TL;DR Summary Photo purports to show the ejection of a USAF Thunderbird pilot in Smyrna, TN in early June 2016. This photo had, in moments, been shared nearly 8,000 times on FB. The photo is actually from a USAF crash in Mountain Home, ID in 2003 and the photo was taken by a USAF Airman. You can read about that actual incident here. No one questioned the truthfulness of the photo – yet it took just seconds to locate the…
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Year over year usage of social media platforms, through social media apps, is plummeting. Of all four major platforms, there has been a 9% decrease in the number of installed apps, year over year (some are up and some are down). People are spending less time using social media apps, a new study from marketing intelligence firm SimilarWeb found. Source: People are spending much less time on social media apps, said report. These changes might be because users are concerned…
“Russia’s campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion of Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training a new cadre of online trolls that have been deployed to spread the Kremlin’s message on the comments section of top American websites.” Source: Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America – BuzzFeed News The United States government also does this. Remember back in the fall of 2013 when many of us had our health insurance policies canceled? These were the policies…
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has published his “The Persuasion Reading List”. His thesis is that people may be easily persuaded – and that those with the skills to persuade others end up winning, regardless of whether they are correct. Source: Scott Adams Blog
I have no idea if Trump is a master propagandist but Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams thinks Trump is highly effective at using the methods of persuasion. Propaganda is a set of methods for persuading others to adopt an action (in this case, vote for Trump): SCOTT ADAMS: I’ve been studying persuasion for decades and when I saw Trump last summer displaying the tools of persuasion I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s not a crazy clown. Everything he’s doing, including his…
TL;DR Summary Occupy Democrats makes an assertion that is easily proven wrong. The link between the bridge collapse and the real world events is a logical fallacy. This is the same format as last year’s false claim about an overpass collapse (Read that link – its unbelievable). What actually caused this collapse? A truck crashed in to the bridge, causing the collapse. “Officials say the collapse of the bridge was not a design or maintenance-related issue.” But, alluding to last year’s false poster…
TL;DR Summary This poster uses the method of Celebrity endorsement and appeal to authority to deliver its message. This quote is – surprisingly – accurate and not taken out of context. There are numerous fake Lincoln quotes appearing in propaganda posters, however.
A popular and widely distributed social media propaganda poster proclaims Denmark as the happiest nation on earth because of a host of mostly false assertions about life in Denmark. Read the entire series about that nonsensical yet highly effective propaganda here. As yet another counterpoint to that silly poster, Danish households also have the world’s largest level of personal debt: “Danish households owe their creditors 321 percent of disposable incomes, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That’s…
TL;DR Summary This type of quote is known as a “glittering generality”. The clearly implied assertion is that more people go to jail than to college but this is false. The quote makes for good propaganda but it is a lie. Comparing “instant in time” measures, there were 20.6M in college in the fall of 2012 to about 2.4 million in prison or jail or detention. 41% of those aged 18-24 are in college! Poster source: Occupy Democrats Even though the quote is…