Talk:BuzzFeed/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Article Cleanup

This article, aside from the Controversy section, reads a bit like an ad or instruction manual for the site. Half of the page's citations are in the Controversy section, despite there being five sections other including the intro. Any suggestions on how to restructure this article? Fench (talk) 19:51, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Media Guido tidbit

I have again removed the reference to the incident when Buzzfeed offered the Muslim Issues corespondent free beer. The only source was this very brief blog post which failed to indicate that this was a real controversy, or that anyone other than Paul Staines even noticed. There's no indication that this offer wasn't standard for all employees, and nothing about the job description required that the employee be a Muslim, much less an observant once. Grayfell (talk) 00:47, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Editors editorialising

How does the quote 'because, ugh, men' become 'encouraging diversity' in the very next sentence? One is from the actual source, the other from a Wikipedia editor. Adding a certain gender to a workplace already dominated by that gender doesn't make it 'more diverse' by the way. It does exactly the opposite. In fact, of the 12 articles being promoted by Buzzfeed.com right now, 10 are from women. And there are no threats in the source linked claiming rape and death threats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.37.151.195 (talk) 22:19, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Here are the sources for that section, which very clearly support that she received rape and death threats:
Wikipedia isn't the place for original research, but your comments about diversity are easily disprovable: [1][2][3][4][5] etc. Grayfell (talk) 22:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)


Two of your three 'sources' don't mention rape. The third includes no threat. Not one of your five sources mentions the topic. May I ask, do you work for Buzzfeed, or have a personal relationship with their employees? I was about to re-write it but it looks like someone has cleaned it up. It should be better, "but, ugh, wikipedia". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.37.151.232 (talk) 17:51, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 11 January 2017

96.245.221.130 (talk) 08:19, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

FAKE* News organization that does not fact check sources before publishing article.

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 08:32, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 January 2017

Section "Technology and social media", about Tasty: please change "Portuguese cuisine" to "Brazilian cuisine". "Tasty Demais" is operated by Buzzfeed Brasil. FSaldanha (talk) 22:13, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

 Done, sort of. I've removed the list of specific languages, since there was no source, and it was overly-promotional anyway. Grayfell (talk) 23:11, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't Buzzfeed's response to Trump be added?

In their own defense, they described themselves as being a very *successful* pile of garbage. That is the kind of humor in the face of adversity which makes America great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.171.107 (talk) 23:52, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Buzzfeed is now selling "Failing pile of garbage" t-shirts, which is, itself generating controversy as it makes it look like they don't take themselves seriously. I think this is going to be changing pretty fast. Source-wise, there's a mountain of coverage to work with, and some of it's even reliable. I'm having a hard time figuring out how much to include, and how much is partisan WP:RECENTISM or just plain old gossip. Grayfell (talk) 01:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Buzzfeed has no journalistic integrity, of course they wouldn't take themselves seriously. Do people even consider Buzzfeed to be a reliable source, especially when they post fake information? Burklemore1 (talk) 04:28, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Whether or not Buzzfeed is a reliable source or not is really controversial; currently, it is considered one, though consensus can always change (I myself don't consider Buzzfeed reliable) and I would recommend using another source over Buzzfeed (it's like a last resort thing, honestly). But, this is a discussion for WP:RSN, not here (or at least not this section). JudgeRM (talk to me) 04:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The New York Times had a rather critical article of Buzzfeed's decision to publish the dossier: [6] "the executive editor of The Times, said the paper would not publish the document because the allegations were “totally unsubstantiated.” The article also detailed how many journalists were approached with the document but everyone except Buzzfeed turned it down. --Pudeo (talk) 00:49, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Most sources go even farther and call it unsubstantiatable. I've moved it from "Criticism and controversies" to "Content" and then decided that a "Notable stories" section would be more helpful. The article is still all over the place, but describing this as a controversy on the same level as the "ugh. men" tweet seems silly. Judging by the amount of coverage this is getting, this is likely of lasting impact, but time will tell. I've expanded it somewhat, but I've tried to limit the number of opinion pieces used. The Atlantic article is an exception, but it seems like important context that Buzzfeed did not present the dossier as necessarily factual. Grayfell (talk) 03:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 February 2017

The Buzzfeed page says that it was founded on November 1, 2006 and that that date was 10 years ago, when it was actually 11 years ago. Azurearmor (talk) 03:19, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Not done. Simply put, no, it actually hasn't been 11 years (it's only February; 11 years would be in November). The actual date is just as important to show how long ago something happened as the year. JudgeRM (talk to me) 03:23, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

"Left-wing"

I've removed left wing from the lead. While this may be accurate, it was not supported by the attached sources as being a defining trait, and therefor doesn't belong in the lead. The two sources were:

  • "BuzzFeed pulls out of RNC advertising". Politico. June 6, 2016.
  • "Ranking the media from liberal to conservative". Washington Post. October 21, 2014.

The first from Politico mentions nothing about "left-wing". The article is about Buzzfeeds decision to back-out of an advertising deal regarding Donald Trump. Using that to say they are left-wing is WP:SYNTH.

The second from The Washington Post is a comparative listing of the audiences of many outlets, not their editorial positions. It barely mentions Buzzfeed, either: People who read BuzzFeed, Politico, The Washington Post and The New York Times all tend to be more liberal. That's the only prose mention. Using that to go to "left-wing" is WP:OR. There is also a chart in the article which lumps Buzzfeed in with PBS, Washington Post, and the Economist, and none of those are definitively described as "left-wing". Grayfell (talk) 05:00, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed with everything you said here. FuriouslySerene (talk) 07:17, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Agreed too. I've seen one ref added that discussed a methodology for judging this (but didn't even mention BuzzFeed) and others that were echoing some online vox-popping, which falls way short of RS. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

What about these racially-charged comments from Jonah Peretti about Ivanka Trump? https://www.complex.com/life/2016/10/buzzfeed-ceo-heard-ivanka-trump-talk-about-mulatto-penis

Notable?

BuzzFeed is displaying a photo of Miley Cyrus that is, arguably, actionable. In my view, it's notable. You can find a gazillion reliable sources taking note of the incident that leads up to the picture, but none actually displaying it, at least not without pixilation or some other way of obscuring it. Do others think it worth including? I'm hiding a link to the picture in the code here. David in DC (talk) 18:17, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If BuzzFeed is notable because they published a photo of Miley Cyrus, that incident should be included in the lead. BTW, outside the USA, Miley Cyrus isn't notable, even if she's not obese. --80.114.178.7 (talk) 21:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

When taking into consideration this question: "Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?", Buzzfeed displaying that Miley Cyrus isn't worth having on the article, isn't relevant, and is distracting in terms of learning information about Buzzfeed. Also, I think the part of the article in which it talks about their Spinoffs aren't worth mentioning since it hasn't been a huge contributor to Buzzfeed (hence why it's such a small section in the article), and since it's not as relevant to the other information, I find it to be a bit distracting when reading the entire article. I think it takes away from the relevancy to the topics mentioned, and it also takes away the relevancy of Buzzfeed since not everything is relevant to the article topic (Buzzfeed) and some isn't worth noting. Skosaveach (talk) 03:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

social justice warriors

are they sjw's?174.26.45.51 (talk) 04:43, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Well sjw is an insult so whether they are or not the article can't say they are due to the Neutral Point Of View policy (such as it is). Apparently they call themselves Boldly now and not Buzzfeed any more incidentally. 86.45.226.161 (talk) 11:58, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

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Lead summary

Doug Weller Since this isn't a very good summary, do you have anything else in mind? The text you removed seems to be a summary of over half the (lengthy) section on controversies. Saturnalia0 (talk) 12:52, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Have you read WP:LEAD? How about a short bit on each of the sections for notable stories and controversies? I'd say stick to 2014 and later as there's obviously been a big change in Buzzfeed during that time and it's pretty much a different animal. It seems to have cleaned up the plagiarism problem, and we shouldn't write anything that would make readers think this is a current issue. Maybe a sentence for each, mentioning the Trump dossier as a notable story as that's still an ongoing issue[7] (which mentions the change in Buzzfeed "from a site known largely for clickbait to an award-winning news organization.") I'm not sure about the controversies, perhaps no specific one should be mentioned. I'll add that the UK advertising issue is a fairly common problem and I'm sure a lot of organisations have run foul of it. I find too many paper newspapers have ads that look like articles (with disclaimers, but not everyone reads them). The tweet, meh. It's more about an employee than Buzzfeed. Doug Weller talk 14:05, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
White wash its history you mean? Award winning, really? I didn't know that. I guess the fake news business is promising after all. Anyway, if you don't think anything specific should be mentioned, what do you have in mind? Let me guess: Don't mention anything at all? Saturnalia0 (talk) 13:08, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, if you aren't going to show good faith there can be no serious discourse here. Doug Weller talk 15:05, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Awards and recognition

I've added a small section on notable awards. This should not taken as promotional, but simply add nuance into how BuzzFeed has evolved (and been received) over the years. While many still associate BuzzFeed with lists and quizzes, it is important to accurately portray the rising role in investigative journalism, good or bad. Serious readers will want to assess the reputation and impact of the company in both news and entertainment. In depth articles covering the history of BuzzFeed News, rather than run-of-the-mill, news-of-the-day reports, should be strongly utilized. I think coverage of individual stories ("notable stories" as well as "Criticism and controversies") should probably be trimmed, with all but the most pertinent details relegated to sub-articles. --Animalparty! (talk) 08:41, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Criticism and controversies

I will be working to pare down the "Criticism and controversies" section, as its mere title is a violation of WP:NPOV, and the word count is nearly double the length of the History section. Per WP:PROPORTION, "discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic." And per WP:CRITS, sections should not be titled "controversy" at all. Significant controversies should be succinctly noted, without padding and excessive quotes. Not everything negative (nor good) need be included. Especially suspect is reporting from the now-defunct Gawker and other gossip and sensationalist websites. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Reverted bit about 37 things white people need to stop ruining - it was parody/satire

37 Things White People Need To Stop Ruining In 2018 You really need to see the videos to get the most out of the humour.[8] First of all, America.

1. Macaroni and cheese.

2. Protests.

3. K-pop.

4. Sneaker culture.

5. Makeup.

6. Trees.

7. And the United States of America. by voting Trump

8. The Oscars.

9. The Grammys.

10. Migos's "Bad and Boujee."

11. Especially boujee.

12. And Quavo's name.

13. Kodak Black's "Tunnel Vision."

14. 21 Savage's "Bank Account."

15. 2Pac's "California Love."

16. Aminé's "Caroline."

17. Our national anthem.

18. And our national dance.

19. The Milly Rock.

20. The Hit Dem Folks dance.

21. I repeat: the Hit Dem Folks dance.

22. One more time for ya'll in the cheap seats: THE.HIT.DEM.FOLKS.DANCE.

24. Any challenge really.

25. Car freestyles.

26. So basically hip-hop.

27. Classics, like Destiny's Child's "Say My Name"...

28. ...the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song...

29. ...and Hidden Figures AND Fences.

30. #BlackGirlMagic.

31. Saying things like "YAAASSS queen!!!" and "Snatched my wig."

32. Joints.

33. Chopped cheese.

34. Childhoods.

35. Identifying as Filipino.

36. Identifying as black.

37. And googling "things white people ruin."

Doug Weller talk 17:12, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

It wasn't my intention to get into an edit war, but if people are going to revert an edit, doing so with a comment of 'nope' isn't particularly helpful. Re: the reverting of the edit, if a more right-wing biased news website published a similar article about black people, Latinos or Asians, there'd have been uproar. It wouldn't just be deemed 'satire'. More to the point, this Buzzfeed article, and others like it, offended a lot of people and attracted strong criticism. If it doesn't deserve a mention in the lede then it should at least be included in the criticism section Hop on7 (talk) 01:53, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Your language was pretty pov, for a start. You stated as fact that Buzzfeed has an anti-white bias. You called it an article while Buzzfeed commented that it's important to distinguish between news and entertainment. You used the word "strong" which is evidently your opinion. Yes, Fox News pushed its outrage hard. Particular Tucker Carlson, who has said that anyone who believes that there is such a thing as white privilege is a racist.[9] Infowars was upset. The conservative Media Research Center was upset - or rather Dan Gainor was, and look at a list of other things that upset him[10]. And Joe Concha, reporter for The Hill, was upset - no surprise, he went there from Fox News. This seems a storm in a right-wing/conservative teacup that doesn't belong in this article. Doug Weller talk 14:26, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Channels

Most of these don't belong as we aren't a directory. Of course if any of them are notable on their own, great. Otherwise they should go. And anyone not obviously meeting our notability criteria. Doug Weller talk 18:11, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposed article split

BuzzFeed News, although owned by BuzzFeed, should be split into another article as the subject matters are quite different. BuzzFeed News operates largely independently from the company and details about it should be expanded upon. Thoughts? 18:15, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Support - BuzzFeed News seems to have a slightly better reputation than the BuzzFeed website, or at least they're judged by different standards. Recently it seems that BuzzFeed News has split its website from buzzfeed.com/news to buzzfeednews.com. FallingGravity 21:57, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - I don't know the Wiki rules on this, but it seems like Buzzfeed News seems big enough and consequential enough to merit its own Wikipedia article. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:08, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 Done See BuzzFeed News Daylen (talk) 07:04, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Fake news website classification

I think along with the fake Russian dossier publication in 2017 along with today's fake news "bombshell," some weird fantasy about Trump ordering Cohen to perjure himself and then later debunked by the Mueller team, it's time to characterize BuzzFeed as a fake news website in the opening paragraph. Need to add BuzzFeed to the List of fake news websites as well. 99.50.80.96 (talk) 00:55, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Later, maybe. But not today. --Dervorguilla (talk) 07:49, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Adding a related RT USA News article as a second source for material cited to a CNN Politics article, per WP:IAR policy; this addition improves the encyclopedia, by furnishing the official viewpoint of Russia's own news agency - which happens to be consonant with CNN's viewpoint on this issue. (Ironically, we'll also get to test whether this addition helps to dissuade aggrieved users from making disruptive edits...) --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:23, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
See WP:RSP (no consensus for or against RT's reliability). See also the WP:CONTEXTMATTERS guideline (this source is indeed thought to be "focused on" this and closely related topics; and though RT is for obvious reasons not permitted to check its facts when reporting on Ukraine, it would have no obvious reason not to check them here). --Dervorguilla (talk) 11:41, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
There is zero value in adding Russian state propaganda to any Wikipedia page, least of all on topics related to the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Follow WP:BRD and find consensus to add your authoritarian state propaganda. I strongly encourage you to go the RS noticeboard to argue that RT is a valuable source on matters related to Russian interference. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:18, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

left leaning

buzzfeed is in deed left leaning — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncagedman (talk • contribs) 04:31, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

This was already discussed above. In a nutshell, Buzzfeed may be lots of things, but not all of those belong in the first sentence. It's not important unless you can find sources that explain why it's important. Grayfell (talk) 05:08, 19 June 2018 (UTC)


Its important to inform people which way a company leans — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncagedman (talk • contribs) 15:49, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Also if the daily wire is considered a comservative news source them buzzfeed should be called a liberal news source — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncagedman (talk • contribs) 15:53, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

We can't tell if Buzzfeed is left leaning unless a left-leaning media source calls it such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:1E02:C05D:A10F:533B:4C80:20DE (talk) 06:48, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

to be consistent, the lede should say "far-left"

in keeping with other pages on wikipedia relating to media outlets, for example anything to the right of "Marxism Now!" being labelled "extreme far-right," BuzzFeed should be labelled "extreme alt-left" or similar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:12C1:44F5:35B2:361A:2773:EF2E (talk) 15:56, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

this has already been discussed in this section and in this one, please read the talk page in the future instead of blindly making assumptions after reading one sentence from the lead Razorhawk4595 (talk) 02:15, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Is the Sources section a joke? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:802A:E040:A4E7:A1B6:DD7C:B0D8 (talk) 02:31, 26 March 2015 (UTC)


These questions should be taken into consideration when checking out the sources for this article about Buzzfeed:

  • Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
  • Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?

Unfortunately, I don't think that the sources listed on the bottom of the page are neutral sources, meaning that some/most of the sources are biased, and at least some of the references are not reliable. Many of the sources and references listed are either from Buzzfeed's actual site (which makes the info biased), some of the references are from Facebook pages and blogs (which aren't as reliable), and references/sources coming from biased websites (The Washington Post, Washington Times, The Christian Post, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, etc), which, if some of the references on Buzzfeed's article is biased, then some of the information on this article is biased and not from reliable sources as well. The information about Buzzfeed coming from biased websites is not noted, however. The sources and references should be better, and have neutral, reliable references to make this article about Buzzfeed more creditable and trustworthy. Skosaveach (talk) 03:57, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

In the funding section, the 2019 post about 15% of the people are planned to be laid off there was no source. Please make sure to cite your statements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asurak (talk • contribs) 00:43, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Funding Section

I am working on rewriting the funding section. I want to edit the section to have better flow, opting for a narrative style over the current single sentence facts listed. I am also looking to add more current information to fill the section better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aeastvol (talk • contribs) 16:45, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

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