Social Panic – Page 63 – Opinion: Factfulness on propaganda, media, social media and privacy

Full text of the comment that was shadow banned by Oregonian newspaper

December 11, 2017 Edward MS

The next morning, my comment remains shadow banned by the Oregonian. Here is the description of the shadow ban, from last night with a screen capture of how the ban appears. (This link goes to the old WordPress.com website for this blog: https://socialcoldstreams.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/i-was-shadow-banned-by-oregonian-censorship-a-powerful-form-of-propaganda/) Here, I present the full text of the shadow banned comment plus the supplementary information for how I obtained the facts presented in the comment. Here are actual price quotes from HealthCare.gov. The first quotes are for…

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I was shadow banned by Oregonian censorship, a powerful form of propaganda

December 11, 2017 Edward MS

Today, the Oregonian ran a story from the AP about the high costs of ACA insurance policies. I added two comments to the story. One of my comments appears online and the other is “shadow banned”. When I am logged in to the Oregonian, I see this When I am not logged in, I see only this which is presumably what everyone else sees as well. In other words, my comment is visible only to me but invisible to everyone…

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Never, Ever leave a reporter in a room alone, with a number

December 8, 2017 Edward MS

Sheer idiocy to have written this: The “baby boom” is officially defined as those born from 1946 to 1964. Per the above, in the year 2060, the aging baby boomer population will be aged 96 to 114, and apparently life spans will have increased by decades by the year 2060. The study is not accessible to the public. The reporter who wrote this article and the editor who let this fly by are idiots. In a literal sense, the baby…

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Bill Gates never gave this high school speech

November 18, 2017 Edward MS

This crossed by Facebook crap feed this week. It is a fake, of course. The “rules” were written by author Charles Sykes in a couple of books he wrote. This has nothing to do with Bill Gates or even a high school. Did Bill Gates create a list of ‘Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School’? Source: Bill Gates High School Speech But thanks to social media, this was shared, Liked and re-shared again this past week.

And now for the rest of the story …

November 17, 2017 Edward MS

Source: Seattle hits record high for income inequality, now rivals San Francisco The data presented in the article is correct. But it leaves out critical information for understanding what this means overall, or even if it means what it purports to mean. Almost 20 years ago in a graduate economics course we learned that the “static” view of income at an instant in time is not a full picture. Not surprisingly, incomes change over time, often by a lot. Consider…

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“Changing the Subject” and false comparisons to deliver your message

November 1, 2017 Edward MS

Verge reports the Trump administration will drop a mandate to require all automobiles to contain automated vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems. The reporter writes Under the Obama administration, then-Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said V2V technology would greatly enhance autonomous driving technology to, “provide 360-degree situational awareness on the road,” and improve vehicle safety. [Emphasis added as the quote is about vehicle safety] and then follows that with: The Trump administration’s decision comes at a time when traffic fatalities in recent years have…

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The problem with censoring speech is … who gets to be the censor?

October 31, 2017 Edward MS

Who gets to be the censor? Crazily, Americans say they favor free speech and censorship! … the survey also found Americans willing to censor, regulate, or punish a wide variety of speech and expression they personally find offensive: 51% of staunch liberals say it’s “morally acceptable” to punch Nazis. 53% of Republicans favor stripping U.S. citizenship from people who burn the American flag. 51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns. 65% of…

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Did an Iranian immigrant start California fires? NO.

October 22, 2017 Edward MS

This fake news nonsense came through my Twitter feed today. The story traces back to this fake news web site. Source: Fact check: Did Illegal Muslim From Iran Started California Wildfire – ayupp Answer: NO, the entire story is fake. Note that this item has been shared 471 times and liked 330 times on Twitter. Of the 105 comments, very few pointed out that its a fake news story. The photo, which is easy to cross check, is of a…

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