09.06.20
How to Spot Diversion Tactics (Excuses and Distractions From Articles Not Convenient to the Reader)
Summary: When the subject of an article harms oneself one is more likely to shoot the messenger (or the platform) rather than the article itself; here are some examples of patterns we’ve encountered/witnessed over the years
LET’S face it! There are companies out there that dislike Techrights because of things Techrights published about them. Those companies have employees and sometimes a loyal base of clients/supporters (Apple has plenty of these). So Techrights often becomes the target of cheap smears, with various individuals looking for excuses to never read Techrights and even tell people to do the same. It’s very common among comments/commenters. Sometimes it’s downright amusing.
If Techrights gets some facts wrong, state it out loud and upfront. But most complaints (almost all!) are saying nothing about the contents and instead changing the subject to something else (innuendo or nitpicking). Here are some examples: (I have encountered them all before)
“It’s old news”
“I found a typo”
“The headline’s capitalisation style is wrong”
“The site isn’t mobile-friendly”
“The fonts are of the wrong size”
“The stylesheet isn’t good with my browser”
“I don’t like the site”
“I dislike the author”
“The site is not secure enough”
“The site is slow (or down at the moment, maybe due to load)”
“The English is grammatically correct, but I don’t like its style”
“There’s not enough background”
“The site links to itself too much”
“This is conspiracy theory!”
“The author is anonymous and thus lacks credibility”
“I saw some crank linking to this site, hence the site is run by cranks”
“This is clickbait because it makes me angry”
“This is insensitive or intolerant because it points out something correct like a crime (which I prefer not to talk about)”
“It’s too strongly-worded and biased, e.g. it calls bribes “bribes” and not some euphemism like ‘contribution’ or ‘sponsorship’ or whatever…”
“The site looks like it needs a redesign and was made in the 1990s” (maybe it was! Doesn’t discredit the substance, does it?)
“It’s difficult on the eyes that I need to scroll and there’s no glitz such as “like” buttons”
“Comment(er)s are foaming at the mouth and I will hold the original author accountable for these”
“The author does not understand the topic and is merely emotional”
“The article’s site has a low budget; therefore, it cannot possibly get the story right”
“The format of the dates is American; I am not American, hence this site isn’t for me”
“The site quotes an anonymous source to protect from retribution/reprisal; thus, the source is fabricated or is lying”
“There are too many articles in that site and I cannot keep up, hence there’s something wrong with the site”
“The site covered this same subject before, hence it’s merely repeating itself and the message thus lacks legitimacy/novelty”
“The author supports some particular politics or particular political party which I dislike, hence I will read no further”
“Authors aren’t salaried for the work, hence they’re not bossed by rich media owners and cannot possibly produce anything of value”
“The authors are too young to know what’s going on; I’m older and I therefore know a lot more and have been around for longer; my views supersede all else”
“The article has far too many links; it really should be more like a professional newspaper, including not a single link or citation or traceable source”
“I don’t have time to read something this long (tl;dr)”
“I don’t like the picture in that article, so I will not read the article”
“This is pure hypocrisy because [add some smear about the author, whether factual or not]”
“Jealousy, hatred or bigotry/extremist views drove or motivated this posting; it’s thus invalid”
“The article contains leaked communication, hence it does something borderline illegal and I should not examine the evidence at all”
The list goes on and on, but that’s just exemplary. █
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