Summary

The New York Post publishes an article about a woman who claims to have had 300 sexual partners in a year, leading to manipulative and misleading discussions on social media.

Abstract

The New York Post, known for its catchy headlines, published an article about a woman named Annie Knight who claims to have had 300 sexual partners in a year. Knight is a sex worker with an OnlyFans account, and her claims are likely a promotional stunt. The article was shared on social media platforms like Twitter, where it was met with mockery and criticism from conservative-leaning accounts. The lack of context and perspective in the discussion highlights the problems with citizen journalism and the manipulative nature of social media. The trope followed by conservative-leaning media is that Knight's behavior is immoral and a sign of societal collapse, but she is an extreme outlier, and her experience does not reflect the behavior of women in general. The article argues that basing arguments on such extreme data points is manipulative and lacks scientific relevance.

Bullet points

The New York Post published an article about a woman named Annie Knight who claims to have had 300 sexual partners in a year.
Knight is a sex worker with an OnlyFans account, and her claims are likely a promotional stunt.
The article was shared on social media platforms like Twitter, where it was met with mockery and criticism from conservative-leaning accounts.
The lack of context and perspective in the discussion highlights the problems with citizen journalism and the manipulative nature of social media.
The trope followed by conservative-leaning media is that Knight's behavior is immoral and a sign of societal collapse, but she is an extreme outlier, and her experience does not reflect the behavior of women in general.
Basing arguments on such extreme data points is manipulative and lacks scientific relevance.

“She Slept With 300 People in a Year” — Or How To Manipulate People’s Emotions

Let me introduce you to the clowns of X (Twitter)

The NY Post is not known as the most trustworthy news source on the planet, but it has 3 million followers on X. As professional media players, they know how to make people click and write catchy headlines.

On October 17, they published an article titled, “I slept with 300 people in a year — haters say I’m ‘disgusting’ but I feel empowered.”

Not surprisingly, it comes with pictures of an attractive woman in a bikini.

The NY Post also posted a link to the article on X (as they usually do), and some large (conservative-leaning) accounts reposted it with comments like “Empowered” 😆

Source: X — Clown World has 2 million followers.

or “Is she serious?”

Source: X — Elon Musk (parody) has 1 million followers.

And I saw another one with 800 thousand followers reposting something similar, but the guy is well-known for posting anything to get engagement. If it were satirical (or presented as such) as the two others, it might be acceptable, but he’s supposed to be a “citizen journalist.”

While I don’t understand why anyone should care about the number of sexual partners this woman had during the year, I think it shows how manipulative social media (and media in general can be).

From reading the NY Post’s article, you will learn Annie Knight is a sex worker

She has an OnlyFans account, a site where people post erotic or pornographic videos for their fans, who pay to access exclusive content and be able to message their favorite creators.

In this light, her claims sound more like a promotional stunt than anything.

There’s no reason to talk about all this except to make people click (on the NY Post’s website or her OnlyFans account).

It’s one of the problems when Elon Musk claims X is the place for citizen journalism

There’s no editorial filtering of information. People end up seeing news that isn’t news at all. But these “news items” are popular and consume a significant part of our mental availability.

I wish the news were for discussing important topics in depth so that people are informed and can make the best decisions when they vote to elect their representatives.

But it doesn’t even matter. Assuming this woman did have 300 sexual partners during the year. So what?

This information dangerously lacks context and perspective. The trope followed by the conservative-leaning media is that this woman has immoral behavior, and society’s going to collapse if all women have so many sexual partners.

But she’s just one data point. It doesn’t mean anything

We don’t know how many sexual partners women have in general (nor do we know the impact on society — if any). Annie Knight is an extreme.

Basing arguments on such an extreme data point has no scientific relevance and can only be manipulative.

For more about media bias and social media bias, read this by Maryan Pelland OnText.com:

Media Bias and Social Media Bias Can Really Screw Us

The presidential election is approaching — the outcome is in our hands

medium.com

And for more about data manipulation, read this one:

How To Manipulate Data

“Numbers don’t lie, but it’s easy to lie about them.” — Albert Einstein¹

medium.com

PS: I manipulate people into subscribing to my Substack. Click here.