Click-bait journalism is selfish and immoral. But it works.
Think of the epistemic environment as an intellectual commons. To get a deeper understanding of the world, it helps to have a wide range of ideas to consider, especially when arguments are given to support them. This helps us justify our beliefs, which tends to be good for everyone.
But some people are motivated to pollute the commons with false beliefs that aim to please an audience or promote a political outcome. Examples include dishonest political advertisements and biased journalism intended to provoke outrage. Each of us internalizes the benefit of adding a bit of epistemic pollution, but all of us share the costs. Journalists and activists know that motivated reasoning pervades politics, and that if they repeat dubious accusations or false beliefs that titillate their audience, the beliefs are more likely to stick, and the articles they write are more likely to be shared. Mike Huemer summarizes some of the reasons for this in a previous post.
Dishonest journalism is nothing new, and to some extent it just reflects what consumers of news want to hear. The benefits of making bombastic claims go to the writer of a story, and to those who get a dopamine hit from consuming it and feeling outraged. But the costs accrue to all of us in the epistemic commons, who find it harder to figure out what to believe.
When our indignation is activated, we feel like our lives gain meaning. Don Quixote is a comical character who symbolizes the rush we get from fighting injustice, whether real or imagined.
The social isolation of large, liberal societies tends to make this worse. Many people find meaning in political movements in the same way true believers find direction from religious institutions. As religious belief wanes in free and prosperous societies, religious wars give way to political battles. Journalists and academics assume the position of a secular clergy who take it upon themselves to burn the heretics who challenge sacred dogmas. Those of us who attempt to bend or break the Overton Window of acceptable belief are crucified by the Cathedral. Our ideas are attacked as wicked rather than engaged with. Journalists cash in on indignant mobs. They also create them.
There are many ways of writing click bait journalism, and many sources of “evidence” to appeal to. Some organizations specialize in producing biased data that journalists can go to when they want to assassinate a political opponent. For example, some journalists use the SPLC’s “hate map” to discredit political opponents who they don’t know how to argue against. Everyone who’s studied the issue knows the SPLC is a rapacious and morally bankrupt organization that manipulates data to generate outrage and increase their donations.
The thing is, it works. The SPLC smears people like former Muslims Aayan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz as “Islamophobic” for criticizing female genital mutilation, and for exalting the virtues of Western societies.
There are many other examples online. A website called RationalWiki is an especially egregious offender, and it is – predictably enough – promoted by Google’s search algorithm. It provides an outlet for zealots to create hit pieces against people and publishers whose ideas they disagree with. Because it mimics the template of Wikipedia, which is considered somewhat credible by casual readers, journalists and activists sometimes use it as a source.
Click-bait journalism benefits those who create and consume it. But in the long run it harms all of us. When we’re confronted with hit pieces aimed at indulging our desire to be outraged, readers should refuse to click and targets should refuse to apologize. The only way to clean up the intellectual commons is to shame the mobs and protect their targets.