Conspiracy forum or news aggregator?

Has anyone else noticed that the vast majority of the most popular threads on seemingly all conspiracy forums is increasingly becoming news stories? It's a trend I've seen for years and years now. Just look at the most popular threads on this forum day in and day out. They're mostly just news stories, usually from MSM sources.

This problem is by no means the fault of the management of this website. The management of ATS has done an incredible amount of work I believe to focus the users of the forum on conspiracy theories and research. I think the fact that this site is increasingly looking like a news aggregator is the fault of the users only. There is some conspiracy theory analysis in the news threads. But, with about 90% of the posts in those threads I can't see any significant difference between the comments here and the comment sections on the MSM sites that those articles usually originate from.

I should mention that at some of the other large conspiracy forums, the management is actively trying to turn those forums into something resembling a news aggregator. Why? It appears that's what drives traffic for those sites. The fact that news is driving traffic on these sites rather than conspiracy theory and research is the heart of the problem in my opinion.

I think the user base of conspiracy forums are increasingly forgetting what these forums are actually for. In my opinion, we're supposed to be coming to clearer understandings of why things happen so that we can make better predictions, take more appropriate action, and ultimately make the world better through improved understanding and action. Discussing news events can help with those things a little. But, it does not give one the kind of insight that comes through adequate conspiracy theory research.

a reply to: Profusion

Just look at the most popular threads on this forum day in and day out. They're mostly just news stories, usually from MSM sources.

The difference here is there are alternative viewpoints to that.

a reply to: Profusion

Profusion...

While I agree that a conspiracy site becoming a mere news aggregator is not helpful, I also believe that it is impossible to overstate the importance of keeping an eye out for current affairs. By careful and intelligent analysis of the news as provided by the MSM, it is possible to read between the lines, the stories untold, the angles not explored, and this in turn provides a picture of things, that you might not have seen before. The effect is somewhat similar to interferometry, in that you can learn how to see a thing, by looking carefully at what is NOT being reported.

This has, in my experience, been the most useful tool against ignorance, that one could hope to have in times such as these, where no current affairs story in the media can be taken on face value.

a reply to: Profusion

I do seem to see reports of news here before I see them elsewhere. Maybe I am logged on here too much?
Sometimes there are real conspiracy threads, and sometimes they are not 404'd.

a reply to: Profusion

I've noticed it too. And it started happening right after Obama was elected.

It's definitely his fault, as with everything else.

#sarcasm

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: Profusion

I've noticed it too. And it started happening right after Obama was elected.

It's definitely his fault, as with everything else.

#sarcasm

Nope.
Obama said it was Bushes fault.

I've learned about several events from ATS hours or days before they became highly publicized.

I've also posted events literally within minutes of them happening, before they get picked up by many news outlets.

While I can certainly see that there a number of "news" stories that utilize MSM, I think the big difference here is that what MSM and the public at large see as a "sad/tragic/awful/terrible story" the people on ATS can often times see something deeper in the event. Maybe it's something, maybe it's not. But dots get connected here on ATS that aren't connected on MSM. Ideas are explored that MSM doesn't.

For me that's an important difference. I don't mind seeing stories posted here because chances are I wouldn't have seen them posted elsewhere and even if I had, questions get asked on ATS that don't get asked elsewhere.

a reply to: Shamrock6

Completely agree.

ATS members don't tend to read the crap on MSM and take it,

We are always sceptical of major events,

And for that, I am, and always will be a member of this forum, and not a member of any MSM forum.

Here we have discussion as opposed to being just a news feed.

Big difference

That said, I do wish members would do more research and post great kooky weird and wonderful threads. The politics on the boards is awful.
I'd also like more science and astronomy threads but they don't spark bi partisan emotional hysteria so there is less traction.

Any hoo Im gonna write a thread on a little kooky indigenous sky dreamtime story methinks.

If you know how the world works its very unhealthy to spruik it Im here primarily for news and current events

a reply to: Profusion

I'd call it an 'opinion' agregator or somesuch...

New's is defined as Who, What, When, Where and How - no analysis, no commentary - just facts.

(and yes I know you cannot be 100% without bias, but in my journalism class (I didn't do well) we were required to stick to verifiable facts. Seems they teach it differently today.)

a reply to: FyreByrd

That's what news is supposed to be, and that's what good reporting *is.*

Sadly, many people confuse pundit spin and commentary with "news" and "reporting."

That's the problem.

I can only speak for myself. I don't have any grand conspiracy theories that I can share here that haven't already been brought up in a way more articulate manner than anything I can come up with.

So I try to share a few things I find interesting, in the hope that someone with a more paranoid or creative mind will see something I don't, or can't, based on my fairly mainstream mindset.

a reply to: Profusion

This is the inevitable result of the consumerization -- that is, the monetization -- of conspiracy culture. Of course the sites are to blame for it: they're the ones pushing conspiracy theories into the mainstream.

They (ATS very much included) are configured to pull in conspiracy-theory dabblers, who swell the page-view stats and are more likely than hard-core conspiracy theorists to respond to advertising, etc.

But the fashion for conspiracy theories in popular culture is fading, and advertisers are getting wise; that is why we're seeing appeals for user donations from this site and others.

Be patient. In a year or two conspiracy theories will be counterculture again, and the thrill of dabbling in the esoteric and forbidden will return.

Or perhaps not.

Well, it's that season again for partisan leaning news. Also, new sources are easier to share because there is less of "attacking the messenger" that often happens in conspiracy threads. That dissuades many, especially new membership, from moving beyond news topics.

I would offer that currently the "news" is a conspiracy in and of itself and that many of the posts about MSM articles are created to show and demonstrate this reality. With the quiet Congressional gutting of Smith-Mundt we have been left in a situation where a discussion of the news is necessary, if for no other reason than to struggle to determine if any given story is real or blatant propaganda.

If we lived in a world where the Fourth Estate was essentially ethical, I honestly think communities such as ATS would then have the luxury to get back to things like aliens and cryptids.

Right now we've got much more immediate things to address.

a reply to: Hefficide

Beautifully put Heff.

This is exactly the sort of approach which we need to see more of.

a reply to: Profusion

Can really only speak for myself ...

I feel cynical and powerless sometimes putting a lot of research into ATS things. I'd like to see some kind of activism or something I guess. Feel often I'm just writing something to be read (aka consumed) then it vanishes into the ether. Moreover, even in my primary field I don't really feel I 'know' anything special worth telling anyone. We're a civilization of consumers and repeaters.

I'm probably just letting my whimsical cynicism for the interwebs drool onto the web board.

Zazz's dreamtime thread sounds good tho ...

ATS = Pressure release valve. Other similar sites are the same. There are no solutions offered just a place to vent about the mainstream. I think a big problem is many of the contributors of original threads are ran out of here by the cliquish hardcore armchair debunkers who rely on the indoctrination style education of the masses as some kind of bulwark against anything that goes against the grain. Others have been run off by the heavy handed modding and biased removal of threads with no transparency. Personally I am thankful that some of the contributors have stuck around and still deliver gold for those who wish to consume it. People like Kantzveldt and a handful of others.