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   AnarchoNinaWrites (anarchoninawrites@jorts.horse)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:35:52 JST AnarchoNinaWrites

   I mean people will talk a lot about the shit like reading-levels and attention spans in our society, but the reason news items and articles on mainstream media are all transforming into 600 word shitposts with multiple links to "someone said on Twitter" is literally a top-down decision. These platforms aren't about news anymore, they're about selling "content" to advertisers by volume; shorter pieces means faster clicks and bigger totals. They don't care about the quality at all.

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     AnarchoNinaWrites (anarchoninawrites@jorts.horse)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:35:59 JST AnarchoNinaWrites

     in reply to

     I literally know people in this industry and the pressure to publish is ratcheted up way higher than it ever has been in the past. Lanyard managers are directly telling their writers "get it done & get it done now" so they can move on to the NEXT piece of "content." The idea is to create a constantly updating "blog" effect because the headline is what brings in the clicks. More headlines? More clicks. The fact that it's all absolutely trash is largely irrelevant. Every website is a 2006 era blog

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     AnarchoNinaWrites (anarchoninawrites@jorts.horse)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:36:08 JST AnarchoNinaWrites

     in reply to

     tl;dr Matty Yglesias has won the media war. Or rather, his style of content-milling has become the norm in an advertiser-friendly, click dependent industry - and given that these folks have bought up most of the media, that's "the news" now.

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     Sevoris (sevoris@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:36:17 JST Sevoris

     in reply to

     @AnarchoNinaWrites what’s so frustratingly worse to me is that this whole sabotage of people’s attention span just… keeps on fucking working. And I am not sure I can blame people, but good gods it’s circling the drain in a really bad way.

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     AnarchoNinaWrites (anarchoninawrites@jorts.horse)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:36:23 JST AnarchoNinaWrites

     in reply to

     • Sevoris

     @Sevoris Again, it's not people, and it's not their attention span. It's turning every single website into a trash content mill for advertisers. More headlines, more clicks. It's a simple as that.

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     Sevoris (sevoris@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:36:42 JST Sevoris

     in reply to

     @AnarchoNinaWrites So you would say that people didn’t go for this content and the platforms that spread it with something of their own volition? I suspect the whole „fast spam of new information“ is something that more or less does work in exploiting human psychology, unlike most of the other ad-ware BS about targeted ads.

     When there are no more platforms (urgh) without this slop any choice is meaningless, but the consumption started and gots its hooks in somewhere.

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     AnarchoNinaWrites (anarchoninawrites@jorts.horse)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:36:59 JST AnarchoNinaWrites

     in reply to

     • Sevoris

     @Sevoris Again, you're assuming it's a consumer choice driving the decision to turn the whole internet into this. It's just math, more headlines, gives more opportunity to click. Nobody is clicking on those headlines saying "yes what I WANT is a 400 word fact free blog post with 3 Twitter links" - that's just all they've got.

     The consumer's preference is not at all a factor. It's a business decision. More headlines, more clicks. That's how the internet itself works.

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     Sevoris (sevoris@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:37:31 JST Sevoris

     in reply to

     @AnarchoNinaWrites Sure, and that’s the end result, but I still doubt that’s how the trend *started*, and that’s where my stomach ache of this entire topic lies. *how did they get the initial buy-in* so they could market it as universal?

     I very well know that at this point now that everyone making money and pushing decisions has smelled the blood of this working to make them more money (or at least having enough FOMO to buy in anyway) they’re going to bend it that way regardless.

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     AnarchoNinaWrites (anarchoninawrites@jorts.horse)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:37:45 JST AnarchoNinaWrites

     in reply to

     • Sevoris

     @Sevoris Again, because that's how the internet works. Literally if you search up "how to make your blog more popular" you will find articles from the mid 2000's saying this. That's just how the internet works, if there are MORE headlines, there are more opportunities for people to click on them.

     There was no consumer choice involved at all. I'm sorry, that's just the truth. Blaming it on our attention span is letting the guys in charge off the hook. It's simply not why it happened.

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     Sevoris (sevoris@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:37:56 JST Sevoris

     in reply to

     @AnarchoNinaWrites So fundamental failure mode of the system design.

     Wonderful.

     :blobugh:

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     AnarchoNinaWrites (anarchoninawrites@jorts.horse)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:38:12 JST AnarchoNinaWrites

     in reply to

     • Sevoris

     @Sevoris Yeah, I think that's an accurate assessment. I mean it's still a CHOICE to do this right? These companies are CHOSING to chase advertiser revenue through a "get more clicks" model. But again that's not about how much people like to read, or their attention span. The internet itself encourages this, and the model is selling advertisers on how many clicks you can get; taken together, you get this - every news agency is now an Instagram feed, more or less.

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     Sevoris (sevoris@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Mar-2024 04:38:20 JST Sevoris

     in reply to

     @AnarchoNinaWrites choice allowed by fundamental lack of constraints. If you can abuse a system this way it‘s basically in the design specifications one way or another. And I don‘t believe that abuse of a design is purely a "user error".

     Though right now, I dislike looking at the hyperlink as an adverserial artefact.