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Category: Social Media

I’m so old, I remember writing about fake news in 2014 :) #fakenews

I’m so old, I remember writing about fake news in 2014 :) #fakenews

Social media, confirmation bias and its use in marketing #FakeNews #Propaganda #SocialMedia (I originally posted this on my tech blog, May 24, 2014, about 2 1/2 years before “fake news” became a popular meme. Since then, social media has become a friction-less platform for the spread of propaganda, fake news, and worse.) Confirmation bias occurs when we tend to give weight to information that supports our beliefs and to ignore or discard information that opposes our beliefs. There are several studies…

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Youtube’s recommendation algorithm pushes people to watch ever more extreme content

Youtube’s recommendation algorithm pushes people to watch ever more extreme content

“Soon I noticed something peculiar. YouTube started to recommend and “autoplay” videos for me that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content. … What we are witnessing is the computational exploitation of a natural human desire…. YouTube leads viewers down a rabbit hole of extremism, while Google racks up the ad sales.”   Regardless of topic, Youtube’s recommendation algorithm  recommends videos containing more extreme versions of whatever it is you just watched. This makes sense from a…

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Protests seldom about “object of the protest” but about the protestors?

Protests seldom about “object of the protest” but about the protestors?

Protestors shut down a speaker at an event that is local to where I live. I am not familiar with the speaker or the protestors and their issues but I found this description of interest: Protests are seldom really about the object of the protest. They are about the protesters, who seek attention for their organizations, their causes, their ideologies, and themselves. And they are about achieving a certain kind of emotional release, bordering on frenzy. The scheduled talk by…

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Who spreads fake news on social media? You do.

Who spreads fake news on social media? You do.

As noted here and in the next post, below, fake and false items spread faster on social media than truthful items. Based on widespread news reports, you’d think that bots and the Internet Research Agency were the primary cause but look again: When they looked at who was spreading the wrong stuff, they found it was ordinary users of social media. “We conclude that human behavior contributes more to the differential spread of falsity and truth than automated robots do,”…

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Propaganda is inherent in the platform

Propaganda is inherent in the platform

The spin on this article, like 99% of such articles, is that propaganda is primarily used by government and state-like organizations and actors. That isn’t true of course, but the article does recognize that the problem is inherent to the social media platform and business model itself: The more people that use a platform designed to connect as many as users as possible — even if they spread propaganda or hate speech — the more successful it is. Tech companies…

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Could you throw a U.S. Presidential election for just a few dollars per day?

Could you throw a U.S. Presidential election for just a few dollars per day?

Parties in Russia bought ads on U.S. social media regarding candidates for U.S. President in 2016. About $100,000 was spent on Facebook ads, of which 44% was spent prior to the election. Additional actions took place on Twitter and Instagram. “Fake posts” were also created on social media for the purpose of being Liked, Shared and Commented on. It is claimed that about $2 million total was spent by the “American” department of the Internet Research Agency in Russia. The…

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Society now requires us to be liked on social media?

Society now requires us to be liked on social media?

Not only is a “strong social media presence” now a prerequisite for many, if not most, jobs, but companies have begun to look at your number of followers as both a measure of monetary value and a career determiner. And according to TIME.com, employers actually consider people without Facebook suspicious. “If you boycott Instagram, you’re cutting yourself off from a lot of opportunities,” said Emily. “I started posting more selfies, despite being self conscious about it, because honestly—you get so…

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We watched a social media propaganda theme explode in real time – and you won't believe what happened next!

We watched a social media propaganda theme explode in real time – and you won't believe what happened next!

This past week we learned about social media idiots! In a world where facts and logic no longer matter, a train derailment on the first paying passenger run on a brand new, $181 million upgraded rail corridor, completed as part of an $800 million dollar infrastructure upgrade, is: An example of America’s “crumbling infrastructure” An example of America’s lack of investment in infrastructure An example that future budgets (which might cut infrastructure spending) caused this crash, in the present An…

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U.S. firms use social media age-based ad targeting to discriminate against older workers

U.S. firms use social media age-based ad targeting to discriminate against older workers

Major U.S. employers use social media’s ability to display job ads only to those in certain age groups, such as between age 25 to 36, or below age 38 or below age 50. They are using this feature to advertise job openings only to younger workers, thereby removing older workers from their candidate pool. Examples: Verizon targeted showed ads only to those age 25 to 36 years old UPS targeted age 19 to 35 State Farm targeted age 19 to…

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