Friday, October 19, 2018

Elle apologizes for fake news tweet to encourage voter registration

There are a plethora of headlines encouraging people to vote, but Elle thought it would try a different approach to reach the younger demographic.

On Thursday, it tweeted:

Instead of an article, the link takes readers to Elle’s affiliate page for WhenWeAllVote.org, a voting registration site powered by nonprofit organization Rock the Vote.

Though some Twitter users applauded the unusual move to encourage voter registration for the 2018 Midterm Elections, many more—including reporters and PR pros—lashed out at Elle for promulgating fake news.

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Though Elle’s tweet was not original, it’s the first publication to try the clickbait approach to encourage people to vote.

USA Today reported:

Similarly, Tim Cigelske tweeted an equally appealing link offering details behind Ariana Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson's broken engagement: "Wow I can’t believe this is why Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson split up."

Cigelske's followers even began sharing his post with alluring comments. "U HAVE to read this omg," someone added.

The result was the same. People who clicked on the link were directed to vote.org, where it says, "Register to Vote. This will take 2 minutes."

Yahoo Entertainment reported:

While an earlier faux tweet… went over well, the Elle effort fell flat for many. (CNN anchor Chris Cillizza called the ploy “brilliant,” but that was an unpopular opinion.) Notably, the earlier messages had come from individuals, not news organizations.

Others lashed out at Elle for insinuating that its readers won’t register to vote unless they’re duped.

Independent reported:

The main criticisms levied at Elle are two-fold. The first being that information warfare has become a prevalent issue in United States politics with propaganda mills influencing the 2016 presidential elections and President Donald Trump routinely berating members of the press by calling them “fake news.” The other is people that registering to vote should not be something women and younger Americans are tricked into doing. Thus, tricking readers to vote with a fake, clickbait headline feeds into the troubling narratives that voting is a chore, and that women and young Americans are not interested in voting unless they’re enticed with some celebrity gossip.

TheMarySue.com’s opinion editor, Vivian Kane, wrote:

… [T]hose of us who believe it’s essential to vote in the upcoming midterms really want to get that message across. And we know that that message isn’t exactly new, so we need to find new ways to grab people’s attention. All of that, I get.

But oh, ELLE Magazine, this is not how you do that.

… The last thing we need is for people to feel tricked by legitimate media sources and to associate that feeling of being tricked with the act of voting.

HuffPost reporter Jenna Amatulli agreed. She wrote: “Proliferating actual fake news ― no, Kim and Kanye aren’t splitting up ― hurts the media’s credibility and is insulting to readers.”

Roughly four hours later, Elle apologized:

However, the mea culpa was met with additional criticism because Elle never deleted its earlier tweet. Instead, the publication quoted the original tweet in its apology.

Even though many disagree with Elle’s tactic, clickbait tweets seem to have increased conversations about voting—and registrations.

Yahoo Entertainment reported:

A spokeswoman for vote.org told the Post in a statement that more than 100,000 people under 30 have registered to vote “since the vote rolling memes started.

“While we can’t suggest they caused all the registrations, we can say all of the cultural conversations surrounding voting certainly correlate to spikes in young voters engagement,” she said.

What’s your opinion of Elle’s tweet and its apology?



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