Elle mag slammed for fake news after Kim K & Kanye West breakup tweet

Fashion giant Elle has been slammed for posting a misleading tweet about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's relationship status to get their followers to click through to a page promoting voter registration.

On Thursday, the US magazine tweeted "Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are splitting up" followed by emojis of a broken heart and horrified face along with a link.

Those who clicked on the link were clearly expecting to get the latest celebrity gossip, but instead were directed to a page encouraging women to register to vote in America's upcoming midterm elections.

Social media users were quick to criticise Elle for this 'click bait' stunt and the brand later apologised. "We made a bad joke. Our passion for voter registration clouded our judgement and we are sincerely sorry," they tweeted.

Joke or not, this stunt certainly wasn't funny in an era where fake news spreads like wildfire and is damaging the media's credibility.  

Beyond the obvious problems regarding journalistic ethics and integrity, some also took the tweet to be a slight to Elle's readers.

In response to a tweet querying why anyone would be upset by an effort to get people to participate in America's democracy, Twitter user AC Slater replied "Because we’re already smart enough to participate in it, and don’t need a pandering click-bait headline to 'trick' us into it."

HuffPost reporter Ariel Edwards-Levy tweeted "This is a link to a voter registration page, which implies that Elle readers aren't interested in voting unless they're being tricked into it with fake celeb breakup news, which seems ... super insulting to Elle readers, actually?"