The Supreme Linkbait

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 14.472% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

Want to make a page that gets thousands of hits from enraged liberals?
Step 1: Find a recent event where a minority has done something notable.
Step 2: Search Twitter to find, among literally millions of Tweets, the lowest idiots on the planet.  They exist.  They will always exist.
Step 3:  Haul up those Tweets as evidence that “a lot” of people feel this way.
Step 4: Profit.
Next up: Use the same technique to prove that “a lot” of dumb liberals believe stupid shit published in The Daily Currant!  As long as you keep your numbers vague and trawl for the worst behavior in humanity, you will always, always find it.  And then people can believe that this is a serious world view as opposed to a handful of morons.
(Which is not to say that a case could not be made that “a lot” of people are racist about the new Miss America.  Finding fifteen random Tweets does not make that case.  And believing that fifteen Tweets on any topic proves a silent majority just shows a bias in your own thinking – a bias other sites are perfectly happy to exploit for outrage and clickbait.)

Posted by on Sep 16, 2013 in Current Ramblings | 1 comment

1 Comment

  1. DF
    Sep 17, 2013

    Thanks for some sensibility. Linking tweets of random people, in this case, is not valuable journalism.
    Now, if someone wrote a big essay describing why this indicated the “end of America” or some such, it that would be a great article to unpack and criticize in detail.
    Otherwise you’re just perpetuating a circle of rage.
    I mean, most of these accounts are random, with low details, and often have been taken down by the time you read the article and look for the person that posted them. *puts on tinfoil hat*

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