(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



The Curious Case Of The Clickbait That Didn't Go Viral: Are Your Burgers Finally Safe? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-11-06  

Back in 2019, the right-wing disinfosphere went absolutely nuts over the lie ( s ) that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was going to take away hamburgers as part of the Green New Deal's intent to clean up the sort of factory farming that's responsible for significant amounts of the greenhouse gasses causing climate change.

In the years since, the Right's AOC obsession seems to be fading. We can’t know what’s going on in their “newsrooms,” but perhaps outlets like The Daily Caller were shamed into some integrity after their fake nude fake news made their clickbait fetishization of the congresswoman a bit too obvious.

What we do know, though, is that last Thursday, Fox News published an op-ed with exactly the sort of title that used to be guaranteed viral gold: " The new way AOC is coming for your hamburgers ."

The truth is that AOC isn't coming for your hamburgers—and in the op-ed, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) practically says as much. Hageman uses her op-ed space to promote her bill to block ID tags on cows because they could possibly be used to track cattle to be culled, which she claims is what's happening in Ireland ( which it's not ). It’s a convoluted, self-serving piece that stretches the connection to AOC to the absolute limit, with a "six degrees of separation" game of telephone between the actual topic and the clickbait headline.

It used to be that a tenuous link to AOC was enough to generate a right-wing media frenzy. These days, thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case.

A day after publication, we couldn't find any evidence that anyone significant had read, reposted , or shared the piece. One far-right shitposter on Twitter posted the link for their 843 followers, and another account with 43 followers vaguely referenced the article but didn't share the link. We didn't see any chatter about it on YouTube or TikTok, and on Facebook, we found one person who shared it with a gross attempt at a sexual innuendo as a caption. (The lack of engagement certainly isn't because the misogyny / petro-masculinity issue has been solved.)

Maybe writing this on Friday is too premature, and by Monday morning when you’re reading this, a flood of burger-clutching disinfo has already spoiled your social media scrolling.

But if not, it will mean that something's changed. What exactly it is, though, we're not sure of. (Besides the climate, obviously.)

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/6/2203887/-The-Curious-Case-Of-The-Clickbait-That-Didn-t-Go-Viral-Are-Your-Burgers-Finally-Safe?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=community_groups_Climate+Hawks&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/