

Downworthy: Browser plugin to tone down hyperbolic viral headlines - bane
http://downworthy.snipe.net/

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benologist
This is funny but why stop at the headline? These rags exist purely to leech
and hijack traffic and that defines more than just their headlines. The
example URL was stolen from Reddit and as per the norm attributed in such a
slimey, parasitic way there's no reason to go to the source after -

[http://www.viralnova.com/grandpas-attic/](http://www.viralnova.com/grandpas-
attic/) \+
[http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1vgnt9/medical_chest_i...](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1vgnt9/medical_chest_i_found_in_my_grandfathers_attic/)

A better solution is to stop rewarding plagiarism and shitty sensationalism
with traffic. A plugin that redirects you to the original source. Or actively
fighting it - Reddit and Facebook can shut it out any time they want.

Also the article mentions The Huffington Post almost in passing but I think
they actually pioneered this - [http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/how-the-
huffington-post-use...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/how-the-huffington-
post-uses-real-time-testing-to-write-better-headlines/)

~~~
newscracker
> A better solution is to stop rewarding plagiarism and shitty sensationalism
> with traffic. A plugin that redirects you to the original source.

The problem with shitty content is that there are people to propagate them
around with Likes and Shares. Changing the reward pattern here falls in the
realm of changing people's mindsets.

For plagiarism, getting to the source would help reduce traffic _iff_ more
people use such an extension.

For shitty sensationalism, there are two ways I can think of (there could be
more) - a) the extension should block such links/content from feeds on social
networks, but that would only help those who use the extension, without doing
anything for social change and b) the extension should comment on such posts,
pointing readers to a (simple and ad-free) site that explains the harm caused
by such content (in addition to just wasting time).

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lotharbot
This needs to be integrated with some sort of mouseover tl;dr of the actual
article. (Like
[https://twitter.com/SavedYouAClick](https://twitter.com/SavedYouAClick) ).

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ricardolopes
Should change the title to "I couldn't believe what I saw: this browser plugin
is hated by clickbait websites and the reason will blow your mind!"

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rorski
Brilliant. I tried blocking everything buzzfeed from FB but it doesn't seem to
work. At least I can be entertained now instead of annoyed by the clickbait.

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Karunamon
Am I the only one that sees the level of biting sarcasm used on the filters
this plugin provides to be roughly 10x as annoying as what it sets out to
solve?

So we go from overblown to as written by the world's most petulant 13 year
old. Not a improvement, IMO.

~~~
TorKlingberg
It's a funny concept, not something you are actually supposed to use.

~~~
Karunamon
Heh, it reminds me of cloud-to-butt.

~~~
pessimizer
"There have been similar plugins that came before this one that served as
sources of inspiration in both execution and code, and they're worth checking
out if you haven't already, most notably the hilarious Cloud-to-Butt plugin
([https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-
butt](https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt)) by @panicsteve and the
amazing Jailbreak the Patriarchy plugin
([http://www.daniellesucher.com/2011/11/jailbreak-the-
patriarc...](http://www.daniellesucher.com/2011/11/jailbreak-the-patriarchy-
my-first-chrome-extension/)) by @DanielleSucher."

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bsg75
Its entertaining to see what the plugin does to its own homepage:

    
    
        "One Piece of Completely Anecdotal Horseshit" becomes
        "One Piece of Completely Anecdotal Horseshit"

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Strilanc
This is funny, but more practically I think I'd prefer a classifier that
identified viral headlines and just replaced the link title with "[garbage]".

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jtheory
Relevant comic:
[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2672](http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2672)

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im3w1l
Why didn't it replace

    
    
        "Whoa" => "*yawn*"
    

in the first image?

~~~
ARCarr
Older version, maybe?

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MalcolmDiggs
I'm laughing so hard at this. Amazeballs.

