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Kanye West Yeezy Season 4 - Front Row/Arrivals

Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty

Something that was meant to add more potential voters to get registered is backfiring pretty hard on the publication who chose to post it.

ELLE Magazine’s latest headline has everyone talking–and that’s because it’s completely fake. They posted the following to their Twitter page: “Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are splitting up” which included a link and a picture of the famous couple, all adorned with a shocked emoji and a broken heart emoji.

Let’s be honest, a lot of us who scroll Twitter don’t click on the link to certain stories that come across our feed, because the headline says it all–so a lot of replies to this “story” are distressed fans upset that a KimYe breakup has been confirmed by a credible publication.

But that’s just the thing–Kim and Kanye didn’t actually get a divorce at all. When people click on the link ELLE posted, it takes you to a page on their website that helps users register to vote.

Though most of us agree voting is extremely important, this just isn’t the way to get people to register for a multitude of reasons.

  1. Ever heard of a guy named Donald Trump proclaiming “Fake news?” This is actual fake news that’s trying to convince people to vote instead of taking them where they were told they’re going.
  2. The link doesn’t take users to a random voter registration, but it’s a portal that leads to ELLE’s actual website. This leads many people to believe that the publication’s sole purpose wasn’t actually registering voters, but rather, getting clicks on a HUGE story that no other publication has yet.
  3. It’s pretty condescending to send out a story and have it actually link to something “more important.” Though most will agree that celebrity news is trivial in the big scheme of things, that doesn’t mean those who want to know whether or not Kim and Kanye broke up should be misled and tricked into some political scheme.

New York Times bestselling author Roxanne Gay quickly replied to ELLE Magazine’s attempt at luring voters, calling them out for “trash nonsense.” She points out that people can be “civic minded and interested in celebrity gossip,” telling the mag to do better than sending out fake links with click-bait headlines.

While some users applauded the effort to get more voters registered, most people–especially fellow journalists, writers, and publications–stood firm in the idea that nobody who clicks on a link with the intention of reading an article is going to register to vote after being bamboozled.

 

And the heat definitely doesn’t stop there, click through to the next page to check out more angry reactions to what many are describing as a ploy for more clicks.

Scoopity Oops: People Are Big Mad At A Publication Trying To Register Voters With A Fake Headline About Kim & Kanye Divorce  was originally published on globalgrind.com

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