Thursday, September 14, 2017

Krazywolf.com

On Tuesday, the #1 post on /r/TwoXChromosomes was a Medium op-ed on the topic of contraceptives, titled: "Data Shows Contraception Lowers Abortion Rates and Saves Billions, but Why Do Republicans Continually Fight to Deny Women the Right to Birth Control."

It was submitted by /u/Miked378, and it received 19,026 upvotes.

Overall, it's an average piece of writing.  It cites a couple key statistics and it hammers home the thesis.

However, at the end of the Medium op-ed was an outbound link to an article from another site called Krazywolf.com, which bills itself as a "viral content source."  The article on Krazy Wolf has nothing to do with contraceptives.  It's about the rapper Logic performing at the VMAs.  (Note: The link was later removed from the op-ed, but it's still visible in this cache.)

My question is:  Why did an op-ed about contraceptives include a link to some random viral website?

The op-ed was written by a woman named "Claire Anderson."  Her Medium profile does not contain any biographical info, nor does it have links to other social media accounts. This was her first piece ever published on Medium.

This wasn't the first time Miked378 posted the Medium link on /r/TwoXChromosomes.  He previously posted the link on September 6, and it received 1,525 upvotes.  Miked378 later deleted his thread, but it can still be viewed in this archive.

Miked378 has since been banned from Reddit: www.reddit.com/user/miked378.

Here are some other KrazyWolf.com links posted recently on Reddit:

September 6:  A link in /r/NotTheOnion about Monopoly: 78 upvotes, later deleted.
September 7:  A link in /r/NotTheOnion about Monopoly: 2,847 upvotes, later deleted.
September 8:  A link in /r/NotTheOnion about Monopoly: 103 upvotes, submitted by /u/flembdog.
September 8:  A link in /r/NotTheOnion about Monopoly: 114 upvotes, later deleted.
September 8:  A link in /r/Science about Monopoly: 35 upvotes, submitted by /u/flembdog.

Nobody who commented on the posts in /r/TwoXChromosomes mentioned the Krazy Wolf link. To be clear, I don't have an issue with the content of the op-ed itself, nor with the content on Krazy Wolf.  I just don't understand how people can consume news and not wonder about the source of their information.

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