Clickbait articles

    For this assignment, we were instructed to write about two clickbait articles. This was inspired by the movie, which is based on a true story, called Richard Jewell. Richard Jewell found a bomb in Atlanta in 1996 and was falsely accused by the media of planting it. Through this movie, we were able to learn about responsible reporting and how false reports and inaccurate facts can ruin people’s lives. To complete this assignment, I checked out my favorite clickbait, fake news website, the Sun. The Sun is a tabloid that reports on anything and everything including, celebrity gossip, current events, and sports. The first article I found was titled “MINI MARTIANS AI predicts what children born on Mars will look like – and the results are creepily realistic and unsettling.” And the second one was “GRUESOME END Ancient mummified child was drugged with psychedelics before ritual sacrifice to gods, scientists reveal.” Both of these articles have very sensational and misleading headlines for short less-than-wholesome stories.

             “MINI MARTIANS AI predicts what children born on Mars will look like – and the results are creepily realistic and unsettling” opens with pictures of human-like- figures in space. One of the pictures is of a red baby-like creature in a space suit. This baby had no face and claws for hands. The article then goes on to describe how extended time in space can lead to bone weakening which could potentially make a baby's head small. None of these effects could cause someone to look like that photo. When I typed “mars baby” into hotpot.ai, an ai image generator, I got a similar-looking picture. It is clear that these pictures are not a “prediction” like the title suggested but rather an image randomly generated from the concepts of mars and humans. Humans who looked like that would not be compatible with life. This misleading article is harmful because it can create fear in people for the future, which most likely will include a mars colony. It can also discourage people from investing in mars research as they might be scared of the implications it would have on the human race.

            “GRUESOME END Ancient mummified child was drugged with psychedelics before ritual sacrifice to gods, scientists reveal” is an article that talks about bodies found in Peru that were sacrificed. It opens with the subtitle “THE ancient Nazca society drugged individuals as young as children with psychedelics before sacrificing them in a religious ritual to their Gods, scientists now claim.” This seems to imply that sacrifice was common, drugs were always used, and it was mostly children who were killed. However, the article then goes on to explain that out of the twenty-two bodies tested, only eleven were sacrifices, meaning sacrifices were not common. Only two of those eleven tested positive for drugs and only one of those two was psychedelic. One of the eleven sacrifices was a child, the rest were all adults. This is harmful because it paints a picture of the Nazca people which is not historically accurate and can alienate and cause sigma against Peruvians who are descendants of this tribe.

            It is important for journalists to be responsible with what they report and create ethical stories. Whether the issue can ruin someone’s life like Richard Jewell, makes false predictions, or misrepresents an ancient society, what is said matters. When journalists are not responsible misinformation can be spread which leads to hateful and untrue rhetoric. No matter what the story is, ethical reporting is always important.

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/6574986/ancient-child-drugged-psychedelics-before-sacrifice-study/

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/6577540/artificial-intelligence-predicts-human-children-mars/