Yahoo! News

Yahoo! News is a mediocre news website that mostly reprints news sources from ABC News, Associated Press, and Reuters, in addition to hosting original news coverage along with egregious clickbait. Along with the important stories about politics or the economy, the site is also littered with the personal lives of celebrities or reality T.V. shows. It is also notorious for its very toxic comments section, though again, it's easier to count which news sites have good comments sections.

Someone is wrong on
The Internet
Log in:
v - t - e

Part of the Liberal media?

The news stories are often accused of having a liberal bias. However, Yahoo News has also been known to occasionally reprint articles from the right-wing websites The Blaze and Daily Caller, including articles criticizing Barack Obama.[citation needed] Most of the more political stories seem to be sourced from Huffington Post, while international or business related stories are sources from Reuters. Who Yahoo is biased towards depends on who you ask. For instance the progressive Daily Kos wrote that a Yahoo article titled "Obama wins the second debate. Too bad it's not the one that mattered" was heavily biased in favor of Republicans,[1] whereas the comments section of the actual article complained of heavy liberal bias. However, media tracking websites such as Media Bias/Fact Check rank Yahoo as being “Left-center”.[2]

Comments section

The comments section of the more political news stories are quite infamous for attracting hundreds, if not thousands, of neoreactionaries who put the GOP to shame in terms of conservatism.[3] Sexist, racist, xenophobic, conspiracy-loving,[4] millennial-hating, and especially homophobic comments that may be militant in nature are not only accepted but generally upvoted in great numbers, whereas liberal or even centrist comments are typically downvoted in large numbers and occasionally met with death threats. Examples:

  • "Who else thinks the “first family” gets too much press coverage?" 17 upvotes, 4 downvotes (The article in question was only on primates such as Apes going extinct)[5]
  • "Single mothers voted for Barack. Very telling that such an irrsponsible group of tramps supports handouts." 47 upvotes, 40 downvotes[6]
  • "Marriage is between ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN. Gay marriage is blasphemy!" 168 upvotes, 45 downvotes
  • "The argument of the gay agenda is that if it doesn't hurt anyone, then it is ok. Well, what about incest and bestiality? These acts do not necessarily harm anyone, but we condemn them as a society. We should also condemn gay marriage, which is just as perverted and unnatural." 88 upvotes, 25 downvotes[7]
  • "Listen...if you are gay keep it to your darn self...boy scouts are not supposed to be concerned with sexuality. These are kids that want to grow up to be normal human beings without having their minds corrupted by homos. I don't want my kids to associate with anyone that is openly a degenated. Homosexuality is an anomaly and a mental and social illness. be what you may, but have it treated and don't infect others." 117 upvotes, 68 downvotes [8]
  • "I see a US CIVIL WAR on the Horizon!" 83 upvotes, 11 downvotes
    • "Finally we can wipe out the liberal scumbags, show them no mercy" 45 upvotes, 15 downvotes (This was a positive reply to the above comment)
  • "To each according to his need. From each according to his ability." ~ Karl Marx
    "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." ~ Barack Obama
    There's your evidence. I know liberals hate proof but even your Kool-Aid can't help you here." 209 upvotes, 55 downvotes
  • "There is a pretence going on here that all global warming is man made. Most of it and I mean most of it is in fact natural. there are two stable states for the climate on earth. One is an iceage and the other is a good deal warmer than today. At present, we are transitioning from iceage to a warmer state.This is a natural cycle that repeats itself over and over again. we have had 10 iceages of varying extents over the last one million years. 8000 years ago for instance was the last time a person could walk from the present England to say the present Germany without getting ones feet wet. The North sea has swollowed up Doggerland in the last 8000 years which is not a huge amount of time when one thinks about it. For further reading, one could do well to read up on Milankovitch cycles. And to think, the governments like to pretend that the earth's climate is stable. Nothing is further from the truth." 109 upvotes, 19 downvotes[9]
  • "i am an african American very far left liberal democrat and believe it or not, myself and all of my friends are voting for Romney. obama has disgraced this country" 653 upvotes, 258 downvotes [10]
  • "Boy, if they're upset about what Chris Broussard had to say about being gay...they're REALLY going to be mad if they ever actually read their Bible and see what God has to say about it." 955 upvotes, 178 downvotes [11] (Chris Broussard is an ESPN sports writer who made anti-gay comments, while the "they're" refers to a Christian group that's upset with Broussard. Therefore "they're" not considered true Christians by Yahoo commentators)
  • "Obama won!? Which debate was the author watching. At best it was a draw and CBS polled it at 65-35 Romney...Libs will never change...long live the pretend world of progressives..." 1577 upvotes, 419 downvotes (The author in question was writing about the second debate which most agree Obama won)
  • "Hmmmmmm....this article is written by someone who writes for Yahoo, has worked for CNN, ABC, CBS and PBS. Where do you think his loyalties lie?" 11498 upvotes, 700 downvotes (In reference to the same author that was attacked above)[12]

If it's any consolation it is likely some of the commenters are paid to create multiple accounts and spread conservative propaganda,[13] but many of the comments seem fairly genuine as well. Another theory put forth on the site "Horrible Yahoo News! Comments" is that older people are more likely to be conservative or view Fox News but are less likely to stray very far from their default homepage, so they all just pour their anger into Yahoo's comment section.

A running theme in the comments is that white conservatives are the real victims of racism and prejudice, which can get into "anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white" territory. This persecution complex is probably a reason Yahoo has attracted more white supremacists than most other website comment sections (besides that other one). Yahoo, having noticed how horrible the comments section is, no longer automatically shows them to visitors, and you now have to go out of way to view them. Of course, many still do just to see how outrageous the top rated comments are.

As of July 2020, comments on Yahoo! News articles are temporarily suspended.[14][15]

Liberal commenters

On occasion left wing commenters will take over a news story if the story is unappealing to conservatives, such as when Yahoo reported on Obama's reelection or when a nonpartisan report came out that disproves trickle down economics,[16] but more often than not right-wing extremists are in the majority and on occasion their comments can get up to a couple thousand upvotes. Among the liberals are a fair number of moonbats but in general the liberal comments are noticeably less threatening, bigoted, and/or psychotic than their ultraconservative counterparts.

gollark: I guess you could use meV if you wanted too.
gollark: Your statement is correctly written as "<0.0340 eV".
gollark: I mean average (root mean square) electronvolts per molecule, of course.
gollark: ↑
gollark: Please fix your units immediately, or you won't have.

See also

References
  1. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/17/1145762/-Yahoo-News-Rightwing-Media-Septic-Tank
  2. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/yahoo-news/
  3. Daryl Lang, Is Yahoo News proud of its comments feature?
  4. There seems to be a lot of right-leaning Truthers
  5. http://news.yahoo.com/chimps-gorillas-other-apes-struggling-survive-051137577.html
  6. http://news.yahoo.com/comes-gender-gap-men-play-crucial-role-215430271--election.html
  7. http://news.yahoo.com/rep-barney-frank-marry-partner-jim-ready-184914979--abc-news.html
  8. http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-boy-scouts-reaffirm-ban-gays-141719311.html
  9. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/global-warming-%E2%80%9Ccan-be-reversed---scientists-claim-124259208.html#gfrUa9c
  10. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-socialist-many-scoff-claim-persists-174845832.html
  11. http://tv.yahoo.com/news/christian-group-calls-espn-writers-suspension-jason-collins-213013743.html
  12. http://news.yahoo.com/obama-wins-the-second-debate--too-bad-it%E2%80%99s-not-the-one-that-mattered-1568495.html?bcmt_s=m#ugccmt-container
  13. http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/03/craiglist-ad-seeks-writers-to-post-right-wing-comments-to-social-media-news-outlets/
  14. https://www.distractify.com/p/yahoo-comments-gone
  15. https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/07/23/why-did-yahoo-suspend-comments/
  16. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-dont-spur-151649273.html
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.