ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sally Kohn - Political pundit
Sally Kohn searches for common ground among political foes by focusing on the compassion and humanity in everyone.

Why you should listen

Sally Kohn has a powerful vision for a more united United States. She's a columnist and a political commentator for CNN, and she is working on a book about hate that will be published in the spring of 2018. As a former contributor to Fox News, this progressive lesbian sparred with some of the most conservative minds on television and has sifted through hundreds of letters of hate mail a day. But she deeply believes in finding our common humanity, political differences aside. Before we can achieve political correctness, we must first establish emotional correctness — and this will ignite conversations that lead to real change.

Kohn has appeared on Fox, MSNBC and CNN and has written for The Daily Beast, Salon, The Atlantic and TIME Magazine.

More profile about the speaker
Sally Kohn | Speaker | TED.com
TED@NYC

Sally Kohn: Don't like clickbait? Don't click

Filmed:
1,482,015 views

Doesn't it seem like a lot of online news sites have moved beyond reporting the news to openly inciting your outrage (and your page views)? News analyst Sally Kohn suggests — don't engage with news that looks like it just wants to make you mad. Instead, give your precious clicks to the news sites you truly trust.
- Political pundit
Sally Kohn searches for common ground among political foes by focusing on the compassion and humanity in everyone. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
So recently,
0
269
2105
00:14
some white guys and some black women
1
2374
2802
00:17
swapped Twitter avatars, or pictures online.
2
5176
2632
00:19
They didn't change their content,
3
7808
1285
00:21
they kept tweeting the same as usual,
4
9093
1811
00:22
but suddenly, the white guys noticed
5
10904
2798
00:25
they were getting called the n-word all the time
6
13702
1901
00:27
and they were getting the worst kind of online abuse,
7
15603
2728
00:30
whereas the black women all of a sudden
8
18331
2560
00:32
noticed things got a lot more pleasant for them.
9
20891
3071
00:35
Now, if you're my five-year-old,
10
23962
1935
00:37
your Internet consists mostly of puppies and fairies
11
25897
3233
00:41
and occasionally fairies riding puppies.
12
29130
2155
00:43
That's a thing. Google it.
13
31285
2745
00:46
But the rest of us know that the Internet
14
34030
2294
00:48
can be a really ugly place.
15
36324
2858
00:51
I'm not talking about the kind of colorful debates
16
39182
2975
00:54
that I think are healthy for our democracy.
17
42157
2288
00:56
I'm talking about nasty personal attacks.
18
44445
3378
00:59
Maybe it's happened to you, but it's at least
19
47823
2124
01:01
twice as likely to happen, and be worse,
20
49947
2791
01:04
if you're a woman, a person of color, or gay,
21
52738
2003
01:06
or more than one at the same time.
22
54741
1934
01:08
In fact, just as I was writing this talk,
23
56675
2689
01:11
I found a Twitter account called @SallyKohnSucks.
24
59364
2999
01:16
The bio says that I'm a
25
64343
2872
01:19
"man-hater and a bull dyke and the only
thing I've ever accomplished with my career
26
67215
3509
01:22
is spreading my perverse sexuality."
27
70724
2565
01:25
Which, incidentally, is only a third correct.
28
73289
2177
01:27
I mean, lies! (Laughter)
29
75466
3650
01:33
But seriously, we all say we hate this crap.
30
81000
2113
01:35
The question is whether you're willing to make
31
83113
1817
01:36
a personal sacrifice to change it.
32
84930
3188
01:40
I don't mean giving up the Internet.
33
88118
1862
01:41
I mean changing the way you click,
34
89980
2202
01:44
because clicking is a public act.
35
92182
2855
01:47
It's no longer the case
36
95037
1673
01:48
that a few powerful elites control all the media
37
96710
2411
01:51
and the rest of us are just passive receivers.
38
99121
2239
01:53
Increasingly, we're all the media.
39
101360
2812
01:56
I used to think, oh, okay, I get dressed up,
40
104172
3160
01:59
I put on a lot of makeup,
41
107332
1906
02:01
I go on television, I talk about the news.
42
109238
1878
02:03
That is a public act of making media.
43
111116
3341
02:06
And then I go home and I browse the web
44
114457
2059
02:08
and I'm reading Twitter,
45
116516
1136
02:09
and that's a private act of consuming media.
46
117652
2117
02:11
I mean, of course it is. I'm in my pajamas.
47
119769
2557
02:14
Wrong.
48
122326
1826
02:16
Everything we blog, everything we Tweet,
49
124152
2114
02:18
and everything we click
50
126266
3355
02:21
is a public act of making media.
51
129621
3316
02:24
We are the new editors.
52
132937
1544
02:26
We decide what gets attention
53
134481
1832
02:28
based on what we give our attention to.
54
136313
2797
02:31
That's how the media works now.
55
139110
1347
02:32
There's all these hidden algorithms that decide
56
140457
2413
02:34
what you see more of and what we all see more of
57
142870
2263
02:37
based on what you click on,
58
145133
1757
02:38
and that in turn shapes our whole culture.
59
146890
4066
02:42
Over three out of five Americans think we have
60
150956
1955
02:44
a major incivility problem in our country right now,
61
152911
3990
02:48
but I'm going to guess that at least three out of five
62
156901
1734
02:50
Americans are clicking on the same insult-oriented,
63
158635
4020
02:54
rumor-mongering trash that feeds
64
162655
2148
02:56
the nastiest impulses in our society.
65
164803
3057
02:59
In an increasingly noisy media landscape,
66
167860
3973
03:03
the incentive is to make more noise to be heard,
67
171833
3380
03:07
and that tyranny of the loud
68
175213
2927
03:10
encourages the tyranny of the nasty.
69
178140
3337
03:13
It does not have to be that way.
70
181477
2918
03:16
It does not.
71
184395
1562
03:17
We can change the incentive.
72
185957
2875
03:20
For starters, there are two things we can all do.
73
188832
1620
03:22
First, don't just stand by the sidelines
when you see someone getting hurt.
74
190452
3933
03:26
If someone is being abused online, do something.
75
194385
3680
03:30
Be a hero. This is your chance.
76
198065
2129
03:32
Speak up. Speak out. Be a good person.
77
200194
2351
03:34
Drown out the negative with the positive.
78
202545
2296
03:36
And second, we've got to stop clicking
79
204841
3389
03:40
on the lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeding
80
208230
2403
03:42
linkbait.
81
210633
1366
03:43
If you don't like the 24/7 all Kardashian
82
211999
3572
03:47
all the time programming,
83
215571
1682
03:49
you've got to stop clicking on the stories
84
217253
1874
03:51
about Kim Kardashian's sideboob.
85
219127
3943
03:55
I know you do it. (Applause)
86
223070
2804
03:57
You too, apparently.
87
225874
1940
03:59
I mean, really, same example:
88
227814
1125
04:00
if you don't like politicians calling each other names,
89
228939
2497
04:03
stop clicking on the stories
90
231436
1711
04:05
about what one guy in one party called
the other guy in the other party.
91
233147
3060
04:08
Clicking on a train wreck just pours gasoline on it.
92
236207
2791
04:10
It makes it worse, the fire spreads.
93
238998
1922
04:12
Our whole culture gets burned.
94
240920
3997
04:16
If what gets the most clicks wins,
95
244917
3133
04:20
then we have to start shaping the world we want
96
248050
2871
04:22
with our clicks,
97
250921
1969
04:24
because clicking is a public act.
98
252890
3886
04:28
So click responsibly. Thank you.
99
256776
2480
04:31
(Applause)
100
259256
4000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sally Kohn - Political pundit
Sally Kohn searches for common ground among political foes by focusing on the compassion and humanity in everyone.

Why you should listen

Sally Kohn has a powerful vision for a more united United States. She's a columnist and a political commentator for CNN, and she is working on a book about hate that will be published in the spring of 2018. As a former contributor to Fox News, this progressive lesbian sparred with some of the most conservative minds on television and has sifted through hundreds of letters of hate mail a day. But she deeply believes in finding our common humanity, political differences aside. Before we can achieve political correctness, we must first establish emotional correctness — and this will ignite conversations that lead to real change.

Kohn has appeared on Fox, MSNBC and CNN and has written for The Daily Beast, Salon, The Atlantic and TIME Magazine.

More profile about the speaker
Sally Kohn | Speaker | TED.com