internet

There are 38 posts filed in internet (this is page 5 of 5).

A look inside the Fake News business

Scott Shane profiles Cameron Harris for The New York Times:

In a raucous election year defined by made-up stories, Mr. Harris was a home-grown, self-taught practitioner, a boutique operator with no ties to Russian spy agencies or Macedonian fabrication factories. As Mr. Trump takes office this week, the beneficiary of at least a modest electoral boost from a flood of fakery, Mr. Harris and his ersatz-news website, ChristianTimesNewspaper.com, make for an illuminating tale.

Harris rode the wave of fake news’ popularity on social media to significant revenue, creating a website that was at one point valued at over $100K. Unlike Jestin Coler, another well-profiled fake newser who helped propagate many anti-Hillary Clinton stories, Harris is actually a Trump supporter.

In 2016, fake election news had a significant presence on social media, generating significantly more engagement than news from mainstream outlets.

While misleading websites exist on both the right and left, analyses have shown that those on the right can be misleading at a higher rate. 

The “Liberal Tears” mug is a scam

Tolulope Edionwe, writing for The Outline: 

The mug links were everywhere. People tweeted pictures of the mug, screencaps of their receipts, and links to the page to buy the mug. Its omnipresence started to feel weird. It seemed like every single MAGA cap owner on Twitter was buying these cups. This is a real craze, I thought. How many of these things were being sold? So I decided to find out, and that’s when things got interesting.

Short version: the company that purports to sell the mug has horrible reviews with a bad track record for actually delivering products, and has apparently used very sketchy, spammy methods to get word of the mug out on the internet.

As tech evolves, so do the scams. Reading the above article, I was reminded of a particularly good Reply All episode in which exploring a “lost and found” website led to something much more sinister. Listen to it below:

I’m making a cello EP

Since I just can’t seem to get enough of owing people Kickstarter rewards, I’ve decided to launch a new project: a professionally recorded cello EP. Much like my previous large-scale Kickstarter project, I have never attempted a project of this scale before in this particular medium. The good news is that this time, the recordings are almost done. They just cost a sizable chunk of change and it would be amazing if people could contribute to the Kickstarter and “pre-purchase” the EP to help me make up the cost.

You can donate to the project here. Thank you so much to all who have already contributed!
While my Kickstarter goal of $1000 was fulfilled in less than 5 hours, I was originally quite unsure of what the response would be like. Several of my previous Kickstarters have also been successful,  but they’ve all had something to do with stuff people know me by, whether it be film or podcasting. This was my first project where people might not have had any frame of reference for what I was producing. I was grateful that so many took a chance on this one, and I am hopeful I will be able to make something beautiful that will make us all proud.

A few thoughts came to mind on how I could’ve done this run this Kickstarter a little bit better:

Under a certain goal amount, it feels weird to launch a Kickstarter – One of the benefits and downsides of Kickstarter is that if you don’t fulfill your goal, you get none of the money (Kickstarter competitor Indiegogo famously gives you money along the way). Thus, I toyed with putting a goal of something like $300 or $500, to give myself a better chance of reaching the goal. But on a personal level, I felt as though under a certain amount (call it $500?), it doesn’t really make sense to do a Kickstarter. Why not just borrow some money from a friend or something? In addition, Kickstarter projects take a crapton of work. If you’re going to do one, you might as well set your goal higher to make it worth the time that it will take.

Very few people will take your lowest tier – Again, as with previous Kickstarters, my dream was that I would get hundreds of people contributing small amounts of money (i.e. $3 for just the EP) and once again that did not play out. When it comes to Kickstarter, people like to be upsold! They like bonus content, they like the personal connection with creators, and they like knowing that they are getting a set of rewards that are hard or impossible to obtain otherwise.

The emotional and practical barriers to entry for people supporting Kickstarters is pretty high. They need to support your work, they need to be willing to contribute to it, and they need to know that you have a live Kickstarter. Once those barriers have already been surmounted, they are likely going to be willing to contribute a larger amount than the bare minimum. On that note…

You should absolutely have a reward tier between $15-25 – A lot of people gave $5, but I’m fairly certain they would’ve been willing to contribute up to $15-25. That’s a lot of money that I simply left on the table, and while I did eventually add a few $15-25 options, I really should have built this in from the beginning. As in, I literally should have spent as much time as necessary time thinking of how I could produce a ton of $15-level rewards and not launched the Kickstarter until I had come up with something. It’s that important.

The average Kickstarter donation is $25.

The Perfect Response

Adam Sternbergh from New York magazine takes on the concept of “The Perfect Response”:

[T]he Perfect Response you cheer for and re-post frantically also tends to be one that (a) confirms whatever you already believe and (b) sticks it to someone you already despise. The Perfect Response is, in essence, not a radical new perspective, but simply a person saying a thing you agree with to a person you disagree with. It’s a kind of linguistic record-scratch, a perfectly crafted gotcha that ostensibly stops trolls in their troll-tracks and forces them to deeply reconsider the sad wreckage of their wasted lives. Which means the Perfect Response is also largely a figment of the internet’s imagination.

I agree with most of what Sternbergh writes here – that an actual  “Perfect Response” is essentially so rare as to make its sharing more like an act of wishful thinking.

But I think this headline format has really taken form primarily because of sharing sites like Facebook and Twitter, something that Sternbergh acknowledges. A “Perfect Response” is simply more interesting and attention grabbing than “A Really Good Response” or “An Adequate Response.” Publishers often need to exaggerate to get attention on your News Feed these days.

My question is: What is next in the Internet arms war for attention? What happens when Upworthy-style headlines are so common that all they receive in response is an indifferent shrug?