Editing 2159: Comments
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|Created by a AN OUTRAGED INTERNET USER. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
− | + | This comic represents a news article that shows how easy it is to dominate the comment section of an article by creating shill comments to support any desired narrative of the community's opinion. The joke here is that this is precisely what has occurred for this article. The top five comments are assorted ways of affirming the article's text. However, the final commenter reveals that the article itself is cherry picking from a handful of random comments to support its arbitrary narrative of internet outrage. | |
− | The link in one of the comments is to [[1019: First Post]], which also refers to manipulating comments to change public opinion of a topic. It specifically mentions | + | The link in one of the comments is to [[1019: First Post]], which also refers to manipulating comments to change public opinion of a topic. It specifically mentions «creating an impression of peer consensus», a line which is near-quoted in the first comment included in this comic. |
− | + | The last of the comments may be from the user "Mary" who in the NPR article was explicitely cited to have said that the comments have been too violent. But it is unclear how this is possible given that this article claims to have been published after the comments having been turned off. | |
− | + | The title text refers to the ability to change webpages using in-browser tools, like "Inspect Element," to change the HTML of a page, and thus the contents of it. However, because all of the changes to the HTML are temporary and only on the machine they were made on, anyone else loading the page will not see them, and refreshing the page causes the changes to be replaced with the real content. This would mean that no other users would be able to see the comments, and news sources could not use them to influence public opinion. | |
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− | The title text refers to the ability to | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
:[Single panel comic depicting a screenshot of an Internet article, showing the article title, lines of wavy characters representing the article text, and several comments from readers of the article with their profile pictures.] | :[Single panel comic depicting a screenshot of an Internet article, showing the article title, lines of wavy characters representing the article text, and several comments from readers of the article with their profile pictures.] | ||