The role of media in establishing public consensus
Link to an essay on the role that “technical authority”, media propaganda, and how “consensus of experts” are used to influence the public and to exert control over us. This essay is an eye opener.
Climate scientists tried to censor film by director Michael Moore
Michael Moore’s film Planet of the Humans questions much of the “common wisdom” about solar power, wind energy and so forth and argues renewable energy has its own issues. Leading climate scientists sought to have the film censored from public viewing.
NY Times is concerned about “unfettered conversations” taking place online
According to the NY Times “Unfettered conversations” are taking place on a new cloud-based app. Is the NY Times suggesting all conversations should be monitored by the secret police or their proxies, the tech companies? This seems bizarre.
Newsweek becomes Newspeak, edits past stories to conform to today
Newsweek and the Washington Post have both done stealth edits to long ago articles and did so for political reasons. Trust journalism? Why?
“Deplatforming” Parler
The controversy over hostile social media content advocating violence, hate, and lies on social media – and the deplatforming of individuals and entire services (e.g. Parler).
Was Parler deplatformed for “conservative” ideas or for users advocating violence?
False: 10 of the 15 deadliest days in American history occurred in the past two weeks
This chart is making the rounds on social media. It leaves out so many things as to be declared False by me.
Censorship study finds censorship growing rapidly, worldwide, even in “free” countries
The largest collection of public internet censorship data ever compiled shows that even citizens of the world’s freest countries are not safe from internet censorship. Source: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies | University of Michigan News
TV news producer says all “news” is driven by ratings
A national TV news producer says all news is basically driven by ratings – not importance or value to the viewer. Most news is intentionally devoid of context and facts.
Social media: 2 years ago, Google shut down the blog, email and all services of a prominent statistician
In 2017, without warning or recourse, Google shut down all services associated with Salil Mehta, a professor of statistics, editor of a statistics journal, author of a best selling book on statistics, a former Obama administration official and later, a polling statistics adviser to the Trump campaign. His offense? He ran a blog about mathematics! Google, Facebook and Twitter have become the totalitarian governments of the 21st century, stifling speech their algorithms choose to flag. Unlike us peons, Mehta is well connected and a huge outcry caused Google to reinstate his account.
Climate Communications: 60+ news outlets sign on to coordinated, global “Covering Climate Now” messaging campaign
Newspapers worldwide have agreed to jointly engage in a global Covering Climate Now project, where newspapers and other news outlets simultaneously use their advocacy journalism to persuade readers to take action on climate. This is indistinguishable from a global, coordinated propaganda operation and may back fire, turning people off from understanding and undertaking meaningful actions on climate issues.