized for Clickbait Headlines!!!”

  1. yes yes we need harvardtrash filth to vet our information for us

    this way it will be more better

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  2. How can you make sure that what you’re sharing is real? One educator may be able to help.

    educator lol

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  3. Zerohedge! That’s not a news site though, it’s a blog. I’m also surprised the DailyCaller isn’t on there.

    Xmas (3a75bb)

  4. to be clear, this is a list of sites this hoochie wants censored

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  5. John Podesta’a website is calling for tech company web censorship because of all you* nazi’s and your hate speech.

    https://thinkprogress.org/the-alt-right-and-silicon-valley-3fd72a6e462e#.vwg17i81d

    Complete with helpful swastika graphic, for their illiterate web skimmers on the go.

    Nazi see Nazi do , John.

    * it has to be you, because I’m a freedom of the press kind of guy.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  6. What, no Vox?

    JP (f1742c)

  7. TMZ doesn’t engage in clickbait?
    How about PerezHilton?
    DailyKos? (LOL)

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  8. I spent years revealing as fact-challenged.

    Yes, he did do that, and I for one would like to see him continue to do it.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  9. The world was not ready for the dress she wore as she analyzed clickbait headlines.

    JVW (6e49ce)

  10. Mediaite is a total clickbait trap.
    They’ll have a headline that says something like, “Fox News commentator spews hate!” and then you click on it, and it turns out that Neil Cavuto merely said, “I hate anchioves on my pizza.” (LOL)

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  11. *love* anchovies

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  12. “Trump told the press pool following him that he was done for the night and so they could go home.

    Then he — get this! — went out with his family to get dinner at the 21 Club.

    The media has pronounced this to be a crisis of democracy.

    It should be noted they previously enjoyed Obama slipping away from the press, treating it as some charmingly roguish behavior from a man who just wanted to finish his waffle.

    Also, the White House attempted to make the idea of Obama slipping out of the White House unannounced a viral meme which people would find endearing. Remember the #TheBearIsLoose hashtag when the White House tried to make Obama slipping out to have lunch at popular local restaurants to Meet the Folks was a thing?

    But now it’s a constitutional crisis. Because the people who have lied to you for years are telling you so.”

    http://ace.mu.nu/archives/366908.php

    Colonel Haiku (32652f)

  13. Mr. ace is a light in the darkness

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  14. “Trump told the press pool following him that he was done for the night and so they could go home.”

    Hope Hicks actually did. And she apologized for that, saying she did not know. It is customary – has been customary for over 50 years, a presidential press secretary to tell the press people taht there will no more news today – the [phrase is, or was, “The lid is on”]

    Now we do not have here yet a presidential Press Secretary.

    If the issue was actually telling reporters there would be no more news because Trump had gone to bed, it’s a little bit different than merely not informing them.

    The AP now noted they were there when President Kennedy was assassinated * in 1963 and when Ronald reagn was shot in 1981, and they don’t want to miss anything.

    * Actually they had a radio telephone – sort of like a cell phone except you could only call out but nobody could call in. It existed in 1963. Even in 1954. There was only one in the car with the reporters in the presidential motorcade in Dallas and UPI’s Merriman Smith grabbed the phone because he recognized it as gunshots because he was familiar with and owned firearms (eventually he would use a firearm to kill himself) The AP reporter, like others, had assumed it was firrecrackers or something. So he called in and reported shots fired. And he wouldn’t let go for a long time while the AP reporter was frustrated. The AP reporter actually tried to slug it out with him.

    Then Merriman Smith gave up the phone and the AP reporter made a call, but was disconnected before he could say anything.

    Sammy Finkelman (db3b66)

  15. Two Irishmen walk out of a bar… don’t laugh, it could happen.

    Colonel Haiku (32652f)

  16. Do you love fish sticks as well, feets?

    Colonel Haiku (32652f)

  17. especially when they come out a little on the crunchy side

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  18. RedState is fringe from the past. Recall Erickson dis-invited now President elect Trump from their gathering over, of all frivolous things, their interpretation of his comments about Megyn Kelly.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  19. Are You Suffering From Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder (TARD)? If so, call a doctor.

    Colonel Haiku (32652f)

  20. MeAgain Kelly

    Colonel Haiku (32652f)

  21. The Drudge Report is NOT on the list — drudgereport.com.co is unafilliated with Matt Drudge.

    Kevin M (aeaadf)

  22. Off topic but moving forward, MSNBC’s Scarrborough reporting this hour Nikki Haley being considered for SoS. Gotta hand it to Trump– he has them reactive– and running. Tonight, perhaps a pizza run to Angelo’s in Secaucus?

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  23. 16, 17. Fish Sticks and Mozzarella Sticks require precise timing with regard to getting them out at peak crunchyness before the contents explode through the breading. I hope the consideration of Haley is not indicative of a bad health report (or admonition against long plane rides) for RG.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  24. Eva Moscowitz, who runs a big charter school organization in New York, and the woman in Washington DC who got fired are reportedly being considered for Secretary of Education. Both have tangled with the teacher’s union.

    Sammy Finkelman (db3b66)

  25. their interpretation of his comments about Megyn Kelly.

    Yeah, when Trump said “that c**t is on the rag” it was so mysterious what he meant.

    Kevin M (aeaadf)

  26. It would probably be best for Trump if we all looked to the future rather than kept bringing up his past mistakes as if they were brilliance.

    Kevin M (aeaadf)

  27. @26- Except he didn’t say that.

    But you did.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  28. @Kevin M:when Trump said

    Funny, I just looked up his quoted words and they are entirely different from what you said. There was a Republican presidential candidate who did use the c-word, and lots of others, in public but he was just using toward his wife, and he was not named Trump.

    Usually when you use quote marks you are quoting somebody. I see that instead you put your interpretation of his words in quotes as though he actually said that thing.

    Lileks had the best commentary on that:

    I’m interested in the sleight-of-hand the columnist pulled here. The guy he’s quoting didn’t use the word “jihad.” The columnist put the word in quotes to signal that the guy didn’t use that word, you see.

    Got it. Oh, I can imagine that conversation with the boss I’d have if I did this:

    So you wrote that he believed in a Christian jihad.

    (Coyly channeling Michael Palin in the dock as a professional Cardinal Richelieu impersonator) Ah did that thing.

    But he didn’t say that.

    Exactly? Well,he meant, it though.

    He meant it.

    Yes, and that’s why I put it in quotes.

    Quotes. Which are usually reserved for, you know, quotes.

    Right, but I used them here to set the word apart. You know, show that it was a paraphrase.

    By using the means we use to indicate direct transcriptions.

    Well, sometimes, sure. But I meant them more as, you know, those air quotes you do with your fingers?

    So in the future should we have a picture of you with your fingers in the air to indicate that the quote is not, actually, a quote?

    Look, the point is true. The guy wants a jihad; look at what he said –

    Why look at what he said, when we can just ask you to describe the general aroma?

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  29. Well sure, Buzzfeed is serious, unbiased journalism!

    LOL

    Patricia (5fc097)

  30. Click bait is sweet, sweet revenue. Might be able to give up your day job.

    Estarcarus (cd97e1)

  31. R.I.P. Melvin Laird

    Dead Dick Nixon’s Sec. of Defense who gave the world ‘Vietnamization.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  32. The other day I shared one of Glenn Reynolds’ columns on my facebook feed. It was the one about college students being “exiled” on campus.

    An old friend from days of yore, who takes his progressive politics seriously, piped up to tell me, as if it were a zoo specimen, with the oddest complain that the headline had nothing to do with the content of the article.
    Which it very much did did, actually, and it was easy enough to grab GR’s own brief statement of the premise of the piece, which matched the article, as he had shared it earlier that day himself with no contradiction of the headline.

    My friend would not say why he thought it didn’t fit. I’m not sure he read the article at all, and he might or might not have been surprised I was linking the article of someone I blog-know and read regularly instead of just picking out a headline that was “clicky” He implied GR was in the wrong for thinking the headline was fine and so was I and he would leave us to our “bubble” which made me laugh and laugh but didn’t quite get rid of the confusion.

    The headline fits the opinion column at USAToday fairly well, unless you are the sort who thinks exlusion is not exile and that exile means being transported to Australia or something.

    It was only later that day I realized this was the new hotness – (Hillary’s old hotness, the one I was most worried about) – sidling up to restrictions or regulations on speech by announcing social media “out of control” with “fake headlines”, etc, and/or targeting of ordinary news aggregators or alternative media organizations and declaring them “un-news” (when “off our message” is what the real problem is.) This morning our local WEATHERMAN alluded to the Great Concern of the day:

    “Facebook, Twitter, and all social media are now our primary sources of information. Problem is, none can be called gatekeepers of legitimate news. My fear, as someone in this business, is that this new model of how we receive and process information has blurred the line between fact & fiction. My even greater fear is; what does this portend for our standard-bearer news sources, major networks and newspapers? Can the Fourth Estate survive? A sobering question in midst of our new reality.”

    I’m just appalled, they really really really want to find a way to shut people up.

    SarahW (3164f0)

  33. yes yes they do

    the creepy ceo of google and zuckertwat are all up in the censorship now

    this past year pretty much everyone in the national soros radio type of hard-fascist media deleted their comment sections

    they want to turn the internet into a big faggy freedom-hating safe space

    but i won’t let them

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  34. Funny, I just looked up his quoted words and they are entirely different from what you said.

    Yes, sure. He really meant she cut herself. Right.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  35. The point being that you are refighting (#18) STUPID arguments that are best left buried.

    Half the GOP is trying to bury all that idiocy, and pretend all is well, yet some of Trump’s most ignorant supporters keep dredging this sh1t up like it was Shinola.

    Trump won. Good. Fine. I can accept that and find things to be happy about. But PLEASE don’t try to feed me the same sh1t sandwich again and again.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  36. There are bad losers. A few people here are obnoxiously bad winners.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  37. redstate, I’ve had reservations about because of the grapevine, re Malaysia and other issues, Erickson’s hypocrisy is well established, his stance at the resurgent, is to be charitable, less motivated by principle,

    as to hoft, it depends on the nature of his link, occasionally even rt comes to the right conclusion,
    conversely, the amount of omission and or outright lies on the part of the dailies, Bezos, carlos slims, et al, are myriad,

    narciso (d1f714)

  38. [CORRECTION: Drudge is not listed; a Drudge knock-off is. Coffee BEFORE blogging, Patterico!]

    Patterico (115b1f)

  39. “Trump told the press pool following him that he was done for the night and so they could go home.

    Then he — get this! — went out with his family to get dinner at the 21 Club.

    The media has pronounced this to be a crisis of democracy.

    It should be noted they previously enjoyed Obama slipping away from the press, treating it as some charmingly roguish behavior from a man who just wanted to finish his waffle.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  40. (Retweeted by me last night.)

    Patterico (115b1f)

  41. Mr. ace is a light in the darkness

    Yeah. Anyway he seemed like one when he said this:

    A useful test of a politician is the repulsiveness of the lies you have to tell on his behalf to support him.

    Personally, I’m out. I will never defend this guy nor vote for him. I’ll actually vote for Hillary Clinton, if I vote at all.

    Trump has exactly two business successes: Being successfully born to his mother, and successfully outliving his father.

    He flaunts these major accomplishments to cover up the fact that he’s stupid, lazy, uneducated, at least half-crazy, and ugly.

    Pretty sure he said he would vote for Hillary if Rubio were the nominee too.

    I wouldn’t bother to point it out, but for how self-righteous and even nasty he got in denouncing Trump’s critics.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  42. when the going gets weird,…even the alguardian has occasional insights

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/15/feminists-election-misunderstood-women-voters

    narciso (d1f714)

  43. well the ewok was once stalking rubio’s garbage, so he’s a little fickle,

    narciso (d1f714)

  44. they had a brief bout of selfawareness, then the brainslugs settled in again,

    https://twitter.com/SethAMandel/status/799045351198101504

    narciso (d1f714)

  45. yes, you need to be credentialed,

    https://twitter.com/AceofSpadesHQ/status/798966684421754880

    narciso (d1f714)

  46. i said very mean things about Mr. Trump too at first

    but you know what?

    i’m so excited not to be living under food stamp or the pig and who did that for me?

    that’s right Mr. Trump

    i owe him big

    the future’s less bleak now

    and it’s so fun watching the fascists dork out

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  47. and it’s so fun watching the fascists dork out

    I am enjoying that. Here I hated, and still hate, Trump. Yet the stuff they say about him is so over the top, it cracks me up.

    Their big thing about him seems to be that he is RACIST which I don’t remember ever saying about him, as much as I hate him, and don’t really believe. It wouldn’t shock me if he is a racist, and he certainly went out of his way to court racists (refusing to denounce Duke when asked on a national TV show, lying about why) (bringing up Judge Curiel’s heritage) (etc.) but where is the proof that he himself is a racist? I don’t see it.

    I even see people yammering about how he is against LGBTQJWSDW but where is the evidence of that? He seems pretty pro-gay to me.

    So yeah, all the freak-outs are cracking me up some.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  48. i would blame tv but that’s naive anymore

    the pig-sniffers what are *really* losing it are the momos what watch a lot of tv while they’re stoned

    they’re really in a bad way

    and it’s hilarious

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  49. Actually he tried ignoring duke, the Caucasian shsrptin, who even the mullahs feel tired of hosting him,

    narciso (d1f714)

  50. *love* anchovies

    Me too. But I hate olives.

    Milhouse (40ca7b)

  51. i wonder where that comes from

    i know some people hate cilantro cause they have fundamentally kooky taste buds where they genuinely process it differently

    i love olives in my brazilian tater salad (this recipe uses way more mayonnaise than i do)

    also they are good for martinis

    also for pasta salad

    the greeks go a bit overboard with them I hope nobody minds me saying so

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  52. SarahW (3164f0) — 11/16/2016 @ 4:47 pm

    I’m just appalled, they really really really want to find a way to shut people up.

    They must have been planning this before Hillary Clinton lost the election. Now it’ll be a little bit harder to do, plausibly.

    All this about fake news is fake. I’m sure they have ideas in mind that are not in fact,fake, or not entirely fake, or might turn out to be true.

    Sammy Finkelman (3997eb)

  53. i wonder where that comes from

    I don’t know, I just do. I also hate herring, which I know casts some doubt on my Jewish lineage.

    Milhouse (40ca7b)

  54. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?_r=0

    Somebody spent a lot of moneuy and a lot of time on this:

    When Mr. Alefantis discovered that his employees were getting similar abusive messages, he looked online to unravel the accusations. He found dozens of made-up articles about Mrs. Clinton kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurant’s back rooms. The articles appeared on Facebook and on websites such as The New Nationalist and The Vigilant Citizen, with one headline blaring: “Pizzagate: How 4Chan Uncovered the Sick World of Washington’s Occult Elite.”

    Vladimir Putin comes to mind.

    Sammy Finkelman (643dcd)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0920 secs.