You know those too-stupid-to-be-true news flashes that people keep - TopicsExpress



          

You know those too-stupid-to-be-true news flashes that people keep posting on Facebook actually believing that theyre real? Heres an explanation of where they come from. As usual, its a case of follow-the-money. When the clueless lead the clueless to click on these things, they are generating ad revenue for the satire websites that originally posted them. Full article at the link. Heres the money quote: While it takes a particularly keen immunity to irony to fall for an Onion article these days, The Daily Currant is a fake-news site of a different stripe: one entirely devoid of jokes. Whether this humorlessness is intentional or not—the sites founder contends his critics dont have a sense of subtlety—the sites business model as an ad-driven clickbait-generator relies on it. When Currant stories go viral, its not because their satire contains essential truths, but rather because their satire is taken as truth—and usually that truth is engineered to outrage a particular frequency of the political spectrum. newrepublic/article/118013/satire-news-websites-are-cashing-gullible-outraged-readers
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 01:12:05 +0000

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