Is Ireland's fake tan use problematic?

I'd expect something like this for a media outlet in the states, but here I find it hilarious that they thought they could get away with it ,

If it is the former, the question then is whether it was approved because it was cheap rage/clickbait dressed up as legitimate debate, or if it was approved because someone there felt it made a good point.

There must be an external review done of editorial decision making and involvement with non-staff sources and sub-editors.

This is an appalling lapse in judgement and standards.

What is equally embarrassing is both that the IT were caught out by this and those who got triggered by how the supposed individual looked

Lol!

When you think it through logically, the writer could be called racist towards Irish people for completely misunderstanding why we might use fake tan.

White Europeans naturally turn bronze after being in the sun for a couple of weeks, while we can equally look sickly pale if never leave the house.

The original attraction of fake tan was simply to stop us from looking sickly pale, and giving us a healthier looking glow.

Obviously when done to excess it looks ridiculous, but even then we think "Oompah Loompah" rather than seeing it in racial terms.

We generally don't equate it with trying to look exotic or appropriating another culture.

RTE is also using AI in a minor way. Some of the articles from other broadcasters on its websites were translated with the aid of AI. Does this mean that we should start referring to the IT as the Artificial Irish Times? :)

Regards...jmcc

It does look like they been had but it does look like that twitter account only was has two tweets in their history one is three hours ago so could be a fake account (linked to a probably fake author).

I would expect the Indo to fall for this more than the IT, they were always the more opinionated newspaper.

The chatAI angle is just funny.

The fact that they printed it at all is just sad.

I'm disappointed by AI, obviously appealing to the lowest common denominator rather than genocide of the human race.

I'm delighted to see the IT get caught out so badly here. It's been descending down this line of importing the worst of the US democratic party culture war stuff for years now - so it's inevitable that they'd get taken in by a troll submitting nonsense, but the right kind of nonsense.

O'Connells credibility as an opinion editor is now completely shot. Looks like no due diligence done here prior to publication. Absolutely basic stuff.

I don't know why anyone would pay for it anyway, but I can't see how a sub could be justified now.

I made an observation. I'm not subscribed to the feeding frenzy every time someone mentions race or equality

Up to a few years ago, the Times was a pretty balanced source of information, way better than the Indo , that article did it for me, and I canceled my subsription, they dont make it easy for such a virtues mouthpiece , had to phone them in the end - and lo and behold it turns out to be an AI prank, the sad thing is most people believed this was just more virtues journalism. No more preaching from Jennifer and co , life feals better already.

And before I get accused of some IT supporter. I think I've bought it 5 times in my life, and have never subscribed to it online

It really poses some fundamental questions about what makes it into the IT.

Can people just email in opinion pieces and get them published? The "author" obviously had no previous work or portfolio, did nobody in the IT do any research or ask to see past work? Did they never speak on the phone or zoom? The odds of someone with the opinion expressed in the piece not being very vocal on twitter are effectively 0, so did nobody check the account? The account being quoted above had no tweets before the article.

It has every appearance that the editor(s) lost the run of themselves. Thinking they'd gotten their hands on material equal to anything the American progressives they idolise so much could produce (even with "Latinx" *chefs kiss*), they abandoned any semblance of control or scrutiny and rushed to publish it.

Wow what a mess.🤣 I wonder who was behind the hoax.