What happens is we post screenshots of headlines, peole google the article, click on it, and the same clicks happen (if that really matters), but with now an additional percentage of google searches registered. I get it is from a good place, but the obsession with not posting links is at best misplaced. Don't post them, don't click them, ignore the lot if it pleases you or you think it makes a difference. Others will though, don't let that upset you more than the articles themselves.
I suggested this in a follow up post, but the click-through and sharing rate would far, far reduced with screenshots compared to direct link posting. This is a case of simple friction/less interaction design: make something more difficult to do and fewer people will do it. It also introduces a point of friction that can cause the user to ask “why was the direct link not posted; is it worth me taking the extra step to find this media; what are the consequences of me doing that?”
I encourage everyone to look in to exactly how your online behaviour is tracked, measured, and used to generate content (and revenue), as it is actually a pretty important concept to understand beyond this discussion. That is especially the case given it contributes to the quickening degradation of all manner of things we care about beyond football, including the very real and dangerous slow destruction of “truth” and the widespread social engineering that is taking place across the political and socioeconomic spectrum. Football tribalism is just one of the easier battlegrounds.
And—to be clear—I am actually more bothered about posting the links than the articles themselves. That’s because I don’t respect the people behind the articles, so they can fuck off with their carefully crafted rage-baiting drivel. But I do respect most of the people sharing them on here—many of them doing so to bemoan the media’s negative coverage of City—and don’t want them unwittingly aiding and abetting the very entities they despise.
And that is exactly what you are doing when you rage-share the negative media, whether on here or Twitter or Reddit or Facebook or wherever.
Posting the direct link—in however a small way (though, as I argue in my other post, with certain extreme, but fairly isolated City detractors, I think blues do it in a big way)—makes it incredibly easy for blues to contribute to helping justify the existence of the negative media and incentivise the creation of more of it.
And that is something all blues should want to avoid.