[santadays]

Maybe one day our knee jerk reactionary outrage will be quelled not by any enlightenment but because we are forced to grow weary of falling prey to phishing attacks.

I'd feel pretty stupid getting worked up about something only to realize that getting worked up about it was used against me.

I'm writing this because for a moment I did get worked up and then had the slow realization it was a phishing attack, slightly before the article got to the point.

Anyways, I think the clickbait is kindof appropriate here because it rather poignantly captures what is going on.

[deflator]

I agree. It can demonstrate the knee-jerk affect in real time for the reader. Someone who reacts strongly to the title of this thread would have experienced a similar reaction if they had received the SendGrid phish email. Never seen clickbait wording actually be appropriate before.

[panarky]

When I see stories that make me want to click, I read HN comments first, and 8 times in ten that saves me a from a "won't get fooled again" moment.

There's got to be a way to generalize this for anyone who still cares about the difference between real facts and manipulation.

[idiotsecant]

The effectiveness of these techniques will die off over time as young people are increasingly inoculated against them in the same way our generations are generally immune to traditional advertising. The memetics filters get better over time as us geezers are replaced by new models.