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> I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. Your point also applies to news -- articles these days miss the point by design. You get more

by dvt 6y ago

> I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. Your point also applies to news -- articles these days miss the point by design. You get more clicks by being provocative and hyperbolic. And yellow journalism isn't really new, but its comeback has been triumphant.

AlexandrB 6y ago
That's hardly surprising. Both social media and regular media are now part of the same competition to get more clicks. The whole model of online ad-driven content is rotten and creates the worst incentives.
- analyte123 6y ago
  It's not so simple: social media is how regular media get most of their clicks. Not that I'm a huge fan of social media companies, but the constant push by regular media companies for social media companies to promote "authoritative sources" (i.e. regular media) and the accompanying hit pieces make a lot more sense in this context. To me, these articles are being honest in their criticism when they call for less social media in general, not just more control of the existing social media. This is one of the latter.
wott 6y ago
Along the last few weeks, Bing's news feed, the one that appears directly on the main page of bing.com, turned into a tabloid cesspool (at least in its French version). Gradually but very quickly, it turned from something reasonable, rather faithful to the range of important events (there could be one 'people' entry here and there, but why not, after all, as long as it remains very minor) into pure clickbait. The titles are clickbait ('incredible', 'exceptional', etc.) and the content behind is crap. It is possible that they put first, the ones that already get more clicks. If I translate the first entries titles right now: * Amazing confidences -> an actress * Big controversy -> a female singer * Corruption suspicion -> OK, a politician * Accused of lying -> an actor's wife * a few trivialities and filler items * Finally calm -> a dead singer's wife * Turkish activities -> OK, international news * from the previous item on, it is only now that you have a regular mix of normally interesting/important news items. You had to click once or twice on the Next arrow to get there, everything or almost everything on what I'd call the front page was clickbait crap. So, that's a feed, but the content comes from actual newspapers, and if I go to my local newspaper, half of the top content is also oftennational/international 'people' crap.

by dvt 6y ago

AlexandrB 6y ago

That's hardly surprising. Both social media and regular media are now part of the same competition to get more clicks. The whole model of online ad-driven content is rotten and creates the worst incentives.

analyte123 6y ago
It's not so simple: social media is how regular media get most of their clicks. Not that I'm a huge fan of social media companies, but the constant push by regular media companies for social media companies to promote "authoritative sources" (i.e. regular media) and the accompanying hit pieces make a lot more sense in this context. To me, these articles are being honest in their criticism when they call for less social media in general, not just more control of the existing social media. This is one of the latter.

wott 6y ago

Along the last few weeks, Bing's news feed, the one that appears directly on the main page of bing.com, turned into a tabloid cesspool (at least in its French version). Gradually but very quickly, it turned from something reasonable, rather faithful to the range of important events (there could be one 'people' entry here and there, but why not, after all, as long as it remains very minor) into pure clickbait. The titles are clickbait ('incredible', 'exceptional', etc.) and the content behind is crap. It is possible that they put first, the ones that already get more clicks. If I translate the first entries titles right now: * Amazing confidences -> an actress * Big controversy -> a female singer * Corruption suspicion -> OK, a politician * Accused of lying -> an actor's wife * a few trivialities and filler items * Finally calm -> a dead singer's wife * Turkish activities -> OK, international news * from the previous item on, it is only now that you have a regular mix of normally interesting/important news items. You had to click once or twice on the Next arrow to get there, everything or almost everything on what I'd call the front page was clickbait crap. So, that's a feed, but the content comes from actual newspapers, and if I go to my local newspaper, half of the top content is also oftennational/international 'people' crap.