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“News” outlets like CNN, the New York Times, and MSNBC have made a point in the last week of more closely monitoring the links posted on social media platforms from conservative websites under the guise of trying to prevent the post-election “spread of disinformation.” But influential NYT tech reporter Kevin Roose accidentally gave up the game in Monday in tweets detailing the content he had allegedly observed from three popular conservative websites (four stories total).
To recap that story before we get to the update on it: The problem with Roose’s investigation is that the reports he referenced – which came from Breitbart, Bongino.com, and the Daily Wire – were not the “misinformation” he originally claimed them to be and they weren’t untrue, as even he noted in a later tweet. In fact, two of the stories Roose mentioned were actually based off of reports from his own paper.
It was clear, however, from the thread that Roose was fishing for new ways for social media platforms to censor conservative content.
Roose confirmed that in a follow-up thread he posted Tuesday in response to the outrage his original tweets generated. It is in this series of tweets that his true motives were revealed in all their steaming hot pile of glory.
He posted seven tweets total, the translations of which I will note below each one:
For the conservatives who are mad about this: yes, it is possible for a story to be factually accurate *and* for it to be part of a misinformation campaign aimed at undermining confidence in an election. https://t.co/Ag4brfJzO4
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 10, 2020
Translation: Factual information that doesn’t feed into Kevin’s anti-Trump narratives should fall under the category of “misinformation” and be labeled as such by Twitter and Facebook, according to Kevin’s 10 Commandments of Reporting rulebook (available now for free in Wheaties boxes across America*).
Take Breitbart, for example. All week, they have been getting huge engagement with stories about election-related “glitches,” and Republicans protesting the results. In some cases, they’re just repeating what a politician said. pic.twitter.com/it0jF0fE3f
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 10, 2020
Translation: “In some cases, they’re just repeating what a politician said,” Kevin whined. In other words, in some instances, they filed the type of newsy “here’s what so and so politician said” reports frequently found on the pages of “respectable” papers like Kevin’s, the WaPo, and others. Next?
Most of these stories aren’t “false,” per se. Many have been reported elsewhere. But if you look at how they’re framing and serving them up (“BAM,” “REVEALED,” “JUST IN”) and what facts they aren’t including, it’s obvious they know what they’re doing.
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 10, 2020
Translation: “These conservative websites have figured out what my colleagues in the media do (examples: “BOMBSHELL!” and “WALLS ARE CLOSING IN!”), but are doing it in a way that presents a more complete picture than the typically distorted picture we present to our readers and viewers.”
The people who run these pages know that they can’t claim outright that the election was stolen, because Facebook’s fact-checkers might ding them. So they do the just-asking-questions thing, and use “discussion threads” and cherrypicked headlines to accomplish the same thing. pic.twitter.com/Ut3QXOAat6
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 10, 2020
Translation: Kevin doesn’t like that conservative websites have fine-tuned a classic mainstream media tactic of reporting a story they believe to be true by framing it in question form. For example, many media outlets believe President Trump is mentally unfit to serve, but they sometimes take the “questions-that-lead-to-discussions” approach by starting out with a headline or teaser that goes something like “Does the president have mental problems?” or “Did the president commit an impeachable offense? Our experts weigh in next.”
There’s a big audience for these stories. Big conservative influencers (in the case of these two Breitbart stories, Trump himself) post them to their pages, generating tens of thousands of engagements and a huge swell in traffic. pic.twitter.com/oXAPUBph5K
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 10, 2020
Translation: “GASP! They’re even better at some aspects of reporting than we are!”
The people at Breitbart might not personally believe that the election was stolen. But they’re egging on the president, and feeding a hyperpartisan ecosystem that is telling millions of people that it was stolen, because it’s good for engagement.
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 10, 2020
Translation: “Conservative websites are pretty much doing what we’re doing, except we’re coddling Biden, and feeding a hyperpartisan ecosystem on the left in telling millions of people the election is over because it’s good for engagement.”
We need a better word than “misinformation” to distinguish between totally false stories and true stories that are published in service of an attempt to mislead people. But nobody who studies this stuff is confused by what’s happening.
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 10, 2020
We already have “better words” for this, Kevin. They’re spelled CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc. Happy to help.
The shorter version of all I just wrote above can be found in this one tweet:
New York Times when leftists lie: “Fake but accurate”
The New York Tims when Conservatives tell the truth: “factually accurate misinformation.” pic.twitter.com/VyZ1XuMSQ1
— Wokal DistΔnce (@wokal_distance) November 11, 2020
Perfect.
*No such book exists, in case any media hall monitors are reading this.
Related –>> CNN ‘Reporter’ Tries White Knighting for Democrats Over 2020 Election Dispute, It Doesn’t Go Well
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