A left wing poster claims that the 1956 Republican Party platform supported everything Democrats support today. Except that the claims range from false to the items in the platform referred to something completely different than claimed by the poster.
Social media stars have been paid – quite well – to secretly promote various brands and products. Source: FTC spanks Warner Brothers for failure to disclose social influencer payments | The Blog Box Social media is THE platform for all forms of propaganda!
This chart appeared on a blog post saying auto sales are “down again” and this should worry us about a recession. See that blue arrow at the right? Looks horrible!!!! But this chart design is a real mess. First, the blue arrow anchors our view on the blue line and its downturn at the right. But the real chart is the harder to see gray column chart. Column charts are a *terrible* way to show a trend – line charts…
Each of the following widely publicized statements about the Affordable Care Act are not true: HealthCare.gov’s web site problems were just a glitch “70% of consumers are receiving a subsidy” “The Bronze plan covers 60% of expenses” “The average cost of a Silver plan for a 40 year old is…” “People’s policies were canceled because they were junk policies” What they all have in common is the power of propaganda messaging to spin a story, typically for political purposes.
TL;DR Summary This poster uses humor and transference to get its point across. The message is simple and direct. If the target is other Democrats , it is good. If the target is Republican primary voters, it is unlikely to be successful since they likely voted for Palin. The poster was actually aimed at Democrat supporters the poster came from Occupy Democrats) – and successfully transfers their likely negative view of Palin to Scott Walker. However, only Republican voters can vote out…
The petition that was supposedly blasting through 3 million signatures 3 days after the Brexit vote, is acknowledged to have been filled with fraudulent signatures added by bots. Source: EXCLUSIVE: Brexit ‘2nd Referendum Petition’ A 4 Chan Prank: BBC Report It As Real | Heat Street The BBC has updated their news report to indicate the petition may contain “suspicious activity” and that fraudulently added signatures have been identified. Fake news runs rampant thanks to social media enabling anyone and everyone to become…
Most highly successful social media propaganda is visual, has few words, and is processed within seconds by the intended target, Liked and Shared, passing along the message to others. This is our System 1 quick, easy, intuitive thinking style in operation. In other words, we do not think, we respond at a gut or emotional level. Much propaganda messaging can only be countered, typically, with logic and facts, which requires, slow thinking (System 2), which is hard and thus the…
If you want the tl;dr response, stop here: social media is a pretty effective mechanism for peer pressure. If you disagree, please consider how many temporary profile pictures have been updated on Facebook to red, white, and blue in the wake of the horrific attacks in Paris (including perhaps your own). We know that online peer pressure is powerful. But what we don’t know is whether that pressure is driving real change. Sharing your opinions and thoughts online is as simple as clicking…
If you have followed this blog, you understand social media has become a frictionless conduit for the spread of propaganda. Propaganda is messaging intended to encourage a target to take some action. There are two sides to propaganda messaging – those promoting a propaganda message and those with opposing views. The strongest form of opposition is when platform operators directly censor third-party opinions. Normally, the answer to speech someone disagrees with, is more speech, not censorship. Today, Reddit censored comments from those quoting…
TL;DR Summary Photo allegedly shows injuries to a female Trump supporter after violent protests against Trump at a Trump campaign rally. The photo is actually a test photo of an actress, after injury makeup was applied, as part of a movie production. The photo has nothing to do with a Trump rally. The photo was distributed by a small Facebook page called “Conservative Nation” (the post has apparently been removed) and was then shared thousands of time online. Photos are “re-purposed”…