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Month: March 2017

What do your social media posts say about you?

What do your social media posts say about you?

As a general rule, you can make lots of assumptions about people from their social media feed. If they’re always changing their profile pic, they’re obviously unstable. If they’re ranting about relationships, they’re high maintenance. Moaning about politics: too self-involved. Reposting old jokes/claiming nicked ones as their own: annoying/untrustworthy. Humble bragging: esteem issues, possibly insane. Source: The man in the social media mirror: what’s the truth about my online persona? As the author notes, all of these assumptions are stereotypes…

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Twitter launches tweet censorship program

Twitter launches tweet censorship program

Today, some tweets appearing on Twitter are accompanied by the following warning: I did a search on Twitter for #DrudgeReport and found several (but not all) tweets mentioning #DrudgeReport had this warning. Drudge Report is a right leaning news aggregator that specializes, typically, in using inflammatory headlines to hook readers. A search for #DrudgeReport using the “Latest” option presents this: That is weird – it appears Twitter is fully censoring searches for items related to Drudge Report. A search for…

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London attacks show how anyone can be a propagandist

London attacks show how anyone can be a propagandist

After the Westminster attack in London, some one posted a photo on social media purporting to show a Muslim woman indifferent to the carnage. The photo went viral but of course, was out of context. Yet the social media outrage culture quickly condemned her and an entire ethnic group, all due to a propaganda lie. The photographer whose photo was stolen and distributed has provided additional photos showing she was clearly as distraught as everyone else, as anyone with a…

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Did a Congressman really say we do not need satellites because we have the Weather Channel?

Did a Congressman really say we do not need satellites because we have the Weather Channel?

The 2017 social media meme: 2017 True Story: A Congressman was at a hearing for a request for funding for GOES satellites. He asked the scientist why do we need to spend money on satellites when you can turn on the weather channel and get the weather! TL;DR Summary This quote appears in 2000 and 2007 and 2011 and has nothing to do with events in 2017. As we will see, it appears several people who claim to have been…

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Sweden will teach primary school students how to recognize fake news

Sweden will teach primary school students how to recognize fake news

“Another interesting addition to the curriculum meant to enhance the children’s digital competence will also involve classes on how to differentiate between reliable and unreliable sources. If we’ve learned anything from 2016, it’s that fake news is a real phenomenon that can have devastating effects on society. The uncensored, echo-chamber nature of social networks only exacerbates the proliferation of so-called alternative facts which means that an open, free, and democratic society can withstand only if its populace is capable of…

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