I was reading a post at Mashable about the story about the 13 year-old who bought a hooker with his dad’s credit card. For those that don’t know, that was a fake story drummed up by an expert Internet marketer to gain backlinks for his client1. This technique is called “linkbait”. Unfortunately, it worked so well that other mainstream media outlets picked it up and ran with it. The story is completely made up, but who cared enough to check the facts? Shoot, if it’s money.co.uk the it must be real. Right? Ha!
As I was reading the article, the author brought up the Christopher Walken for President Campaign and that is what was notable to me. The post author mentions that he debunked the “myth” of Walken for President after CBS had picked it up. I thought that was hilarious and would love to see the post containing the debunking, really. I want to know when CBS ran with this story. And, alas, I’m too damned lazy to look it up. So, how have I contributed to fake news?
Back in the day, when I was writing a blog called “Gray Does Matter”2, George Clooney supposedly wrote a piece for Huffington Post3. The post Clooney “wrote” had his name and byline attached, so it was assumed he was really saying what they said he was saying. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. What happened was that the editors at Huffington Post gathered together a bunch of Clooney quotes from other sources and pieced them together to make them look like a real blog post. Then they attached his name and picture to it. When Clooney got pissed and demanded that it be taken down and an apology be issued Arianna said:
I now realize that I made a big mistake in posting a blog without clearly identifying that the material in it didnât originate as a blog post but was pieced together from previous interviews.
[...]Iâm sorry I didnât see this earlier. But I see it now and here is what Iâm going to do about it:
1. Going forward, any time the HuffPost uses repurposed material we will identify it as such and source where it originally appeared and link to it. (Thank you Jeff Jarvis)
Ha!
At any rate, some of my old blog buds and I had a marvelous idea. We were going to campaign for Christopher Walken in 2008. Of course, we knew that the Walken campaign was bullshit. Afterall, we don’t work for the MSM and therefore have a few more brain cells4. And we were irritated with HuffPost for the bullshit they pulled. Ok, more than just “irritated” in my case, but I digress.
We each compiled quotes from famous people, “repurposed” them to our benefit and posted them as guest posts by the various famous folk. Mine was a post “by” Sandra Bullock. It was really fun at the time, but we had no idea our shenanigans would cause so much havoc.
I now realize that I have contributed in an unprecedented way to the epidemic of fake news and encouraging the “low-info” people to believe the hype. I am duly ashamed and wish to apologize to anyone who took my post as real. I understand that I’ve caused hurt to my party by endorsing a non-candidate and have probably hurt Sandra Bullock at the box office. My bad.
I would also like to take this time to curse the genitals of all Internet marketers who would do anything to get links. I humbly ask the Goddess to set their penises (or va-jay-jays as the case may be) a flame with a multitude host of crawling critters and festering, pus-filled boils. I ask that those that would pull this shit be forever barren in their loins and that their penises (or va-jay-jays as the case may be) be forever flaccid and without benefit of visitors other than those that must be inflated and/or worn on their own hands. I call upon the Goddess of URIs to infect those that would do anything to get hits and inflame their urinary tracks with a horrible, burning and/or stinging sensation. I ask, also, that medium-sized kidney stones be passed by them on a semi-regular basis.
How I Contributed to the Fake News Epidemic
I was reading a post at Mashable about the story about the 13 year-old who bought a hooker with his dad’s credit card. For those that don’t know, that was a fake story drummed up by an expert Internet marketer to gain backlinks for his client1. This technique is called “linkbait”. Unfortunately, it worked so well that other mainstream media outlets picked it up and ran with it. The story is completely made up, but who cared enough to check the facts? Shoot, if it’s money.co.uk the it must be real. Right? Ha!
As I was reading the article, the author brought up the Christopher Walken for President Campaign and that is what was notable to me. The post author mentions that he debunked the “myth” of Walken for President after CBS had picked it up. I thought that was hilarious and would love to see the post containing the debunking, really. I want to know when CBS ran with this story. And, alas, I’m too damned lazy to look it up. So, how have I contributed to fake news?
Back in the day, when I was writing a blog called “Gray Does Matter”2, George Clooney supposedly wrote a piece for Huffington Post3. The post Clooney “wrote” had his name and byline attached, so it was assumed he was really saying what they said he was saying. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. What happened was that the editors at Huffington Post gathered together a bunch of Clooney quotes from other sources and pieced them together to make them look like a real blog post. Then they attached his name and picture to it. When Clooney got pissed and demanded that it be taken down and an apology be issued Arianna said:
Ha!
At any rate, some of my old blog buds and I had a marvelous idea. We were going to campaign for Christopher Walken in 2008. Of course, we knew that the Walken campaign was bullshit. Afterall, we don’t work for the MSM and therefore have a few more brain cells4. And we were irritated with HuffPost for the bullshit they pulled. Ok, more than just “irritated” in my case, but I digress.
We each compiled quotes from famous people, “repurposed” them to our benefit and posted them as guest posts by the various famous folk. Mine was a post “by” Sandra Bullock. It was really fun at the time, but we had no idea our shenanigans would cause so much havoc.
I now realize that I have contributed in an unprecedented way to the epidemic of fake news and encouraging the “low-info” people to believe the hype. I am duly ashamed and wish to apologize to anyone who took my post as real. I understand that I’ve caused hurt to my party by endorsing a non-candidate and have probably hurt Sandra Bullock at the box office. My bad.
I would also like to take this time to curse the genitals of all Internet marketers who would do anything to get links. I humbly ask the Goddess to set their penises (or va-jay-jays as the case may be) a flame with a multitude host of crawling critters and festering, pus-filled boils. I ask that those that would pull this shit be forever barren in their loins and that their penises (or va-jay-jays as the case may be) be forever flaccid and without benefit of visitors other than those that must be inflated and/or worn on their own hands. I call upon the Goddess of URIs to infect those that would do anything to get hits and inflame their urinary tracks with a horrible, burning and/or stinging sensation. I ask, also, that medium-sized kidney stones be passed by them on a semi-regular basis.
A-men.
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