3 years on (to the day) from coming out of beta www.LetsCallBull.com is still going strong, we have over 21,700 unique uploaded articles and literally hundreds of thousands of votes and comments now on the site. And it’s all because of you so we want to wish a big old HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY from us to all our users (or should that be ‘Callers’?)
It’s been a strange 12 months in many ways and also memorable to say the least, with some real highs and lows. Let’s start with some of the highs, we have had so many new articles uploaded that the depth of credible ‘True’ and ‘Bull’ calls on the site constantly amazes us. People are now referencing back to articles that were posted on the site literally years ago as some stories come full circle, for example True articles like…
‘Britain goes coal free as renewables edge out fossil fuels’ this was about renewable energy use new records being set, a couple of years ago people were getting all giddy as the UK had gone 2 days without using coal to power the National Grid https://bit.ly/2Ur37E5 This week the same ‘Caller’ on the site (meltdownman178227 or MDM as he is known across the site) posted that we had just gone 2 months without using coal https://bit.ly/3cNlV70 and referenced back to his original post. These articles were over 14,300 stories apart on the site and over that time the topic had been dipped in an out of numerous times by different ‘Callers’ as we had advanced out green credentials as a nation https://bit.ly/3f6x58j
Or Bull articles like…
‘Kelly Brook enjoys topless massage in a lavender field during pre-recorded segment for This Morning’ https://bit.ly/37cXGxX why was this bull? Well it turns out that it was literally a 2 year old story that had been repeated on the TV show but was being covered as new news by the tabloids, this had been uploaded before https://bit.ly/30vMjzX in fact nearly 13,000 articles before!
The fun thing is these cross overs pop up again and again in our Celebrity and Entertainment sections, but on a more serious note articles on diseases like Cancer, Alzheimer’s and Dementia also get the same treatment with people referencing previous research or claims that have been proven right or wrong to back up new articles that are released.
Searching ANY of those key words on the site brings up hundreds of articles to pour over, so if you are after a serious read and debate pick a topic or illness and if you are after some more light entertainment pick a celebrity or film, there’s plenty to get involved with.
We have also seen 3 new blogs uploaded clarifying...
‘What is Fake News’ http://bit.ly/2Ovb7BA
which calls BULL on all the different ways it creeps into our lives, which paired up quite nicely with…
‘Slow News Day’ http://bit.ly/2NFb5GL
which talks about how the tabloids actually create news out of nothing, and the final one…
‘Copy + Paste, Rinse Repeat’ https://bit.ly/2TEZ1bo
Which is about how tabloids are getting worse at repeating the same news article, with even the same wording, ad infinitum to get clicks
On another positive note we are really proud to have started our...
Free School Outreach Program http://bit.ly/38fjOHH
We were going into schools and carrying out workshops with children to help educate on the dangers of Fake News and the benefits of True News and getting involved in learning and sharing the difference. We were hugely proud to be doing this and saw it as giving back to a generation that is growing up in an ‘always on’ society that is relentlessly asking more of them whilst piling on more and more pressure.
As we said at the start of this blog it’s been a strange year in many ways with some real highs and lows. So what were the lows? Well the whole world changed in a matter of weeks because of, do we need to even utter the name, the Coronavirus or to correctly name it Covid-19. It has dominated our lives and the news like no one could ever have imagined, with over 1,000 articles uploaded this year alone on www.LetsCallBull.com (and rising on a daily basis). A lot of them debunking the Fake News that is spreading about the virus as well as pointing out new tests and vaccination advancements.
This Pandemic obviously necessitated the immediate pausing of our Free School Outreach Program which has been put on hold indefinitely until we get back to some sort of ‘new normal’. It was a sad day but the right decision that in the grand scale of things feels almost petulant to be mentioning considering the worldwide number of infections has climbed to over 7.5m (reported as of today) and a death toll of over 420k (confirmed to have died WITH the virus not necessarily died OF the virus). The virus has fundamentally changed both how we physically interact with one another and also how we communicate, bringing both the best and worst out in people, have a look for more details http://bit.ly/38pvHKO
It has also been a time where ‘Mental Health’ has also been a key concern http://bit.ly/31mhBrr and we don’t yet know the true impact that social distancing, furlough, redundancies and the economic downturn will have on us and future generations. But we continue to talk about it and highlight different ways of coping and understanding it across articles our ‘Callers’ are posting on the site.
And, as ever, another positive note that we’re hugely proud about is that www.LetsCallBull.com is still free entertainment and interaction. You simply share your thoughts and ideas on articles and everyone else gets to see that and be part of the voting and commenting on it. In a world where we are becoming starved of entertainment, as new material is running out, and we are becoming more isolated every vote and comment on the site makes a difference for both the people uploading and others reading and interacting with the articles. And let’s be honest (hey we’re about ‘Getting to the Truth’ so if we can’t be honest who can!) it feels like we live in a world that desperately needs some light hearted banter and to be pointing out all the GoodNews for each other as well as the FakeNews out there.
So as we said It’s been a heck of a roller-coaster ride over the last 12 months but we’re still here, still going strong and still laughing every day at some of the articles people are uploading.
Once again a massive thank you to EVERYBODY who has uploaded, commented and voted you’ve made the site what it has become today.
We’d also like to take this opportunity to say chin up, stay safe, look after each other, look after your loved ones and look after your family as we will get through this together. And you know what maybe, just maybe, we can have a laugh and call some BULL on the journey. Thanks for the last 3 years and nearly 22,000 articles, we genuinely can’t wait to see what our ‘Callers’ upload next ….
Maxwell
Chief Admin
