» Yahoo Hypocrisy
By Vince on August 22, 2020
So I’ve spent some time lately on an “experiment”. This consisted of reading only one “news” outlet. I chose Yahoo News as the target source.
I spent over a month reading and viewing videos on this platform ONLY.
I guess I shouldn’t be shocked by this, but initially, Yahoo allowed comments on these news articles at the bottom of the page. Then one day, BOOM! No more comments on any of them. Just like that. No warning. No notice.
Ok, cool.
One might ask why they did this?
Could it be that around 95% of these comments were vehemently AGAINST said articles? And BTW these comments went both ways; if an article was Conservative, the vitriol spewing Left was in the majority of those comments. If they were Liberal, Left leaning, comments of the Conservatives were in the majority.
Ok you would say, that’s understandable.
However, Yahoo is a VERY Liberal news outlet, so the majority of news spin leans that way, the proportion of Liberal to Conservative news on Yahoo tends to be about 70/30 in favor of the Liberal news bent. So by that same token the Conservative comments at the end of the articles FAR outweighed the Liberal comments.
This was enlightening.
When Yahoo allowed it. They stopped it cold turkey.
It actually showed that not everyone believes the spin they give the news. Some people still use their intellect.
Oh and since they’ve put a disclaimer up saying the following:
“Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article comments.”
Safe and engaging? It’s a web site. It’s not a playground or a parking lot. You didn’t get into “fight” in the line at the market. It’s not road rage while driving.
Those are actually dangerous.
This is in the limbo of the “interwebs”, where you don’t “See” anyone or risk actually talking to a person, IN person. Or interacting with someone right in front of you. Someone who might actually take exception to what you have to say and HOW you say it.
For a bit they termed the above “A survey” and did indeed, link you to an actual survey as to how often you read the comments and how often you made your own comments. That option, to take the survey, has since disappeared. Now it reverts back to the message posted above.
Can’t have the public refuting, or Heaven forfend, dispute what and how your “news” was written, I guess. I guess even having an opinion is not good. For them.
News should be just that, news. It should have no spin on it unless it’s an editorial. It should be the FACTS, presented without bias or personal, political or religious views. People should do their own research, like they used to BEFORE the internet.
News should just be the facts. Period. You should be an adult and make your OWN decisions and come to your own conclusions.