The Daily Mail is currently the UK’s most popular online newspaper. This is not because there loyal readers have followed them online however. It is because they have a very canny person in charge of their online content.
One of the ways the Mail attracts their online audience by posting semi pornographic up-skirt and down-blouse photos of celebs getting out of cars. Hardly conforming to the middle-England standards the paper purports to represent.
The other way they boost their stats though is by engaging in a bit of twitter baiting.
Here’s the formula:
- Commission a hack journalist to write a controversial, provocative, and badly researched article.
- Attach a even more controversial and provocative headline to it
- Publish and be damned
- Wait for the outraged tweets, Facebook, and blog posts to roll in. All with a nice little link to the site attached of course.
- Collect the revenues from the advertisers, who don’t give a shit why the person is hitting the page – as long as they are hitting it.
To paraphrase the mighty Wikipedia, an internet troll is:
Someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response.
The daily mail is a troll. And as we know, the golden rule with trolls is that we mustn’t feed them. They are a bit like gremlins in that respect.
So next time you see a headline like
Not now, Darling, Mummy’s Tweeting: As today’s mothers spend hours on the internet, what’s the toll on their neglected children?
Just ignore the bastards. We already know that it’s going to be a pile of bullshit, so what’s the point in raising your blood pressure about it. Don’t visit the site, don’t tweet about it, don’t post an outraged message toy your Facebook wall, and never, ever blog about it.
…oh crap.
Actually, if you do want to read a Daily Mail article but don’t want to give them a stat hit, then you can allways go here: http://istyosty.com/ (Thanks for the link Oli)
That’ll be the same newspaper that ripped off my blog content in their “blog of the week” column and refused to pay me any cash for it.
Scumbags.
(My intial excitement about being featured in a national Sunday newspaper soon faded to resentment.)
I remember the incident well.
The BBC once quote me on their website you know. I still have the screen cap :)
Very enlightening article Dan – they really are unbelievable.
One solution though, there is a new plug in for Firefox called “The Kitten Block” that if a link ever takes you to the Mail or Express it instantly diverts you to teaandkittens.co.uk to show soothing pictures of mugs of tea and kittens.
Set it up here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kitten-block/
But what if you get incensed by tea and kittens??
Ace article Dan, and quite unnerving really. I always liked to think that the Mail made me fume by virtue of it’s own ignorance but now I feel like a sap cos it seems it’s purposefully trying to wind me up…those scumbags!
Great link to avoid the hits too.
It does have plenty of genuine ignorance and right wing horrendous, don’t get me wrong. But they also know how to generate the hits from the twitter crowd.
I always knew I hated the Daily Mail for more than just their crappy reporting. Thanks for the insight. I shall henceforth ignore all inflammatory articles.
I struggle to sometimes, as the temptation to get a good head of steam up is often very great. But on the whole I’m trying to avoid the rag these days.
Hear, hear! I make a point never to click on the links for precisely those reasons. Except for once when I wanted to read what all the fuss was about, and like you say it was a pile of steaming crap.
Steaming crap is it’s stock in trade I’m afraid. And getting upset about it only encourages them.
Granted, even with how good The Daily Mail is at trolling today, I still think The Sun is the champion.
The Sun is pretty horrific.
Is that from the Hillsbough disaster? They certainly paid for that one. Many newsagents in Liverpool don’t even stock that paper anymore.
No Dan, a Troll is one of those little plastic figures you used to get with a mop of crazy coloured hair and who used to taunt Billy Goat Gruff while he trippy trapped across a bridge.
Talking of goats , maybe you should get a goat?
I knew you reminded me of something…
You should definitely get a goat. You could feed it the Daily Mail.
I have considered getting a goat. I am not allowed to.
You hit the nail on the head there, you know I *sort* of knew but you put it better. Of course it isn’t just that daft article, it’s blaming facebook/twitter for every and any stupid thing they can. And don’t get me started on Jan Moir, she definately lives under a bridge cultivating her warts and boils…
oh yeah, if it ncan take a poke at a wasp nest it will take any opportunity. I think there was even a “facebook gives you cancer” story once.
And yes, Jan Moir. A very sorry example of a human being.