Consider the following news article title:
The twist? The woman was arrested for fraud allegations, not for having the sticker. (She cannot be arrested for having such a sticker. It's not illegal.)
The genius in the article title is that it is, technically speaking, 100% correct. The woman did have a "Fuck Trump" sticker on her truck, she was jailed, and the sheriff did threaten her with charges. Those are all true statements. Moreover, the title isn't actually, and technically speaking, making any connection between those claims. It's not claiming that one happened because of the other.
But of course the title heavily implies the connection, and it's exactly the impression that the reader gets. The author of the article has plausible deniability ("I never claimed that one thing happened because of the other"), but it's still quite clearly designed to imply the connection, and to give the impression that there is a connection.
I think this is a perfect example of misleading clickbaity fake news titles. And it's a very easy game to play. It's trivial to come up with examples that could be used to mislead people in a similar manner.
For example: "Neonazis participate in political protest - black person beaten to death"
Those two claims might be 100% accurate, but it might also be that they have no relation to each other (other than, perhaps, the timing and rough proximity of the two events). Maybe the beating was not done by the neonazis; perhaps that person was beaten by eg. another black person, who wasn't connected to the event or anything. It's just that when the two factual claims are put together like that, they heavily imply that one is the cause of the other, and it's exactly the impression that the reader gets.
The twist? The woman was arrested for fraud allegations, not for having the sticker. (She cannot be arrested for having such a sticker. It's not illegal.)
The genius in the article title is that it is, technically speaking, 100% correct. The woman did have a "Fuck Trump" sticker on her truck, she was jailed, and the sheriff did threaten her with charges. Those are all true statements. Moreover, the title isn't actually, and technically speaking, making any connection between those claims. It's not claiming that one happened because of the other.
But of course the title heavily implies the connection, and it's exactly the impression that the reader gets. The author of the article has plausible deniability ("I never claimed that one thing happened because of the other"), but it's still quite clearly designed to imply the connection, and to give the impression that there is a connection.
I think this is a perfect example of misleading clickbaity fake news titles. And it's a very easy game to play. It's trivial to come up with examples that could be used to mislead people in a similar manner.
For example: "Neonazis participate in political protest - black person beaten to death"
Those two claims might be 100% accurate, but it might also be that they have no relation to each other (other than, perhaps, the timing and rough proximity of the two events). Maybe the beating was not done by the neonazis; perhaps that person was beaten by eg. another black person, who wasn't connected to the event or anything. It's just that when the two factual claims are put together like that, they heavily imply that one is the cause of the other, and it's exactly the impression that the reader gets.
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