Difference between revisions of "Betteridge's law of headlines"

Latest revision as of 05:37, April 9, 2019

Betteridge's law of headlines states that headlines that end with a question mark can be safely answered "no".^[1]

Possible examples

• "Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data to the RIAA?", criticized by Ian Betteridge himself.
• "Was Mitt Romney a Vietnam Draft Dodger?"
• "Did the Obama regime blackmail John Roberts to change his Obamacare decision?"
• "Is American Express v. Italian Colors the 'Worst Supreme Court Arbitration Case Ever'?"
• "Has Corporate America Achieved Total Judicial Victory over American Consumers?"
• "Did 'Jeopardy!' cheat a boy out of a win?"
• "Did George Zimmerman Lie To The Police?"
• "Obamacare Fines to be Seized From Bank Accounts?"
• "Obama DOT Plans use of National Guard to close I-495 Capital Beltway tomorrow?"—admitted satire
• "Was a Scientific Journal Canned for Disagreeing with the IPCC?"
• "Corporate Paid Umpires?"
• "Email and Internet censorship?"
• "Arbitration clauses on the rebound?"
• "Is Sen. Harry Reid Behind the BLM Land Grab of the Bundy Ranch?"
• "Mandatory Arbitration: Friend of Big Business and Enemy of Consumers?"
• "Do Companies Void Your Right to Sue If You 'Like' Them on Facebook?"
• "Are Aribitrators [sic] Punished By Credit Card Companies For Ruling In Favor Of The Consumer?"
• "Did Obama set up an 'Constitution-exemption zone' within 100 miles of the U.S./Mexican border?"
• "Forced Arbitration: The End of Class Action?"
• "Jihad: Obama a Recruiter?"
• "Did American Arbitration Association arbitrator have a conflict-of-interest?"
• "Could You Be Charged For Taking Photos Of National Forests?"
• "Did the GOP use Twitter to break campaign finance law?"
• "In Wake Of Target Ruling, Will Retailers Scale Back Security So They Can Plead Ignorance?"
• "Did Credit-Card Issuers Collude to Force Arbitration?"—according to a 2014 decision by a judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the answer is no
• "Is Credit Card Arbitration a Lousy Deal for the Consumer?"
• "Can King v. Burwell Revive the Economy?"
• "Rogue Court?"—the first sentence of the article asks "Has the United States Supreme Court turned completely into a rogue court?"
• "Is HB 328 the “Non-Citizen Voter Protection Act”?!"
• "Is Texas’ Plan to Bring Home Its Stockpile of Gold Bars a Step Toward Secession?"
• "Could roads made from PLASTIC spell the end of potholes?"
• "Are DraftKings and FanDuel legal?"
• "Is Donald Trump a Democratic secret agent?"
• "Is Target Shaving Workers’ Hours So It Doesn’t Have To Insure Them?"
• "Is There a Libertarian Case for Bernie Sanders?"

References