Media works to make you outraged, all the time
Social media promoters know that “outrage” leads to more views. That’s why conspiracy theories and other outrageous content flourish on social media – because they are watched.
Nice explanation of how propaganda messaging works
“A good cause makes a lie easier to buy”. This is why many propaganda campaigns use themes such as “for the children” – even though their claims are exaggerated or not true. The target buys the propaganda message since its for a good cause.
Fear is a powerful motivator in propaganda messaging: How its used to sell third party solar
Third party companies offer to install solar PV arrays on your home and promise to save you money on your monthly electric utility costs. Bloomberg found they use a mix of false assertions, lies, cherry picking and fear as sales methods, to persuade homeowners to sign up and lease the solar PV system for decades. Over time, the lease costs increase such that the homeowner spends far more in the future, while the third party company collects large government subsidies. Few homeowners understand what they got in to. When they go to sell their home, the lease is transferred to the buyer – in effect, TPO solar PV arrays become a dead weight on the home’s future sales potential, particularly to informed buyers who understand the game.
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…