5 ms·

How to Destroy the Business Model of Breitbart and Fake News

9 points by rgejman 10y ago

rgejman 10y ago
Crowdsourcing a "hitting them where it hurts" approach to fake news seems like an interesting and promising strategy to eliminate the income streams of websites that promote hatred. I am trying to think of the downsides, i.e. how will this come to bite us in the butt...
- amorphid 10y ago
  A version of that idea was the winning project from the Reboot Democracy hackathon last month in San Francisco. They called it AdStrike. https://twitter.com/rebootdem/status/808456933795475456 https://twitter.com/rebootdem/status/808456933795475456 http://adstrike.us/ http://adstrike.us/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - rgejman 10y ago
    Very neat. Thanks for the link.
- candiodari 10y ago
  Trump got elected. Imagine if the US government threatened to refuse to work with anyone who's got "inaccurate" news, according to the republican definition of the word. More generally, the definition of acceptable opinion will shift to something you will find unacceptable, and this system will still be in place. Note: before you say that'd be illegal, I'd like to remind you that the republicans control Congress, the Senate and the presidency, and soon the Supreme Court and the Fed. Illegal actions for the republicans is effectively only things that violate the constitution, and only when so judged by republican judges.
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    This is my greatest hope for the next four years - that Trump's blatant exercise of state power against his political adversaries (where his predecessors have wielded it quietly for the same purpose) will drive Congress and the judiciary to curtail the power of the Presidency back to something resembling Constitutional limits.
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  > I am trying to think of the downsides, i.e. how will this come to bite us in the butt... The right has discovered social media. If you start brigading right-wing sites by going after their advertisers, they're going to start doing the same thing to you. What's more, as the recent election showed, the right's brigading ability is far greater than the left's at the moment. What do you think would happen if Milo Yiannopoulos were to post the contact information for advertiser at Vox.com and the Huffington Post and tell his followers to demand that they pull their ads? I'd be willing to bet a good deal of money that it would be more impactful than an opinion piece in the NY Times.
  - rgejman 10y ago
    I'm not sure this is true. Big companies tend to have more liberal politics because (a) it helps them retain talent (e.g. LGBT employees) and (b) liberal politics tends to be less offensive to population sub-groups. Do you really think advertisers would pull their funding from Vox or HuffPo absent very offensive headlines like the ones on Breitbart?
    - LyndsySimon 10y ago
      > Big companies tend to have more liberal politics because (a) it helps them retain talent (e.g. LGBT employees) and (b) liberal politics tends to be less offensive to population sub-groups. I'm not even a conservative, and my choice of employers is drastically limited by politics. I won't work in California, New York, Maryland, Illinois, or several other states because of their gun laws. I know I'm not alone in that. The talent pool for companies with liberal politics is artificially limited by the liberal states where they are located. There is an echo chamber effect at play that the left seems to be completely blind to. Likewise, I see no evidence that liberal politics are less offensive to population sub-groups across the country. In major cities, sure, but that's only around half of the country's population. I also suspect that you're conflating inclusivity with liberalism. Yes, LGBT issues have been a liberal cause, but the resistance to that is waning very quickly. To most people outside of the major cities, "liberalism" means "higher taxes", "anti-business", "welfare", "pro-union", and "anti-gun". Each of those alienates a substantial part of the country. > Do you really think advertisers would pull their funding from Vox or HuffPo absent very offensive headlines like the ones on Breitbart? You may not find HuffPo or Vox offensive, but the right absolutely does. Consider things like this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fox-news-eye-for-an-eye_us_56a9790fe4b0016489225a54 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fox-news-ey... > Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S. In short, there is a culture war in full swing in the US. The left has been winning that war for a long time, but they're not recognizing the rise of real resistance to their agenda. That's in large part because it doesn't look like what we're used to seeing as a movement.
sheraz 10y ago
Here is another narrative: Attack the business models of companies who produce content we find offensive, politically incorrect, or don't align with our world view -- yet are still protected under the first amendment. The problem is that Mr Phillips mentioned in the article must lack a sense of humor and/or information literacy if he thought he was reading hate speech. He was reading an opinion / sarcasm piece from Milo, Breitbart's in-house provocateur. It is such a tiresome narrative that the liberal media outlets continue to trot out their own versions of fake news when they attempt to label breitbart sexist, racist, homophobic, or antisemitic. It is sites like the nytimes who, through their reporting, have completely defanged the labels of "racist" and "hate speech" to the point that they mean nothing. Calling women fat and unattractive for their use of birth control is not hate speech. It might be in poor taste, but it is not hate speech. Mr Phillips, the professor quoted in the article, would do well to leave his ivory tower and actually talk to someone from another walk of life. Leave the coddled campus life, head to a bowling alley, and listen to the Thursday league banter. Maybe then, in the cloud of rough and jockular language Mr Phillips and his ilk will see a small piece of the substrate of Americans who tell dirty jokes. Who make fun of their spouses. Who call each other names (often politically incorrect) and do so as members of a tribe. They read breitbart and Drudge Report because those sites offer an alternative narrative to what comes from regular mass media. Just because it is a different point of view does not make it fake or hateful or undeserving of ad dollars. How does this end? My guess is it won't matter in the end. Thankfully. Breitbarts traffic shows no signs of slowing. That inventory vacated by the brands too weak to ignore these internet-crybullies will be snapped up by the brands who want to reach a conservative readership.
- rgejman 10y ago
  >Attack the business models of companies who produce content we find offensive, politically incorrect, or don't align with our world view -- yet are still protected under the first amendment. >Just because it is a different point of view does not make it fake or hateful or undeserving of ad dollars. Without quibbling over whether some of their content is hateful (I think it is; you disagree), what's wrong with letting the free market de-value ads run on their network? What's wrong with attacking their business model? Companies don't have to run ads next to headlines like "Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?" That's the free market at work.
Neliquat 10y ago
Pretty ballsy coming from nytimes. If this election taught me anything, they are not much better than breitbart.
Turing_Machine 10y ago
Complaining about "fake news" while citing "BuzzFeed News" as a source? Mote. Beam.
- yifanlu 10y ago
  BuzzFeed News has actually become a pretty reputable organization in the past couple of years. They have quality journalists working there (according to journalist friends). I was also surprised when I heard about this since I associate them with listicles, but appearently that's how they fund things...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
DougN7 10y ago
I think articles like this are what helped Trump get elected. People are tired of being told what to think. They're tired of SJWs. They're tired of the pitchforks and public shaming. Nobody changes by bring attacked.
- gotofritz 10y ago
  Well, doing nothing and hoping the whole thing goes away also doesn't seem to get us anywhere.
trav4225 10y ago
We need more "real news" like all the mainstream reports about how the Russians just penetrated our power grid. ;-)
relics443 10y ago
So I only see right-wing fake news sites called out by Mr Phillips. Is he not worried about the damage that left-wing fake news causes?
- gotofritz 10y ago
  Given the rise Trump, Brexit, AfD in Germany, M5S in Italy, and all the rest, it seems obvious the problem at the moment is mainly right-wing fake news sites.
hclivess 10y ago
how to destroy CNN, NYT and WP?

9 points by rgejman 10y ago

Crowdsourcing a "hitting them where it hurts" approach to fake news seems like an interesting and promising strategy to eliminate the income streams of websites that promote hatred. I am trying to think of the downsides, i.e. how will this come to bite us in the butt...

amorphid 10y ago
A version of that idea was the winning project from the Reboot Democracy hackathon last month in San Francisco. They called it AdStrike. https://twitter.com/rebootdem/status/808456933795475456 https://twitter.com/rebootdem/status/808456933795475456 http://adstrike.us/ http://adstrike.us/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rgejman 10y ago
  Very neat. Thanks for the link.
candiodari 10y ago
Trump got elected. Imagine if the US government threatened to refuse to work with anyone who's got "inaccurate" news, according to the republican definition of the word. More generally, the definition of acceptable opinion will shift to something you will find unacceptable, and this system will still be in place. Note: before you say that'd be illegal, I'd like to remind you that the republicans control Congress, the Senate and the presidency, and soon the Supreme Court and the Fed. Illegal actions for the republicans is effectively only things that violate the constitution, and only when so judged by republican judges.
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  This is my greatest hope for the next four years - that Trump's blatant exercise of state power against his political adversaries (where his predecessors have wielded it quietly for the same purpose) will drive Congress and the judiciary to curtail the power of the Presidency back to something resembling Constitutional limits.
LyndsySimon 10y ago
> I am trying to think of the downsides, i.e. how will this come to bite us in the butt... The right has discovered social media. If you start brigading right-wing sites by going after their advertisers, they're going to start doing the same thing to you. What's more, as the recent election showed, the right's brigading ability is far greater than the left's at the moment. What do you think would happen if Milo Yiannopoulos were to post the contact information for advertiser at Vox.com and the Huffington Post and tell his followers to demand that they pull their ads? I'd be willing to bet a good deal of money that it would be more impactful than an opinion piece in the NY Times.
- rgejman 10y ago
  I'm not sure this is true. Big companies tend to have more liberal politics because (a) it helps them retain talent (e.g. LGBT employees) and (b) liberal politics tends to be less offensive to population sub-groups. Do you really think advertisers would pull their funding from Vox or HuffPo absent very offensive headlines like the ones on Breitbart?
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    > Big companies tend to have more liberal politics because (a) it helps them retain talent (e.g. LGBT employees) and (b) liberal politics tends to be less offensive to population sub-groups. I'm not even a conservative, and my choice of employers is drastically limited by politics. I won't work in California, New York, Maryland, Illinois, or several other states because of their gun laws. I know I'm not alone in that. The talent pool for companies with liberal politics is artificially limited by the liberal states where they are located. There is an echo chamber effect at play that the left seems to be completely blind to. Likewise, I see no evidence that liberal politics are less offensive to population sub-groups across the country. In major cities, sure, but that's only around half of the country's population. I also suspect that you're conflating inclusivity with liberalism. Yes, LGBT issues have been a liberal cause, but the resistance to that is waning very quickly. To most people outside of the major cities, "liberalism" means "higher taxes", "anti-business", "welfare", "pro-union", and "anti-gun". Each of those alienates a substantial part of the country. > Do you really think advertisers would pull their funding from Vox or HuffPo absent very offensive headlines like the ones on Breitbart? You may not find HuffPo or Vox offensive, but the right absolutely does. Consider things like this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fox-news-eye-for-an-eye_us_56a9790fe4b0016489225a54 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fox-news-ey... > Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S. In short, there is a culture war in full swing in the US. The left has been winning that war for a long time, but they're not recognizing the rise of real resistance to their agenda. That's in large part because it doesn't look like what we're used to seeing as a movement.

sheraz 10y ago

Here is another narrative: Attack the business models of companies who produce content we find offensive, politically incorrect, or don't align with our world view -- yet are still protected under the first amendment. The problem is that Mr Phillips mentioned in the article must lack a sense of humor and/or information literacy if he thought he was reading hate speech. He was reading an opinion / sarcasm piece from Milo, Breitbart's in-house provocateur. It is such a tiresome narrative that the liberal media outlets continue to trot out their own versions of fake news when they attempt to label breitbart sexist, racist, homophobic, or antisemitic. It is sites like the nytimes who, through their reporting, have completely defanged the labels of "racist" and "hate speech" to the point that they mean nothing. Calling women fat and unattractive for their use of birth control is not hate speech. It might be in poor taste, but it is not hate speech. Mr Phillips, the professor quoted in the article, would do well to leave his ivory tower and actually talk to someone from another walk of life. Leave the coddled campus life, head to a bowling alley, and listen to the Thursday league banter. Maybe then, in the cloud of rough and jockular language Mr Phillips and his ilk will see a small piece of the substrate of Americans who tell dirty jokes. Who make fun of their spouses. Who call each other names (often politically incorrect) and do so as members of a tribe. They read breitbart and Drudge Report because those sites offer an alternative narrative to what comes from regular mass media. Just because it is a different point of view does not make it fake or hateful or undeserving of ad dollars. How does this end? My guess is it won't matter in the end. Thankfully. Breitbarts traffic shows no signs of slowing. That inventory vacated by the brands too weak to ignore these internet-crybullies will be snapped up by the brands who want to reach a conservative readership.

rgejman 10y ago
>Attack the business models of companies who produce content we find offensive, politically incorrect, or don't align with our world view -- yet are still protected under the first amendment. >Just because it is a different point of view does not make it fake or hateful or undeserving of ad dollars. Without quibbling over whether some of their content is hateful (I think it is; you disagree), what's wrong with letting the free market de-value ads run on their network? What's wrong with attacking their business model? Companies don't have to run ads next to headlines like "Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?" That's the free market at work.

Neliquat 10y ago

Pretty ballsy coming from nytimes. If this election taught me anything, they are not much better than breitbart.

Turing_Machine 10y ago

Complaining about "fake news" while citing "BuzzFeed News" as a source? Mote. Beam.

yifanlu 10y ago
BuzzFeed News has actually become a pretty reputable organization in the past couple of years. They have quality journalists working there (according to journalist friends). I was also surprised when I heard about this since I associate them with listicles, but appearently that's how they fund things...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

DougN7 10y ago

I think articles like this are what helped Trump get elected. People are tired of being told what to think. They're tired of SJWs. They're tired of the pitchforks and public shaming. Nobody changes by bring attacked.

gotofritz 10y ago
Well, doing nothing and hoping the whole thing goes away also doesn't seem to get us anywhere.

trav4225 10y ago

We need more "real news" like all the mainstream reports about how the Russians just penetrated our power grid. ;-)

relics443 10y ago

So I only see right-wing fake news sites called out by Mr Phillips. Is he not worried about the damage that left-wing fake news causes?

gotofritz 10y ago
Given the rise Trump, Brexit, AfD in Germany, M5S in Italy, and all the rest, it seems obvious the problem at the moment is mainly right-wing fake news sites.

hclivess 10y ago

how to destroy CNN, NYT and WP?