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Month: August 2017

“News is Toxic”: News is killing your ability to think clearly #SocialMedia #Propaganda #Media

“News is Toxic”: News is killing your ability to think clearly #SocialMedia #Propaganda #Media

But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. Key points from the column: News misleads. News is irrelevant. News has no explanatory power. News is toxic to your body. News increases cognitive errors. News inhibits thinking. People who stop following the news are…

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"News is Toxic": News is killing your ability to think clearly #SocialMedia #Propaganda #Media

"News is Toxic": News is killing your ability to think clearly #SocialMedia #Propaganda #Media

But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. Key points from the column: News misleads. News is irrelevant. News has no explanatory power. News is toxic to your body. News increases cognitive errors. News inhibits thinking. People who stop following the news are…

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Did a Federal law make U.S. Civil War Confederate solidiers the equivalent of U.S. veterans? No.

Did a Federal law make U.S. Civil War Confederate solidiers the equivalent of U.S. veterans? No.

This past week, my Facebook news feed showed a shared item that claims Confederate soldiers of the U.S. Civil War were declared as “U.S. veterans by an Act of Congress”. Not exactly. In fact, most of this claims is false. Snopes.com explains that this is mostly false. This item works as social media propaganda because it appears to cite what sound like legitimate sources for the information (an appeal to authority). The item also appeals to patriotism (U.S. veterans) and…

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Does this summarize the trivia that dominates news and social media?

Does this summarize the trivia that dominates news and social media?

Snopes.com has a “Hot 50” list of their top most stories and analysis. As you read the titles, you get a sense of the inanity and general pointless-ness of what apparently dominates the online psyche. Most of it is politics related nonsense, yet shared sufficiently on social media to draw the attention of Snopes.

Google is a propaganda company that really does spy on you, more than you know

Google is a propaganda company that really does spy on you, more than you know

But Google is, first and foremost, an advertising company and its largest product is a targeted advert service, which it sells to the biggest brands in the world. Billions of annual web searches, location and email data allow it to target the population with specialised marketing – and there is no reason why it couldn’t do the same with your voice data, too. Source: How Google is secretly recording YOU through your mobile, monitoring millions of conversations every day and…

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