An article about ClickBaiting as political warfare (My title)

Medium Corporation ^ | 08/07/2016 | Aaron Loeb

[EasySt]

"... I’d like to challenge you to look at news in a different way. Here are some rules:

Only believe primary sources. If you can hear a candidate saying it, the candidate said it. Don’t believe anyone’s description of what the candidate meant. Judge for yourself. Listen to the words. That means:

Don’t believe anything your friends say. Seriously, your friends don’t know anything. Unless they were there personally and heard it themselves, why are you taking their opinion as truth?

Don’t believe stories about a “guy who heard” the candidate say something. My friends in the military are awash in stories about terrible things Clinton supposedly said to her security details. None of these stories has ever been confirmed. Similarly, don’t believe the things people heard Trump said once to a guy in a car.

Read well-sourced journalism that relies on primary sources. Judge the words and actions of the candidates yourself. Should you judge Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for the things they say? Yes. Should you decide whether you believe them? Yes. Should you read up on policies they enacted and judge them for those policies? Yes. But very importantly: should you judge them based on policies people tell you they actually believe in, but have never said they do nor have ever acted on? No. That is called a conspiracy theory."

[EasySt]

First, I don't agree with this guy's assessment of what's true and what's not, but the points he makes about click baiting, or as he puts it, BS Curation, are valid.

We on the right are targeted just as thoroughly and effectively as our counterparts on the left, and it is especially damaging to us when a large number of Freepers are caught by it.

There is an entire industry built on inflaming our passions and providing provably false confirmation of our most cherished beliefs, and not just for advertising revenue, but to also make us look foolish when we repeat and spread the unprovable BS.

The left already views us as ignorant, backwards, unscientific non critical thinkers, so in their view, we are perfect targets for this particular form of political war, and it is obvious that it has become immensely popular with all sides, but particularly in its use against conservatives.

I love the red meat we get here just as much as the next Freeper, but way too much of what we are exposed to here is Vat Grown, Curated BS, carefully tailored to our desires.

Be on the lookout for it, and don't be afraid to call it out when you spot it. There is a difference between what we believe to be true, and what we can prove is true. Let's be sure we know which is which.

[Jim Robinson]

Never believe what you see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears. Wait for the media experts to explain it to you in a way you can understand.

[EasySt]

Yup, that’s what they want. Sadly, it’s way too easy to fall for it.

[EasySt]

Case in point...

There’s a picture floating around of Obama with Jarrett, and Huma with Hillary that says “Isn’t is peculiar that they both have Iranian Advisers. By their sides at all times?”

Are Jarrett and Huma Iranian?
Well.... No.

Are their loyalties primarily to the United States and our Constitution?
Provably not.

This incites us to rant about their “Iranian Advisers”, rather than point out their actual actions against the US and the Constitution.

See how that works against us?

[Celerity]

If we followed these rules, we would never hear about Sarah Palin.

[Bob]

Valerie Jarrett was born in Iran. I’m not sure where Huma was born.

[EasySt]

Yeah, his rules aren’t perfect either. Sometimes we have to be our own journalists.

[EasySt]

Yes, Valerie Jarrett was born in Iran.

But to American parents.

So, should we focus on her being supposedly “Iranian”, or should we talk instead about her actual documented actions that have harmed this country?

[EasySt]

Huma was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

[YogicCowboy]

“So, should we focus on her being supposedly “Iranian”, or should we talk instead about her actual documented actions that have harmed this country?”

You have created a false dichotomy: either-or.

By your simplistic reasoning, the Left is quite right to advocate completely ignoring Obama’s lifelong communist associations, and, even more, to ignore his Islamic associations; after all, he is not a card-carrying member of the Communist party (like Frank Marshall Davis), nor a direct associate of the Muslim Brotherhood (like Mehdi Alhassani), so we should focus on his documented actions that have harmed this country.

Guess what? A person’s history often - usually - gives insight into the motives behind the actions of an individual, and allow reasonable prediction of likely future actions.

This is just the kind of context-free analysis that allows the propagandists to sternly proclaim, after yet another Muslim atrocity, that there is no evidence of association with Islam. It is also the kind of pseudo-reasoning that allows TSA agents to treat an eighty-year-old American woman in a wheel chair as being just as likely to be a terrorist as a twenty-year-old Iranian woman in a burqa.

Context is crucial to understanding nearly everything and everyone.

Given that Iran is a totalitarian regime that is a leading supporter of Islamic Jihad, and is fanatically dedicated to indoctrinating anyone in its sphere, it is not irrelevant - in the context of her known advocacies and associates - that Valerie Jarrett is of Iranian birth.

Jarrett was not born in Switzerland; she was born in Iran. It matters, when taken in the context of everything she has said and done.

It is not either-or.

I reject your conclusion.

[EasySt]

" Jarrett was not born in Switzerland; she was born in Iran. It matters, when taken in the context of everything she has said and done."

Of course it matters, and I don't suggest we ignore it.

I do suggest that we exercise care not to leave out the other things we can prove she has said and done when that fact gets discussed.

Just putting a pic like that out there, that is less than completely accurate, while failing to concentrate on the things we CAN show proof of is harmful to our credibility and to our cause. It is a trap many of us, including myself, have fallen into more than once.

Just like we haven't really been able to produce solid proof that Obama was born in Kenya, but we certainly can show facts to support things like this:

So, should we focus on posting pictures of fairly successfully debunked Kenyan birth certificates, or should we concentrate on disseminating proof of Obama's anti American and anti US Constitution actions?

Should we concentrate on making the less than accurate charge that Huma and Jarrett are Iranian Advisers, or stick to proveable facts?

Which is more likely to preserve our credibility and further our cause?

[EasySt]

There are tons of pics and “quotes” being passed around here that are just inaccurate enough to be easily debunked.

I don’t think that is an accident.

All I’m suggesting is that we don’t make it so easy, and we don’t let the bad ones pass unchallenged.

It hurts our cause and our credibility when a casual Freeper passes that stuff around, only to get it thrown back at them, and us, as already debunked.

[Celerity]

I would LOVE to propose a FreeRepublic citizen journal idea to the group here.

Next time, when news breaks and the mass media are covering crap up we let go the dogs of war, get some members on planes and go check it out ourselves.

This would have been great for something like Scalia’s death. I know a Freeper simply would not stop until every stone were overturned.

We are all interested in something that the media is not - Freedom and Liberty. And we would be the only ones to truly appreciate the first amendment.

If I could get 20 people on here to just say “Interested” I could start the ball rolling. I’m looking for a project to grow.

[Celerity]

I fear for Huma’s life at this point.

1. I’m convinced Hillary did in Wiener as a show of strength. A little warning to Huma.
2. If she did leak videos to anyone ... she’s dead.
3. Hillary is about to die. I feel badly saying it, but her health has me very concerned. I truly feel that she doesn’t have long. Huma has to die before her.
4. In regards to #3 I think there is a slight chance that Hillary is being poisoned by the Muslim Brotherhood. Slowly. Ensuring that even if she wins an election, she dies shortly after (before (f)aking the oath of office) so that Obama can step in and put them back where they need to be. (Although, were that true, we would have a SCOTUS pick right now, and it would be Muslim)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

. My friends in the military are awash in stories about terrible things Clinton supposedly said to her security details. None of these stories has ever been confirmed.

Actually there were witnesses.

In a court of law it would stand up.

In the court of the media not so much. Even if you have her on tape and she signed a statement they would still maintain that it was not confirmed.

[EasySt]

So... With all the pics, quotes and memes we are being targeted with that are either slightly or wholly incorrect, or inaccurate, or easily debunked, often by design and crafted either with the express purpose of weakening our case and opening us to ridicule, or more simply, just to get the clicks...

Do you think that, given the example of the oh so popular picture being passed around saying "Isn't it peculiar that they both have Iranian Advisers at their sides at all times?", we should not challenge it, and instead use it as a way to make our case?

You'll just be dismissed and get it tossed back at you with a Snopes link.

Would it not be better to point out Huma's ties to a Sharia Law supporting organization as Assistant Editor of her family's business, (the Sharia Law supporting Journal of Minority Muslim Affairs) and her association with a known funder of terrorism - Abadin family benefactor Abdullah Omar Naseef, patron of said Journal, on its masthead at the time, and one of the founders of the terrorist funding Rabita Trust?

The truth about Huma Abedin that Media Matters doesn't want America to see

Or we could highlight Valerie Jarrett's hardcore communist father, hardcore communist maternal grandfather, and hardcore communist father in law, all of whom were investigated by the FBI. Or her involvement in the Fast and Furious cover-up, or her connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, or her and her families ties to Frank Mashal Davis.

Communisn in Jarrets family

Neither of which will get our faces rubbed in Snopes and FactCheck.org refutations.

If you cannot refute the "fact checkers" because your "facts" are flakey, or weak, or only halfway correct, why go right where your enemies, or the click baiting BS cultivators want you to?

It is my view that frontal assault with The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth is the best answer to biased liberal "fact checkers" and biased liberal media organizations, and biased liberals in general. It works kind of like sunshine on vampires.

So, Trust, But Verify, that Red Meat you're feasting on. You might not know what it really is, or where it actually came from, or what it's true purpose is.