Companies Game Their Glassdoor Ratings
Glassdoor is a web site where workers write reviews of their employer and work environment. Not surprisingly, many companies are gaming the system, flooding it with 5-star reviews.
Media influences your thinking merely by choosing which stories to run
435 Congressional Representatives were elected last November. How many can you name? Probably not many. But you can probably name Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez due to the media’s odd fixation on her with non-stop saturation coverage. Why has the media singled out one Representative for saturation coverage – and largely ignores the other 434 Representatives?
How airlines use intimidation to persuade you to spend more money
The new multi-level boarding scheme and “class-based” seating assignment is designed to embarrass the low payers, who must walk down the full front and center seats. Everyone knows that you, boarding last, are the cheap skate who bought a cheap ticket. This intimidation uses techniques of propaganda to persuade you to buy a higher priced ticket on your next flight.
Revisiting an old topic – almost every item on this propaganda poster was false
Revisiting the old Occupy Democrats propaganda poster from 2016, where nearly every item on the poster was an outright lie. I recently updated the “free childcare” section and added Parts 7 and 8 to this popular series. Seriously, it is the most searched for item on this blog!
This is genuine and not faked reporting – Anderson Cooper was intentionally showing the dangers of unseen drop offs in flood waters
This image does not show what people think it shows. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was moving around in the water to illustrate the dangers of unseen drop offs in flood waters. I’ve seen clips of the original that show this is what he was doing and this was not “fake news”. The original broadcast occurred after Hurricane Ike. This Internet meme illustrates how an instantaneous, moment in time still image loses all context – and can be readily repurposed into a propaganda message.
Twitter gives greater visibility to those with a verified “blue check mark” account status
Tweets published by those with verified “blue check mark” accounts get greater visibility on Twitter. Twitter also admitted to using algorithms to shadow banning 600,00 accounts including those of U.S. Congressional representatives. Twitter is a mess.
Did Vox advocate censoring social media? No.
This propaganda poster is now spreading online. The original Vox Tweet is here. It contains a link to a video explaining their thinking. They are clear in their video that they are not advocating censoring these individuals. The video concludes with the problems that emerge when speech is censored and the practical problems of policing platforms like YouTube that see 400 hours of new video uploaded every minute. The Vox video does not encourage censorship. Commentary There is, though, a…
Journalists and Academics seek special privileges on Facebook
Facebook restricts certain conduct on its platform. However, journalists and academics are seeking to receive special privileges to do things that are prohibited for others. Journalists and academics, for example, would be permitted to set up fake accounts with fake or curated content, for the purpose of studying users. Individuals, however, would be banned from conducting the same research and thus, would be prohibited from verifying or evaluating the work of journalists and academics. Basically, the proposal is to have…
Climate communications Update: Polar bears, social media, and how our emotional response may have helped a PR stunt
Update: National Geographic has retracted the claims made about a widely viewed photo of a starving polar bear. The photos and video were seen by an estimated 2.5 billion people and purported to show the effects of climate change. Nat Geo has retracted the claim and the photographer admits they were seeking a photo to be used for propaganda messaging. Details are in our now updated original post: Polar bears, social media, and how our emotional response may have helped…
How legislators use propaganda methods to pass new laws
How propaganda techniques are used to promote legislation. In this case, a specific individual is highlighted to emotionally hook others into supporting the bill. Arguments for the first law were shaped by referring to it as “Max’s Law” to connect it to a specific individual. Arguments for the second law were shaped by referring to it as “Jenna’s Law”. The key technique is to personalize the topic to emotionally engage the target that needs persuading: legislators, and potentially lobbyists and…