This post is about Jordan Liles and his valuable reporting on the powerful influence that “Click bait Factories” have on the people’s political bias.
At first glance social media is an efficient platform for communication between parties that were otherwise difficult to do. Marketing devices like hashtags that allow automated feedback immediately, benefit companies by streamlining products with high accuracy to key demographics. Automated algorithms that install cookies on user computers create personalized website experiences. The detriment here is the power that is possible with constant invasive data collection. The means of data collection for advertisements can also be used in politics. That is in the technique of politics which exploits entire audiences of a specific website or page by using targeted data and creating fake news or “Click Bait” to manipulate an entire audience through their confirmation bias. Confirmation bias by definition means “the direct influence of desire or beliefs. When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views (prejudices) one would like to be true. ( Heshmat, 2015) ”
Jordan Liles is an independent filmmaker who is responsible for creating the videos above. His series ” The Rise of Political Click bait” expose the shameless manipulation of pages and websites ,of both right and left wing political leaning, of lying and manipulating headlines to exploit confirmation bias. In his video he gives a great example about a tragic incident at an IKEA in Sweden.
The official story was about a crazed man with no religious motivations hurt two people inside the store. A political websites called Chicks on The Right, changed the story to include hate filled messages towards Muslims by lying about who the attacker was.”
These political click bait websites know that they can phrase this a specific way so that people will think one thing despite not necessarily saying it. ( Liles 2015 ) “
Liles targets Facebook as the worst perpetrator in the manipulation of huge audiences and he is not wrong. What causes the most damage is the lies that these websites report. ” Now of course, the goal with ads is to make money. There is nothing wrong with money, unless you’re making it by lying to people”. However, Facebook offers a defined audience of a certain amount of people in each category and a group of leftist pages can easily be constructed and shared intravenously. ” These Websites and Facebook pages are lying to millions of people per day ( Liles, you tube). It is true that a lack of research on the behalf of the reader is part of the issue here. But there is no excuse, especially when reporting to thousands of people who vote, with bias confirming lies.
With so much extreme political sway online and extremist views being pedaled by websites who lie to get paid. Jordan Lile’s work is refreshing. It is a breath of fresh air in a climate of lies and sponsored content. Thank you Jordan Liles for your work in sharing the truth.
Heshmat, Shahram. “What Is Confirmation Bias?” Psychology Today. Healthprofs.com, 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.
Liles, Jordan. YouTube. YouTube, http://bit.ly/2loOBgl 17 Aug. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.
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