I recently had come across my Facebook feed this interesting "breaking news" item claiming that Egypt had charged Obama and Hillary Clinton with war crimes.
The Conservative Tribune is one of many right wing blogs that makes its living off people mistaking it for real journalism and sharing its posts on social media. And judging by the activity on my Facebook, there are a lot of people making this mistake.
Here's the thing, though. If you take the time to trace the story back to it's roots, something fascinating occurs. You find that the CT claim that Egypt charged Obama with war crimes was backed by a link to the Western Journalism Center, which claimed, not that Egypt had charged Obama with anything, but that Egyptian lawmakers had charged him.
This, in turn, is sourced by an article on an anti-Muslim CBN blog which claims that a group of Egyptian lawyers had actually made the accusation, in a complaint filed with the International Criminal Court.
The writer on CBN has a single source, an article in an Egyptian newspaper which states that a single lawyer claimed to have submitted to the ICC the charges. This single lawyer, FWIW, was on Mubarak's defense team, and the ICC never acknowledged receiving the communication - and also would not have jurisdiction, at any rate.
Now this stuff all happened a year ago. I don't know when the CT first published their post, but it's making the rounds now as if it's new (the CT purposefully leaves dates off its posts). That isn't the part that interests me, though. It's that a single newspaper in Giza can publish an unsubstantiated claim about a law professor accusing Obama of war crimes, and in three short steps among conservative "writers," it transforms into the Egyptian nation charging him.
At any rate, I offer this simply as an example of how these sites do business. They spread baseless rumor and make up lies simply to attract the kind of outrage that causes gullible people to share their posts on social media, which results in more page visits and more ad revenue. If you tend to read the CT or WJC or anything else like it, you should know what you're getting into.
goat
The Conservative Tribune is one of many right wing blogs that makes its living off people mistaking it for real journalism and sharing its posts on social media. And judging by the activity on my Facebook, there are a lot of people making this mistake.
Here's the thing, though. If you take the time to trace the story back to it's roots, something fascinating occurs. You find that the CT claim that Egypt charged Obama with war crimes was backed by a link to the Western Journalism Center, which claimed, not that Egypt had charged Obama with anything, but that Egyptian lawmakers had charged him.
This, in turn, is sourced by an article on an anti-Muslim CBN blog which claims that a group of Egyptian lawyers had actually made the accusation, in a complaint filed with the International Criminal Court.
The writer on CBN has a single source, an article in an Egyptian newspaper which states that a single lawyer claimed to have submitted to the ICC the charges. This single lawyer, FWIW, was on Mubarak's defense team, and the ICC never acknowledged receiving the communication - and also would not have jurisdiction, at any rate.
Now this stuff all happened a year ago. I don't know when the CT first published their post, but it's making the rounds now as if it's new (the CT purposefully leaves dates off its posts). That isn't the part that interests me, though. It's that a single newspaper in Giza can publish an unsubstantiated claim about a law professor accusing Obama of war crimes, and in three short steps among conservative "writers," it transforms into the Egyptian nation charging him.
At any rate, I offer this simply as an example of how these sites do business. They spread baseless rumor and make up lies simply to attract the kind of outrage that causes gullible people to share their posts on social media, which results in more page visits and more ad revenue. If you tend to read the CT or WJC or anything else like it, you should know what you're getting into.
goat
