Home Deport (and Lowe's) no longer use neonicotinoids on plants but the Internet meme/propaganda message continues to float around online.

Facebook does not seem to have hired bright people over the years. Everything turns into a mistake or crisis for…

Shadow banning is common on social media, including newspaper comments. Rather than outright ban a comment, the media publisher hides…

"A good cause makes a lie easier to buy". This is why many propaganda campaigns use themes such as "for…

Social media has become a weapon of mass destruction.

Social media played a huge role in the terror attacks in New Zealand.

Fake news, fake reviews - its all the same after a while. Any web service relying on user contributed content…

AI didn't work to filter everything: Youtube to ban comments on most videos featuring children under 18 (and perhaps others).

Youtube just axed comments from tens of millions of videos featuring children - such as, you know, actual family friendly…

Severe mental health issues come with being a moderator for Facebook wacky posts.

Facebook's business is spying on people. Even if you do not have a Facebook app installed on your device, they…

Use Facebook advertising to target your ads to Nazis and white supremacists because ... Facebook!

Third party companies offer to install solar PV arrays on your home and promise to save you money on your…

NYPD never heard about this radical notion of the "First Amendment" apparently.

Social media enables anyone to become an "expert" on any topic. Is this a good thing?

Facebook loses all access to its own internal iOS apps after Apple revokes Facebook's developer enterprise certificate for having violated…

Journalism today: "If you want your story to be well placed and if you want to be professionally rewarded, you…

Glassdoor is a web site where workers write reviews of their employer and work environment. Not surprisingly, many companies are…

435 Congressional Representatives were elected last November. How many can you name? Probably not many. But you can probably name…

Simple example of "cherry picking" use in propaganda messaging.

Social media is the new battleground. It's being used to push people over the edge, to threaten violence against others,…

Facebook employees write 5-star reviews of Facebook products sold on Amazon.

In 2012, an editor for The Oregonian newspaper died of a heart attack. The paper printed his obituary citing his…

Russian trolls ran a social media campaign to encourage votes for Jill Stein for president in 2016.

The surprising observation that "medium confidence" in a scientific finding means we have no confidence at all and high confidence…

CNN botches percentages and numbers. Big time.

CNBC re-runs a photo of 2013 to illustrate a story, and the item they are illustrating is not even true…

USA Today publishes a headline saying the world's oceans are "boiling". Seriously?

Facebook routinely spies on and collects detailed information from Android apps, even on people who do not have a Facebook…

Have you noticed that many online news web sites - both newspapers and TV stations - will run a news…

Facebook employs an army of censors to stop "hate speech", but also at times, censors legitimate and fair political speech…

Bloomberg news makes up a false headline news claim (based on zero evidence) and then uses their own fake news…

British media went crazy this past week, and doxxed a falsely accused innocent couple of flying drones over Gatwick Airport.…

262 web trackers on a single page?

Due to Facebook's lack of interest in user privacy (and related problems with hate speech and propaganda), Congress is poised…

FB share price falls to below $136, approaching 2016 levels.

If all it took was a few million dollars and about 100 people to throw an election, why did U.S.…

A "star" reporter and editor at Der Spiegel has admitted to fabricating his stories over a period of many years.…

Facebook, in spite of all its public lies public comments about privacy, was giving away our personal data including access…

Propaganda messaging played and continues to play an enormous role in the public's view on the Affordable Care Act a.k.a.…

Obamacare was judged unconstitutional by a Federal judge today. In response, a number of politicians made comments such as this…

The new multi-level boarding scheme and "class-based" seating assignment is designed to embarrass the low payers, who must walk down…

Journalists who have partnered with Facebook to do fact checking, saying Facebook does not care and that the fact checking…

A combination of anchoring, false assertion and a logical fallacy turn a newspaper opinion column into powerful propaganda messaging.

CBS 60 Minutes editing leaves out critical context from Elon Musk interview, making it look like Musk said things that…

Verizon purchased Yahoo for $4.83 Billion in 2017 and in 2018, has chosen to write down the value of the…

Facebook continues to hemorrhage active users in the U.S.

Limiting social media use to a few minutes per day shows "significant reductions in depression and loneliness" per published study.

Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, has given a warning that the world has reached the “peak social” as days…

"Nothing has undermined democracy more than people's willingness to abdicate responsibility for thinking for themselves. "

The Wordpress 5.0 release was a disaster for many people, including breaking this web site. Update: I think I have…

FB is increasing its share buy back program to address this years sharp drop in their share price.

For a company built on "friends", Facebook is not a nice company. They've operated the largest invasive spying operation in…

Did you know the 7.0 magnitude quake in Alaska today was caused by climate change? Me neither, but according to…

The survey appears to have found that over half of Americans postpone preventative checkups when they are not experiencing any…

School-issued computing devices such as tablets and notebook-like computers are used to collect personal information, especially by corporate vendors, which…

"Today, Twitter is mostly dumb people yelling at each other and self-appointed hall monitors trying to shut down accounts they…

Google patents product concepts to use cameras to scan every room and person in your home, to identify the types…

We do not understand why the media is so careless with facts that are easily verifiable. Keep this in mind…

Some one really did say this, in 2009, but not in San Francisco, and possibly intended as satire: "To all…

Well put, from Lindsey Stirling: LS: Here’s the thing: People often shy away from speaking about faith because they’re afraid…

Here's the fake headline: Someone just made a floating hovercraft Delorean - Esquire Middle East. Matt built his Delorean look-alike…

We are surrounded by marketing propaganda that has enlisted networks of individuals posting online reviews. These ecosystems seem like organic…

Facebook's head of PR admits to developing a program to slime others with negative propaganda messaging. He had already submitted…

Facebook's COO hired external firms to smear those who questioned or criticized the company. Facebook itself engaged in the propaganda…

Zuckerberg blames negative propaganda for Facebook's problems.

The world's largest propaganda platform sees its share price in free fall.

I bought two external Seagate hard drives. Seagate wants me to "register" my product (the sole purpose of which is…

Facebook deploys propaganda campaigns to tarnish its competitors and to discredit FB critics by associating them with those who may…

News media has advocated a meme that housing rents increase faster than wages but according to the census data, median…

People who tend towards analytical thinking styles are better at spotting fictional news than others.

Revisiting the old Occupy Democrats propaganda poster from 2016, where nearly every item on the poster was an outright lie.…

In light of the survey finding most voters are badly misinformed on well known and popular public policy issues the…

A survey finds that most voters are badly misinformed about popular policy topics. Literally, what they know is wrong -…

Democrats won the popular vote in the U.S. Senate, therefore the 2018 election is unfair, says the meme. Sounds convincing…

Next Congress is likely to regulate social media companies.

Oxford research teams says "junk news" continues to profligate on social media, worse even than in 2016.

This media story went well beyond mere creative fiction - this was truly fake news.

The Oregonian falsely reports a poll showing one candidate ahead of the other when they are in an indistinguishable statistical…

'“Publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017,” Smith writes. This is an amazing thing…

I am going to transfer the domain name to a new registrar and socialpanic.org could temporarily disappear during that. You…

I would probably have more readers if I said this blog was published by the Center for the Study of…

We wrote about rental protest crowds back in 2017. They are now back in the news.

Imagine a future where everything is subject to manipulation and censorship by robots - we are already there!

A social media mob targets the wrong person after a viral video shows a man harassing a woman at a…

An egregious example of badly sourcing one's allegations from social media posts? This time, a political candidate published a list…

A widely shared social media post about the Supreme Court contains 4 major errors according to an expert on law.…

NBC makes a major error in reporting on a Trump speech and then retracts its claim, on Twitter - but…

Log in to Instagram in a browser. Click on your profile icon at upper right. Click on the round, slightly…

Source: Platform Censorship: Lessons From the Copyright Wars | Electronic Frontier Foundation I had two music publishers both claim copyright…

Boeing has planted an opinion column in multiple newspapers around the country - a column intended to cast doubt on…

An interesting inside look at how political propaganda operations function.

Years ago, the Washington Post wrote a story about a ship reaching the North Pole without the aid of an…

A Nobel prize recipient dies. Vox misspells his name and makes a false claim about his medical bills. This 21st…

Code.org is a lobbying organization funded by high tech industrial giants. They are lobbying to have more kids K-12 studying…

A new book explores how social media has become weaponized and is being used to disrupt our societies, to push…

Much of the online criticism about the Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, was driven by Russian troll farms and…

If you use your Facebook account to login to other web sites, the latest Facebook security blunder enabled attackers to…

During election season, local media outlets post their "voter recommendations" or "endorsements" in a form of straight up propaganda messaging…

Facebook uses your security questions and security data such as your two-factor authentication phone number as yet another way to…

The danger of anonymous user generated content - which is largely the basis of all social media - is that…

Google's proposed search system for users in China would track all of their search inquiries and make that data available…

The problem with user generated content web sites -a.k.a. social media - is that much of the content is fake,…

Facebook ad network still being used to target ads based on gender, and in the past, on race, language spoken,…

This image does not show what people think it shows. CNN's Anderson Cooper was moving around in the water to…

The way to respond to accusations of fictional news reporting is to double down on accuracy, objectivity and remaining calm.…

Facebook to "fact check" photos, propaganda posters and videos - but how accurate is their "fact checking", and what happens…

Did Morty the dog really jump 30 feet out of a helicopter after catching the scent of a person in…

Weather Channel actor Mike Siedel, who plays the role of a journalist and meteorologist, is shown faking a live TV…

NY Times largely retracts an article by Gardiner Harris as it was literally a fictional hit piece that would earn…

The week started off with an internal Google email from a high level manager describing how Google worked behind the…

An image search for the word "idiot" across 7 different search engines yields curious results.

Numerous "news" outlets botch a new story saying a 17-year student pilot made a successful emergency landing on her "first…

The news media uses a photo to illustrate an article, but selects a photo having nothing to do with the…

KGW TV caught using a faked photo?

How the New York Times turned a college student intern into a "federal analyst", "senior adviser" and host of other…

Tweets published by those with verified "blue check mark" accounts get greater visibility on Twitter. Twitter also admitted to using…

Facebook and Twitter largely admit that artificial intelligence is not going to fix the problems with their platforms. The problem,…

You've seen those tweets that show up in your Twitter feed telling you that your friend "Liked" someone else's tweet.…

Twitter's failed algorithm censored people based on their assessment of their followers, over which the censored person has no control.…

44% of young Facebook users have deleted the app from their devices within the past year.

Yet another fake photo to lower the signal to noise ratio on Facebook.

BBC - multiple errors in a single sentence: "One of the drivers for extreme inflation is soaring demand – in…

Google has access to 70% of U.S. credit card and debit card purchase data. They use this to link offline…

New GMail accounts now require a phone number for registration.

A telco lobbyists sent a document to the wrong person, who has gone ahead and shared it with all. The…

A Pew Research study finds that social media political posts change the views of relatively few people, but are more…

"Officials in Chemnitz said fake news items spread on social media fueled the riots. "

"The San Bernadino Sheriff's Department is under scrutiny for posting this photo of a deputy praying before his shift. If…

Reporter appears surprised and dismayed that social media platforms designed specifically for the purpose of propaganda messaging, whose business model…

UK Commercial drone pilot Matthew Greaves spots the absurdity of YouTubers claiming quadcopter near miss collisions with airliners in order…

See what happens when a hobby drone collides with a wind turbine? Not really but this shows how easy it…

Irish government seeks proposals from vendors for a system to monitor social media for "keywords". Some think this proposal may…

40% of people say they have deleted at least one social media account in 2017 because they did not trust…

School districts are automatically scanning student social media, every day, looking for trouble. Students are not told about the monitoring…

The SocialPanic.org web site has moved to this server as this server sees far more visitors, costs less, and enables…

This blog analyzed a popular social media propaganda post that was widely distributed in 2016. The poster encouraged viewers to…

Google even analyzes the photos you take with your phone, including collecting data for facial recognition, and attempts to identify…

Google collects massive amounts of data about you, every day, 24 x 7, including when your phone is turned on…

Google's Android OS is specifically designed as a surveillance tool, to collect invasive and detailed personal information about all Android…

Companies that run propaganda platforms meet to discuss what to do about people who use their propaganda platforms for propaganda…

Trailer for the documentary "The Creepy Line" - how online services are collecting and analyzing everything about you in a…

Google answers the question "texas voter registration deadline" with the wrong date that would leave a prospective voter unable to…

This blog is now tweeting again by cross posting to my existing Twitter account at twitter.com/coldstreams

Software that pretends to be as intelligent as humans (or as unintelligent as humans) some times make funny errors...

A new way that individuals - or groups - are manipulating social media to indirectly trash organizations and businesses on…

A web site purports to determine if your Twitter account has been shadow banned.

A reporter, and some of her readers, posted links to a published news report she wrote for her employer, the…

I tried looking at Twitter again tonight and yuck, it all just looks like propaganda and outrage.

Snapchat seems in the right place to counter problems with Facebook and Twitter - but instead it is losing its…

Twitter tracks your online activity off of Twitter and shares that with others. Twitter analyzes what you see online -…

Facebook's ad system was intentionally designed for advertisers to discriminate based on age, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, language…

Social media has become 90% noise, filled with outrage and propaganda. Time spent on social media has become a waste…

A left wing group launches a secret propaganda operation to combat secret right wing propaganda operations. Funded with 81 staff,…

As of July 2018, Twitter requires users who auto-publish via blog software to register for a Twitter Developer Account and…

What happens when employers require that you may only have a clean, moral, "fit lifestyle", free of politics and political…

Facebook and Twitter are algorithmically assigning users a secret "trustworthiness" score. This score is used to determine whether your posts…

Advertising is messaging intended to persuade you to adopt someone' agenda, specifically, to buy a product or service. Advertising is…

The First Amendment prevents the government from censoring or compelling or controlling your speech. But the First Amendment does not…

We do not know much about PragerU but a situation involving that group and Facebook confirms that Facebook does indeed…

The US Housing and Urban Development Administration is accusing Facebook of fostering housing discrimination through use of their ad network…

The demise of print newspapers, which appears to be happening at a rapid clip, could mean even more social media-based…

Social media has descended into such a culture of outrage that using social media is not fun anymore. By choosing…

These are good - funny too 🙂 Check out many more at the link! Source: Social Media Propaganda Posters

Perennial fictional news reporter CNBC tops them all in an article about the shortage of epinephrine auto-injectors (also known by…

Google admits they spy on you always - you cannot turn off Location History. Even if you turn it off,…

This sure looks like an admission of shadow banning - this from Twitter: “We want to be clear that we…

Sales people use an arsenal of persuasion methods to get you to buy more than you wanted. This is known…

Researchers have discovered that Android tracks your location even when Location Services is disabled on the menu. You cannot escape…

As we have pointed out here before - fake news, fake reviews, fake news - everything on the Internet is…

Facebook wants a phone number tied to any page with a "large audience". Once Facebook has your phone number, then…

The IEEE has a committee working on a standard to identify and rate the trustworthiness of news sources.

"A question that has a presupposition built in, which implies something but protects the one asking the question from accusations…

Traffic to Facebook.com has fallen from ~8.5 billion visits per month to ~4.7 billion over two years. Source: Impending shakeup…

FACEBOOK says it "regrets" an algorithm blunder that caused balloons and confetti to appear in posts about the deadly earthquake…

This propaganda poster is now spreading online. The original Vox Tweet is here. It contains a link to a video…

What could possibly go wrong? The content filtering is because ... social media propaganda and fake news. Source: Govt to…

"Social media manipulation is big business," the researchers found. "We estimate that tens of millions of dollars are being spent…

Previously I wrote about the “Begging the Question” fallacy (and another example here). Immediately after an event, say a mass…

Facebook restricts certain conduct on its platform. However, journalists and academics are seeking to  receive special privileges to do things…

Rothschild family: net worth estimated at up to $700 trillion One of the wealthiest and most influential families in the…

Facebook has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about customers, including card transactions and checking-account balances, as…

Source: Apple bans Alex Jones podcasts; Facebook pulls four pages But not Twitter - says Jones' does not violate their…

Why is liberalism under particular threat from big data? Liberalism is based on the assumption that you have privileged access…

Twitter and Facebook have both said the solution to bad actors on their platforms is more artificial intelligence. I have…

From the examples given by Facebook, the accounts being removed appear to have been created to support left wing ideology…

"Faithfully executed, as the Constitution requires, the ACA was working and insurance markets were stable" - Andy Slavitt, former head…

Social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google attempt to discern our interests and voting profile by interpreting the…

CNBC illustrates their story about Apple Computer achieving a market capitalization of $1 Trillion with this photo - Tim Cook…

This blog has commented in the past on the problem of fake reviews all over the Internet. Fake reviews are…

Tiny couple lives in 8 square foot trailer: The couple, both 30 at the time, decided to trade in their…

Facebook lost about $113 billion market capitalization this week (per news reports). Twitter share price also fell about -20%. One…

Been saying this for a long: Facebook has long claimed that its mission is to develop social infrastructure and —…

At a local comic con, of all places, a cosplayer and recent sociology graduate introduced me to the term "mean…

A few months ago, a news item spread saying that the "average renter" or "minimum wage renter" cannot afford a…

Update: National Geographic has retracted the claims made about a widely viewed photo of a starving polar bear. The photos…

How propaganda techniques are used to promote legislation. In this case, a specific individual is highlighted to emotionally hook others…

And it's now starting to fail because people are no longer comfortable knowing they are handing over personal information "to…

In light of the largest market capitalization drop in history, shareholders are pushing to fire Mark Zuckerberg. Source: Facebook shareholders…

"Right now as we speak, Facebook is literally sending job ads that exclude people on the basis of their age,"…

Facebook will be legally required to end its practice of allowing businesses to block certain groups like blacks, gays and…

Facebook executives promoting their video-on-demand service got into a combative exchange with reporters while at the Television Critics Association's press……

Facebook missed revenue and global daily active user projections during its second-quarter earnings report. The company faced difficulties as it…

The only part of this propaganda poster that is true is that FactCheck.org did write about Snopes in 2009 but…

"On the left if you're consuming fake news you're 34 times more likely than the general population to be a…

Shadow banning is the term describing a "hidden ban". The user still thinks their account is active but their content…

After much backlash, Forbes appears to have pulled an article saying libraries have no value. Source: Forbes deleted an op-ed…

When everything is wrong, hire a propaganda specialist to persuade others that things are great because ... propaganda! The South…

Not surprisingly, the leaky data sieve that is Facebook, had its trove of personal data accessed from Russia and other…

Powell cited research from Princeton economist Alan Krueger, who conducted a survey and found that 44 percent of men reported…

This is getting old - an old photo is re-purposed to pretend it represents something else in a Tweet on…

Source: Newspapers run IDENTICAL letters slamming Trump's Supreme Court pick | Daily Mail Online At least one of the signatories…

Link The media is putting The Onion out of business! Text for Indexing A tape might exist of Trump doing…

Which is from The Onion? The first one is from Mashable which is, apparently, making a parody of The Onion?…

A Russian internet company with links to the Kremlin could have had access to the Facebook data of millions of…

Facebook users may choose to belong to private or closed groups. Some joined a private group for people having a…

This week, one of the largest health care providers in the State of California emailed to me the entire 101…

The company said it would invest in more “authoritative” news videos to counter the conspiracy-theory clips that plague the site.…

An entire Events Calendar just for political outrage events! Bay Area political events: Supreme Court protest, polarizing politics - SFChronicle.com…

ABC News calls the Supreme Court Justice nominee controversial - before they or any of us knew who the nominee…

Elon Musk calls out BBC New's incorrect news report. The full correspondence may be seen here. BBC News is well…

In a year and a half, President Trump has reportedly said or Tweeted over 3,000 false or misleading statements. In…

Some one took quotes that were manufactured for a satirical news web site and turned them into a propaganda poster.…

From the Declaration of Independence to a paid music video, Facebook's automated censorship system is flagging the wrong things. Facebook…

NowThis News claims to be in the journalism business, but don’t be fooled. This click-bait venture, which was founded in…

This is a LOCAL story at best. The news media continues to damage itself into irrelevancy by promoting local click…

Once enabled, Samba TV can track nearly everything that appears on the TV on a second-by-second basis, essentially reading pixels…

Gallup poll found that 52% of Americans say they were extremely proud to be American in 2016; 51% in 2017…

I just unfollowed the person who posted this item today. It's not true. He should have known better than pass…

Much propaganda messaging relies on showing us only a limited view of a story. Our quick acting thinking (Kahneman's System…

Source: Social media apps are 'deliberately' addictive to users - BBC News Their primary purpose is mind control, creating platforms…

Google has been a little more careful than Facebook when it comes to protecting your privacy. For example, the company…

Researchers say that higher testosterone levels lead to men wanting "higher status" luxury goods. Marketing propaganda figured this out long…

Really. A small newspaper in Texas was posting excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, leading up to the 4th of…

Software developers scan hundreds of millions of emails of users who sign up for email-based services. Disclosures are often buried…

Representatives for the FBI, the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission have joined the Department of Justice in its inquiries…

Occupy Democrats is an online, social media-based, for profit publisher of emotion laden political propaganda posters targeting those who view…

Facebook's advertising interests thinks I'm interested in the California Democratic Party *AND* Republicans for the Rule of Law. Seriously? I…

This is a fake resolution statement: It has already ended deals with most of them. Source: Facebook shared user data…

He can't be fired because he owns a majority of the company. 83% of independent Facebook investors believe Mark Zuckerberg…

Facebook gave dozens of companies special access to user data, detailing for the first time a spate of deals that…

Berry’s apology came after his earlier controversial tweet, in which he posted an image of the president’s “Make America Great…

According to the BBC, the Norwegian Consumer Council use several tricks to push users away from selecting privacy enhancing options,…

Read the Maryland Courts ruling from September 17, 2015. Social media has become a very scary place to hang out.

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the…

Is the main purpose of social media to spread disinformation? Sure seems so, whether intentional or unintentional. Yesterday, our local…

Appeared on Facebook. It's a misquote, taken out of context, says Snopes. (June 28th - the original post has been…

WCSO is the Washington County Sheriff's Office. They put out this social media poster on Twitter, regarding cell phone usage…

The Intercept published an article about likely locations of NSA voice and data intercept equipment located in AT&T "central office"…

A lack of trust in websites like Twitter and Facebook has prompted 40% of people with social media accounts to…

This is a frequent error in news reports: In 2015, Frappuccinos were 14 percent of Starbucks revenue: Year-to-date, however, the…

We have covered this phenomena before. The first information people receive, even if subsequently proven to be incorrect, is what…

Clarke, club president of CARE, said his interest is transmitting using LP or “low power” apparatus. John Laybourne, vice president…

Reporters and statistics rarely work well together: In 2018, the average premium on the exchange was $5,798.83 and for 2019,…

I'm so old, I was taught that a news headline encapsulated a brief summary of the news article. Today, the…

One thing: The Centers for Disease Control is reporting an outbreak of norovirus on a Holland America cruise ship in…

Source: Facebook's (FB) Analog Research Laboratory "propaganda" posters are being auctioned off — Quartz

I neglected to update a server file and continued to have some linked images reference without using https. You should…

FBI agents were enticed to spill the goods from reporters who plied them with meals, invitations to parties, tickets to…

It would help if professional journalists would protect professional journalism first (see next post): News Corp CEO Robert Thomson called…

I removed most of this original post as I discovered confusing irregularities in the reporting that made it impossible to…

Today's news brings the following announcement: By modifying their lifestyle, including diet and exercise, people can lower their blood pressure…

"Like other major ad platforms, we enable targeting based on age and gender" Because, you know, everyone discriminates based on…

In a document provided to Congress by Facebook we learn that Facebook is a massive spying operation recording everything about…

This post was moved to my Internet of Things blog: Minor security problem at Veoh.com  

I moved this post to my Internet of Things blog: Venmo's broken security While it deals with privacy issues, it…

If you go to your Google Dashboard and poke around, you'll find that Google actively and automatically reads all your…

This made me laugh - can you see why? A typical bicyclist may generate 100 to 200 watts per hour…

As this humorous news item notes, Facebook spends an inordinate amount of time apologizing for its repeated screw ups regarding…

This is separate from the apps that had access to friends of friends data such as those affiliated with Cambridge…

Seriously. They had no idea Facebook was a propaganda platform because there was "so much in the good" of Facebook.…

This propaganda poster came across my news feed. According to Snopes, He occasionally rides a subway but is more often…

As I posted yesterday, it appears that Facebook executives have been routinely lying to everyone about their massive surveillance network…

Facebook has reached data-sharing partnerships with at least 60 device makers — including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung —…

A long time ago, in a generation far away from the present, there was a TV show called "The Outer…

In 2016, USA Today published an embarrassingly incorrect map, as well as misspelling "marjijuana": The original USA Today article was…

Anchoring is the method of implanting a suggested value in the reader or viewer's mind. Can you spot the "anchor"…

Democracy dies in darkn... oh WTF: Google goes full evil. Source: George Osborne’s London Evening Standard sells its editorial independence…

Source: No surprise: Facebook to build data center in Eagle Mountain | Deseret News The "most profitable social media company…

The long time thesis of this blog is that social media is a frictionless platform for the spread of propaganda.…

The long time thesis of this blog is that social media is a frictionless platform for the spread of propaganda.…

"I don't like the phone because my [parents] are on their phone every day ... I hate my mom's phone…

This is a news story about ... a social media post ... describing an idiot store clerk. GRESHAM, Ore. (KATU)…

SILICON VALLEY – Taking a break from helping the Russian government tamper with American elections, Facebook has pivoted into the…

Company gathered data from texts and photos of users and their friends, court case claims Source: Facebook accused of conducting…

Amazon has voiced activated Smart Home products that enable you to order items, control lights and so on, by voice.…

So glad I spotted all this propaganda focused crap on social media long before everyone else noticed: Those services included…

NO! The largest planned residential development in Oregon history is now under construction in Hillsboro, and the city has an…

Twitter will now use thousands of behavioral signals when filtering search, replies, and algorithmic recommendations. If it believes you are…

In other words, everyone stole everything? Facebook Inc has so far suspended around 200 apps in the first stage of…

Source: Yahoo and AOL Just Gave Themselves the Right to Read Emails, Access Bank Records | Trending

In a peer-reviewed study we published this month, we find op-eds do change minds. After reading opinion pieces, we found…

Fox News runs a column about Kilauea in which it gets almost everything wrong starting with the headline. Source: Volcanic…

The City of West Sacramento is using software to continuously analyze social media posts on Facebook and Twitter, saying it…

Their log in to your account is done in secret, and once logged in, they can access your private messages,…

The NY Times writes in "Speaking Freely About Politics Can Cost You Your Job" that private sector workers ' "...don’t…

If we engaged in widely publicized hateful or hurtful or vile speech, our employers would likely begin job termination procedures…

I began writing this blog, privately - not visible to the public - back in 2014. It was a way…

Previously, I noted Facebook's algorithms concluded I am Liberal. I recently downloaded Twitter's assessment of me and Twitter concluded I…

Previously I wrote about the "Begging the Question" fallacy (and another example here). Immediately after an event, say a mass…

Hours after being alerted by KrebsOnSecurity, Facebook last week deleted almost 120 private discussion groups totaling more than 300,000 members who flagrantly…

Surveillance is us, 24 x7: This Israeli surveillance juggernaut is sitting on a massive database of faces taken from Facebook…

Because emotionally roused viewers are more susceptible to advertising messages: The service’s algorithm, designed to reward content that elicits emotion,…

Until literally a few days before, this entire ad sales team at Facebook was literally telling every politician with any…

Facebook’s website had an entire section devoted to touting the “success stories” of political campaigns that used the social network…

Facebook is all about mind control, using what it knows about you - or what its algorithms think they know…

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/facebook-cambridge-behavior-model.html[/embed] Perhaps at some point in the past few years you’ve told Facebook that you like, say, Kim Kardashian West.…

Police forces and federal agencies around the country have bought relatively cheap tools to unlock up-to-date iPhones and bypass their…

Aleksandr Kogan collected direct messages sent to and from Facebook users who installed his This Is Your Digital Life app,…

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-43718175 No one knows how many people or private messages were stolen. Empirically, Facebook can not be trusted to hold…

https://www.cnet.com/news/your-facebook-messages-might-also-be-at-risk-in-data-scandal/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/body-parts-threatened-wildlife-widely-sold-facebook-234807698--politics.html Facebook is a bizarre for selling threatened and endangered dead wildlife.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/09/technology/fake-black-lives-matter-facebook-page/index.html Most of Facebook is Fakebook. I've covered similar fake Twitter accounts before. Social media is big alligator infested swamp…

“We are not sweeping up data. People are inputting data. People are sharing data with Facebook,” she said. You mean…

https://amp.ft.com/content/7a99cb46-3b0f-11e8-bcc8-cebcb81f1f90 What I was saying a couple of days ago... Article refers to the "authoritarian" nature of social media oligarchs…

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/fyi/facebook-scans-your-messenger-conversations-and-sometimes-humans-read-them/amp/

I gave them a unique email address created just for them, and the wrong zip code: https://www.geekwire.com/2018/starbucks-picked-odd-time-force-wifi-customers-cough-personal-data/ Nothing said we…

X/facebook-messenger-is-following-you-1707428723

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/497392002

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/08/cubeyou-cambridge-like-app-collected-data-on-millions-from-facebook.html

Facebook scans all your messages for proper "public opinion orientation" Imagine if the post office opened all your mail or…

TV and radio stations, newspapers and magazines pay for their content for the purpose of providing eye balls to advertisers.…

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/facebook-knew-that-cambridge-analytica-was-harvesting-data-for-over-2-years-confirms-sheryl-sandberg-4421729.html

Anyone still thinking government agencies did not scrape Facebook? "SCL is Strategic Communications Laboratories which is a government and a…

https://www.androidheadlines.com/2018/04/facebook-suspends-second-data-firm-amid-privacy-concerns.html

"Facebook doesn’t just collect data itself; it has purchased external data from data brokers; it creates “shadow profiles” of nonusers…

Good question: https://www.wired.com/story/why-zuckerberg-15-year-apology-tour-hasnt-fixed-facebook/

Soon it will be easier to just list the countries not investigating Facebook ... [embed]https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/04/05/technology/05reuters-canada-facebook-probe.html[/embed]  

we don't have an opt-out at the highest level," she acknowledged. "That would be a paid product." Source: Users would…

For instance, if Facebook could determine that an elderly patient doesn't have many nearby close friends or much community support,…

I found out what they have on me! Long before Facebook existed there were companies that assembled data about consumers.…

Facebook was in talks with top hospitals and other medical groups as recently as last month about a proposal to…

Source: CalSTRS CIO deletes Facebook account, citing 'offensive' management

Specifically, FB says if you didn't find the secret privacy option to disable "Apps Others Use" hidden in the "Ads"…

Facebook "Pages" provide content to those who "Like" or "Follow" your page on Facebook. Facebook's filtering algorithm has mostly discontinued…

Australia's Privacy Commissioner opened a formal investigation into social media giant Facebook after the company confirmed data from 300,000 Australian…

Acxiom's stock fell 30% from recent high after Facebook announced it was terminating use of third party data aggregators. Zuckerberg…

Like what is the world coming to now days? Facebook said Wednesday that “malicious actors” took advantage of search tools…

No committee in Congress has gotten more campaign contributions from Facebook's political action committee and company employees than the one…

Contrary to a recent Reuters report, he said, new controls for privacy settings required by European law will roll out…

During 2017, you could not disable Google tracking of your smart phone. During most of 2017, Android devices were collecting…

Facebook said Wednesday that most of its 2 billion users likely have had their public profiles scraped by outsiders without…

Prior to 2014, applications using the Facebook platform could download nearly everything posted by users, including photos, Likes, Interests, Groups…

In the web browser, click on the Messages tab. Select a conversation and then click on the gear icon and…

Stores have to deal with people engaged in product return fraud. This is a problem, for example, where people have…

Mostly it spells out in some what more detail that "All our data is belong to us", we share it…

Real corporate change is rare, especially when the same leaders remain in charge. In Facebook’s case, we are not speaking…

Facebook Inc. scans the chats and images that people send each other on Facebook Messenger, making sure it all abides…

Mark Zuckerberg believes North America users of his platform deserve a lower data protection standard than people everywhere else in…

Police were notified about the shooter by her family and met with the shooter overnight Tuesday, before she went on…

But of course ... because privacy is not important to people outside the EU: Exclusive: Facebook CEO says no plans…

Grindr, a gay dating app, will stop sharing users’ HIV statuses with third parties after a report disclosed that the…

The more time we have been on Facebook, the more we share. The more time we spend on Facebook, the…

Source: Facebook launches bulk app removal tool amidst privacy scandal | TechCrunch

Facebook (and Youtube and Twitter) have conducted a global experiment on human populations without consent of the guinea pigs by…

A survey has found that while 93% of Brits were aware of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, 5% have left Facebook…

Source: Mark Zuckerberg should quit as chairman, Facebook shareholder says - Business Insider Zuckerberg owns the majority of stock in…

Perhaps a bit of hyperbole but perhaps not: For the sake of a Procter and Gamble being able to save…

Hate speech exploded on Facebook at the start of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar last year, analysis has revealed, with…

Not sure "ethics" and "Facebook" can cohabitate in the same sentence: The ethical use of the psychology behind social media,…

Did the the Instagram APIs (program interfaces) have a data leak, sort of like Facebook? Without warning, Instagram cut apps…

and Google may have to be broken apart "They have a very classical issue in a monopoly situation: they are…

And Youtube and Twitter if necessary: An Indonesian cabinet member has threatened to shut down Facebook if there is any…

Gebhart said that privacy is increasingly a selling point for technology users, but for social media companies, data abuses are…

For Facebook iPhone users, the newest version of the Facebook app enables you to see who has viewed your profile.…

How they will do that is not clear. A great way to avoid social media-based fake news is to avoid…

"Everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar," UN Myanmar investigator Yanghee Lee said, adding that "the ultra-nationalist Buddhists have their…

Costco stores, like many stores, are designed to trap you inside longer and to walk further to be exposed to…

“The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information. Simply put, many of…

We investigated a report that some people were seeing their old draft videos when they accessed their information from our…

One way your data can escape is through Facebook games and apps. Whenever you run one, it gets your public…

Facebook collects more data than you may imagine. For example, did you know that Facebook gets a report every time…

I am so old, I remember when I suggested this six weeks ago! It leaves the company with just one…

The company has vowed that users are "in control" of their privacy on its service. But when it comes to…

See my comprehensive post on setting Facebook's numerous hidden privacy features, over on my Learn2C - Learn to Code web…

A manager who worked on privacy issues at Facebook told FRONTLINE that he raised red flags to company executives more…

Facebook ... conducted research about exploiting posts by kids as young as 14 to show how its algorithms could help…

Modern phones can analyze a thousand photos per minute. Combine your “Selfies” album with machine learning, and it’s trivial to…

Per the Roku privacy policy (typical of all modern smart TVs and set-top-boxes as well - essentially all TV viewing…

Source: Another chapter on Facebook’s privacy woes is being written in Latin America | TechCrunch

Google News has been punked (so much for all that AI and machine learning!) And if one reads the news…

A district court in Belgium ruled that Facebook is indeed violating EU’s privacy laws with its "shadow tracking" of users…

Many of us found ourselves targeted for items that made no sense. Facebook's AI and data mining to determine our…

Saw this quote in the NY Times article: Many [Facebook employees] are also concerned over what might leak next and…

It was a tight-knit cult convinced of its mission to connect everyone, but with the discipline of a military unit…

It collects data from our posts, our likes, our photos, things we type and delete without posting, and things we…

Worth reading. Long history of abusing their user community, failing to truthfully disclose what they were doing, and lying about…

The loss of trust is not just to Facebook but to all things "e-based". How many of us are now…

Honestly, its not fun to work at a company where you just discovered you are not in the business of…

This from a Qatar newspaper Signing into an online account gives services a sure-fire way of tracking you. Facebook won't…

Most companies define their business with a mission statement, a sentence capturing the essence of what the company does. The…

https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/976563870322999296

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/americas/travelers-visa-social-media.html[/embed] The proposal covers 20 social media platforms. Most of them are based in the United States: Facebook, Flickr, Google+,…

Social media posts that draw ire of others are an emerging workplace issue. Source: Kaiser Roseville nurse out after Stephon…

MANY Australians are discovering just how much Facebook knows about them and many are shocked, leading them to quit the…

Social Book Manager is a Chrome browser extension/plug in that enables you to select Facebook post by year or content,…

We have no idea, but if Cambridge Analytica could do this, you can be 100% certain the CIA and the…

Many are also concerned over what might leak next and are deleting old comments or messages that might come across…

Comments or Likes made on Public posts are themselves "public". Facebook is testing a feature to allow individual comments to…

Source: Poll: Americans Are Less Likely To Trust Facebook Than Rivals [Infographic]

Facebook's put out a press release on steps it is taking to change its privacy policy. The press release is…

Interesting ideas for fixing social media from the link, below. Run a social media platform as a collective, where users…

Zuckerberg owns the Democratic Party leadership: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.Schumer, whose daughter works as a product marketing manager…

Like other recent health care pairings, the deal — should it go through — marks a pursuit of big data…

Looking at the "Ads" section of the Facebook downloaded Archive file shows a list of "Ads Topics", apparently based in…

The key surprise that duped all of us was that our innocuous use of clicking on Like was Facebook's secret…

There is no easy way to know if an app is safe. Unfortunately, this means the idea that a "free…

When you install the Instagram app, it wants access to your Phone and SMS functions on your phone. Today we…

Yesterday I installed Android Snapchat on my phone. By default SnapChat wanted access to my Contacts list, Phone and SMS…

An internal post reacting to the memo found employees angry and heartbroken that their teammates were sharing internal company discussions…

Except where you need to enter your real information, such as at a financial services site, we may be best…

For instance, app developers and advertisers aren’t supposed to obtain the unique digital code that’s programmed into every phone. This…

From the 2016 memo: "Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools ... And still we connect…

Google is using Facebook’s misfortunes to launch a PR offensive. Executives are talking up the differences in its business model.…

30% have an unfavorable view and 22% are unsure what to think. 14% believe Facebook can be trusted and 70%…

Facebook works with third party data spies as part of their program to "Collect it all" from everyone on earth,…

Earlier today, Facebook said it is blocking the creation of "millions" of fake accounts every day. How many of the…

Since he knows all about us, here is the VP that thought killing people is fine if it helps grow…

Facebook admits their system is designed to dupe people and treat Facebook users like, in Zuckerberg's own words, "Dumb Fucks".…

There is a reason they call it Fakebook: Facebook has begun letting partners fact check photos and videos beyond news…

Facebook was informed that the app at the centre of a massive data leak could sell user data to third…

Former Federal Trade Commission officials say that Facebook Inc. appears to have breached a 2011 consent agreement to safeguard users’…

This statement from Facebook is misleading, at best: Last week showed how much more work we need to do to…

Acxiom is one of half a dozen third party data aggregators that sold offline surveillance data to Facebook. Facebook combined…

Many people report missing data in their archive. This problem has existed since 2012. In my own archive, most of…

Source: Extreme vetting: State Dept. to demand tourists' social media history - Washington Times With the poll (below) saying 86%…

** 86 percent said they have not changed their login credentials on Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms.* *…

Kevin Matthew, a former systems administrator who owns a small web development company, shared a script he created that replaces…

Source: Social Media Use 2018: Demographics and Statistics | Pew Research Center Note - you can use Youtube without logging…

It appears that users who uploaded a video but then discarded it without posting it have found that Facebook stored…

“This data breach should put an end to any possibility of Facebook being used for voting, and its an opportunity…

Better Business Bureau of San Francisco has changed Facebook's rating from A+ to NR. Source: BBB Business Profile | Facebook…

I have an email address at a popular "free" email service. For unclear reasons, I receive a LOT of email…

Playing out in the sidelines of the Cambridge Analytica scandal was the discovery that Facebook had been collecting metadata on…

Facebook no longer needs the third-party, offline data as they already know everything about everyone: More specifically, Facebook says it…

Why else did Facebook add this clause to their Platform agreement. Section 3. Protect Data 15. Don't use data obtained…

Read this Twitter thread. Someone de-activated their Facebook account in late 2016 and downloaded their data.  Today, she downloaded the…

We are one vote away from a world where your ISP can track your every move online and sell that…

This is from 2016, but illustrates yet another way in which Facebook sold its data to be used to discriminate…

Artificial intelligence will automate and optimize fake news, warns a technology supplier to the CIA. Source: Fake news 2.0: personalized,…

Buried in this new book is Microsoft's privacy policy. If you continue to use any Microsoft products after May 1,…

Home sellers are now using interior security cameras to record video and audio of buyers viewing their homes and taking…

Both Facebook and Google's business models are based on invasive user surveillance and creating friction-less platforms for the spread of…

And why my next phone may be an iPhone. Google's business model is identical to Facebook: "free" stuff in exchange…

Eric Schmidt made no secret of his desire to assist Hillary Clinton's election. Peter Thiel made no secret at all…

The connection between Palantir and Cambridge Analytica was apparently suggested by Schmidt's daughter Sophie, who had been an intern at…

‘Facebook is essentially a 14-year-old design … So no, the answer is it will not survive long-term.’ Source: Facebook critic:…

Why is now the time and not years ago? : "It's time to make our privacy tools easier to find"

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/technology/facebook-privacy-security-settings.html[/embed] “The last week showed how much more work we need to do to enforce our policies, and to help…

Yesterday I was writing a tutorial on how to lock down Facebook's anti-privacy settings. The item labeled "Privacy" has almost…

Amid the recent Facebook scandal, a recent study found 31 percent of tech workers said they will delete their accounts…

New Zealand’s privacy commissioner has accused Facebook of breaking the country’s privacy laws and has deleted his Facebook account. Source:…

Don’t worry, though. Facebook says they’re respecting your privacy while they do this. While ambient audio is definitely being recorded,…

The devices are part of Facebook’s plan to become more intimately involved with users’ everyday social lives, using artificial intelligence…

Ferrell said he couldn't "use the services of a company that allowed the spread of propaganda." Source: Will Ferrell, reluctant…

Facebook's vice president of public policy for the Asia-Pacific region arrogantly interrupts and tells off the Chair of the Singapore…

Nearly every story on Facebook this week has featured this Getty Images photo of Zuckerberg looking contrite: The photo first…

Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography,…

In a March 1 release, Microsoft is warning customers using Office, Xbox, Skype, and other products that the company is…

Last Friday, I hypothesized that I saw only left wing political propaganda on Facebook in 2016 because Facebook had presumably…

Source: Facebook data misuse scandal affects “substantially” more than 50M, claims Wylie | TechCrunch Cambridge Analytica is also accused of…

NEW YORK (AP) — Fair housing advocates have sued Facebook, saying it lets landlords and real estate brokers target advertising…

No other political perspective is possible in their world view: Hidden in plain sight under Ad Preferences is a section…

Source: Facebook data scandal widens as Canadian company accused of helping target U.S. voters

For years, Facebook has left a privacy setting on its site that addresses a problem that no longer exists. Source:…

Facebook is on a hiring spree in Washington as the social network bulks up its ranks of lobbyists in the…

Facebook argues that users gave it permission but many users say that is false, and the permission was for "Contacts"…

Seems similar to private browsing, which separates tracking cookies from your other online activities. Source: Firefox now isolates Facebook tracking…

U.S. government officials ratcheted up pressure on Facebook Inc. on Monday over its handling of user data, with federal regulators…

Basically, people are getting fed up with BigTech. Source: Exclusive poll: Facebook favorability plunges - Axios

Google is at least as invasive as Facebook. However, there are some controls available to delete or turn off some…

Read this thread (or this reformatted version) to see just how much data Google grabs as part of their global…

Zuckerberg’s social network is a politically agnostic tool for its more than 2 billion users, he has said. But Facebook,…

For those of you with software development backgrounds, you can learn about the Graph API, which is the application programming…

AdGuard looked at 2,556 popular apps on the Google Play store. Of these, it found 41 percent were communicating with…

Agency officials said Friday, March 23, that the incident began Feb. 21 when a department employee uploaded work files to…

Since I cannot immediately delete my entire FB account, I have removed myself from most groups, unliked all Pages, turned…

A look at what those apps could access may freak you out. Some of these so-called legacy apps required user…

And:

Facebook's ad platform enables discrimination based on age, sex, and race. That means, Facebook enables advertisers to display ads only…

All that will be left on FB is old people sharing propaganda posters? Facebook’s 12 to 17-year-old demographic declined by…

Facebook will write its own regulations, as most regulated industries do, and write them in a way to protect the…

“But lots of recent research shows that if we can disconnect from social media regularly, we are much happier when…

If targeted advertising does not work, then the only remaining business for Facebook is spying on people: Targeting to super-specific…

From Facebook's own page: If you need to give an email address to a business, use a throw away email…

The reality is that the incentives of a privacy policy are to not use it to keep your info private.…

This is ugly. Facebook was collecting messages from people who never consented to Facebook's privacy policy. Update: FB says they…

Facebook’s ‘privacy settings’ are a grand illusion. Control over post-sharing – people we share to – should really be called…

The terms were updated in April 2014 to restrict the data new developers could get hold of, including to people’s…

Facebook has gone to great lengths to convince members of the public that it’s all about “connecting people” and “building…

These headlines are to the point of being "What You See is All There Is" (WYSIATI) propaganda. In reality, everyone…

"Well crafted" means tech titans want to write their own regulations to protect incumbent titans while making it hard for…

I no longer believe Facebook is safe for anyone to be using. First, read about the unexpected data collection that…

The following list is adapted from a Gizmodo article which deserves credit for the work. I have re-written their items into…

Rube Goldberg was an engineer better known as the cartoonist that drew hilariously complex machines to solve mundane problems. Facebook's…

All Facebook "apps" are enhanced tracking devices designed to spy on your activities. Facebook provides "apps" for iOS (iPhone, iPad),…

Would you consider sending a digital scan of your driver's license, birth certificate, voter ID card, bank or credit card…

When you log into a website with your Facebook account, the site can access information you’ve added on Facebook. The…

Facebook has a feature that allows you to tag friends in photos. They encourage you to click on the individual…

Facebook uses your web logins and Likes, anywhere on the Internet, to track you. When you do this, they deposit…

Facebook Payments Inc. (https://www.facebook.com/payments_terms/privacy) Atlas (http://atlassolutions.com/privacy-policy) Instagram LLC (http://instagram.com/about/legal/privacy/) Onavo (http://www.onavo.com/privacy_policy) Moves (http://moves-app.com/privacy) Oculus (http://www.oculus.com/privacy/) WhatsApp Inc. (http://www.whatsapp.com/legal/#Privacy) Masquerade (https://www.facebook.com/msqrd/privacy)…

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/24/business/media/facebook-apologizes-for-overstating-video-metrics.html[/embed] For two long years, Facebook lied about its video views, greatly exaggerating the time spent watching videos. Shortly thereafter,…

The California Consumer Privacy Act, a possible California ballot measure in November, would require big companies such as Facebook, Google…

Laughing at Twitter Tweets each seeming to top others on how they deleted Facebook years ago! Well, I deleted it…

The commissioner said she would be writing to Facebook demanding answers on how the data breach involving the British firm,…

In 2012: 11 percent of free apps in Apple’s iTunes store collected address book data. That means names, addresses, phone…

The tool would allow parties to match data they had collected about voters - such as ages, emails, phone numbers,…

“The company has in recent times been the subject of a number of controversies and reputational issues,” the committee said…

Officials had planned to collect Facebook data from Australia's Commonwealth Games visitors by offering high-speed Wi-Fi that taps the social…

CNBC quotes

A must read. Unbelievable. Source: What the F*** Was Facebook Thinking? – James Allworth – Medium Zuckerberg needs to resign.

Source: Sonos is pulling its ads off Facebook and Instagram, but only for a week - The Verge  

Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships at Facebook, said: “If it were me I would have probably not threatened to…

We make fun of North Korea with propaganda posters hanging prominently, while here in the U.S., we saturate public spaces…

Like other quizzes, his was able to capture all of your public information, including name, profile picture, age, gender and…

Facebook has adopted numerous psychological methods that trick us into providing them with our personal data. Facebook has been carefully…

Read this to learn how to see the advertising dossier and other data that Facebook has collected on you. Source:…

Location smart SDKs, embedded into publisher apps, have transformed the way in which location data is obtained. It has allowed…

Conservative Republicans are sure the company has discriminated against them. Democrats on the left will find it hard to embrace…

Elon Musk got onboard with the ‘Delete Facebook’ movement amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal and deleted Tesla’s Facebook page, which had…

As I have said for a long time, the capabilities of AI today have been oversold: "What we are learning…

Two of Facebook’s own data scientists worked with Kogan between 2013 and 2015, according to the paper. As part of…

Source: Mozilla pulled its Facebook ads and others may follow Update: The British group, ISBA, represents over 3000 brands, including…

We may never know why I only saw left wing propaganda on Facebook in 2016, since Facebook is so secretive…

It still requires human intervention: "There’s certainly a lot that A.I. can do, we can train classifiers to identify content,…

March 20, 2018 Statement by NAS, NAE, and NAM Presidents on Effort to Counter Online Misinformation We are pleased to…

By selling your personal data, Facebook earned an average of $84.41 per year per person in North America in 2016.…

Agree. Zuckerberg has shown zero leadership skills. He has shown littel understanding of the problem and how to fix it;…

The Facebook Cambridge Analytica data scandal makes it clear that we must regulate social media platforms. We can regulate Facebook…

Because Zuckerberg knows best what you want to see: Instagram isn’t quite bringing back the chronological feed, but it will…

Watch the short clip here. He says Facebook will never sell your user information. "No, of course not," he answers.…

The social media giant sells not only demographic data, but also information about how you behave Source: Facebook: Your personal…

The move has left organizations offering services to the LGBT community unable to directly target their audiences. Source: Facebook Has…

This entire PR statement from Zuckerberg appears to have been written by the PR team, may be even the same…

The company says it's 'outraged' over Cambridge Analytica's actions, but it doesn't want to stop selling access to your information…

On Facebook, you are the product. Advertisers are the customer. Source: Is your data safe on Facebook? Not really -…

Ouch: Advertisers rethinking use of Facebook after scandal Some are threatening to quit Facebook. And "But if we [advertisers] betray…

Facebook has since deleted the ad.  

"I started this when I was so young and inexperienced," the 33-year-old Zuckerberg said. "I made technical errors and business…

"I actually am not sure we shouldn't be regulated" Source: Mark Zuckerberg is actually not sure Like most industries, something…

Yes: Now would be a good time for Zuckerberg to resign?

Are you angry yet? "At Cambridge," he said, "we were able to form a model to predict the personality of…

  FIRST PUBLISHED IN DECEMBER 16, 2016 IN GERMAN IN DAS MAGAZIN. PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH ON JANUARY 28, 2017 IN…

Odd: Twitter’s chief information security officer is leaving the company

"I want to share an update on the Cambridge Analytica situation -- including the steps we've already taken and our…

DO NOT USE YOUR FACEBOOK ID TO LOG IN TO NON FACEBOOK WEB SITES These are many apps from Candy…

Underlying the furor surrounding the use of illicitly obtained Facebook data in the 2016 presidential campaign is the rise of…

"Even if your profile is set to private," said Ron Schlecht, managing founder of cybersecurity firm BTB Security, your likes,…

Videos offering to sell firearms, offering information about firearm modifications, manufacturing, ammunition, and various accessories are now banned. Source: Policies…

Preneel’s paper highlighted how apps could siphon off identities and information including location, groups, interests, “likes,” photos and videos, relationship…

Facebook is the world’s largest treasure trove of this data. Every day billions of people give the company huge amounts…

This is a start - I hope to have my own post as there are more things you can do…

The U.S. media spent 17 months chasing a story about $44,000 worth of Russian-linked Facebook ads while UK's Channel 4…

Apparently way too many people: The Nielsen company said 26 of the 40 most-watched programs on cable television last week…

Well, there goes Facebook's business model 🙂 "What they’re doing is bullshit, basically,” said Antonio García Martínez, a former Facebook…

I'm so old, I remember back when "Russia hacked the election" - hah hah ... Cambridge Analytica planted fake news…

That's a lie: One, it escalates the emotional tone of Facebook’s response — on Friday, it called Cambridge Analytica’s actions…

Rules and regulations are coming, that's for sure: In the wake of this catastrophic violation, Mark Zuckerberg must be forced…

Last summer or fall, I moved the social.coldstreams.com content to hosting on wordpress.com. I am considering moving it all back…

Cambridge Analytica: The full scale of their pivotal work in Trump’s election win How they avoid Congressional investigations into their…

One cannot make this up! "targeting Facebook with legislation would quickly run the risk of hitting other companies. Many companies…

Of course, it could end up with biases that turn it into yet-another propaganda operation, by flagging legitimate stories that…

Facebook and Instagram apps, routinely installed on smart phones, collect your location information and log it with Facebook. In fact,…

Facebook actually did that - they have disabled the Facebook account of Christopher Wylie who blew the whistle on the…

Hundreds of millions of Facebook users are likely to have had their private information harvested by companies that exploited the…

Source: Facebook's data scandal could get even worse - Mar. 20, 2018

The British House of Commons has officially sent Zuck a letter asking him to come to London and testify about…

First, to merely de-activate your account Facebook confronts you with a psychological manipulation to get you to avoid doing that.…

So much for the social media business model then: The Trump campaign had tested the RNC data, and it proved…

Source: FTC reportedly to investigate Facebook's use of personal data Is Mark Zuckerburg/Facebook the next Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos? Probably not that…

Imagine a world where the government placed tracking devices on every person in the country, Kept a data base record…

The Washington Post makes clear - Facebook has made its internal data available to nearly any software developer, somewhat clamping…

Source: Facebook, Inc. (FB) After Hours Trading - NASDAQ.com

At a prior meeting, Turnbull told the reporters: "Our job is to really drop the bucket further down the well…

She is describing what they did for the Obama campaign back in 2012. https://youtu.be/LGiiQUMaShw

The reality is: Your data actually belongs to Facebook, and the company will enrich itself by doing with it whatever…

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/business/dealbook/is-it-time-for-more-adult-supervision-at-facebook.html[/embed] If only someone had written a blog post with that wording ... heh

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex-stamos.html[/embed]

Four years ago Obama's campaign was lauded as "masterminds" for harvesting Facebook friend lists to build digital profiles for voter…

Apathy leads down a path to world domination: Facebook might be stuck in another huge controversy, but the average user…

An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were…

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has done immense damage to the brand, sources across the company believe. It will now take…

Very gratified to finally see others catching on: Cambridge Analytica stands accused of nothing more than what academics do every…

A former Obama campaign official says Facebook let them scoop up lots of personal data information from Facebook in 2012.…

Even I am surprised at the response to Facebook's gaffes. Here is the top collection of stories shown on Marketwatch.com.…

Source: FB: 173.0693 -12.0207 (-6.4945%) – Stock Quote and News - CNBC Many people just noticed that Facebook's business model…

See list here. Over time, it seems that Facebook has lacked adult supervision. [embed]https://twitter.com/JoshConstine/status/975532216972320768[/embed]

"[W]e found out that the predictions we gave SCL were 6 times more likely to get all 5 of a…

Click on this link to see what data Cambridge Analytica had compiled on an actual person. Also - very important…

True. What many are only just now discovering about social media (or what you might have known if you'd be…

There's no outside attacker bringing Facebook down. It's a circular firing squad that stems from the company's fundamental business model…

Facebook's surveillance and spying operation turned over data to  psychologists to craft targeted, specific propaganda messages designed to hook targets…

Facebook threatened to sue reporters over exposing Facebook's exposing the private data of tens of millions of users - the…

Cambridge Analytica is a very sophisticated, social media-based, propaganda operation: The plot thickened when I learned that a company called…

Aleksandr Kogan and Aleksandr Spectre are the same person. Says he changed his name from Kogan to Spectre after marriage…

Stores use your loyalty card to identify you and all of your purchases. Your purchase transactions are then sold to…

Avoid using Facebook and Google services. However, this may not be practical. Further, Facebook has the ability to track people…

In your browser, click on the little down arrow (upside down triangle icon) at upper right corner. Go down and…

According to Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, the company uses techniques found in propaganda and casino gambling to…

From its stance on extremist content, to its vast caches of user data, Facebook is a corporation whose power must,…

Source: U.S. and British lawmakers demand answers from Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg - The Washington Post Facebook is going…

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html[/embed] With all the attention of the media focused on unspecified Russians and the Internet Research Agency, they were missing…

What makes a conversation ‘bad’? In Google’s mind, it’s rating toxicity. Source: Toxicity and Tone Are Not The Same Thing:…

In all of the debate about the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA, S. 1693), there’s one question that’s received…

Someone with a much larger audience was saying the same thing:

One day last year, John Evans (not his real name) received a message from his manager at Facebook telling him…

The academic had developed a Facebook app which featured a personality quiz, and Cambridge Analytica paid for people to take…

The algorithm at the heart of the Facebook data breach sounds almost too dystopian to be real. It trawls through…

Revealed: Facebook is a massive spying operation that collects information for the specific purpose of propaganda messaging: Christopher Wylie, who…

The entire business model of Facebook is to collect as much data about you as possible, to data mine that…

This is actually old news from a while back but ... E-commerce giant Amazon is deleting reviews for Michael Wolff’s…

I'm so old, I remember 10 weeks ago when a brand new locomotive leading the inaugural run of a brand…

I do not see as many of these strange social media posters, partially because I have stopped following people who…

The propaganda machine is at it again: The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global…

Last night, I posted an item noting that most national news coverage is about politics: political figures and government activities,…

On March 14, 2018, I took screen snapshots of the main, top of the page views showing at MSNBC, CNN,…

Both Twitter and Facebook have made efforts to counter nation-state backed exploitation of their platforms, but the consensus is that…

Social media, confirmation bias and its use in marketing #FakeNews #Propaganda #SocialMedia (I originally posted this on my tech blog,…

Even these moves seemed to draw mostly criticism, though. Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed’s media editor, called YouTube’s approach a “nesting doll”…

Apple: The company this week bought Texture, a “Netflix for magazines” service that offers subscribers access to 200 magazines. Eddy…

If the last decade of SXSW celebrated the promise of social media, the next years may well be dominated by…

What could go wrong? - The government said it would consider adding warning labels to social media - Business Insider…

YouTube videos focusing on conspiracy theories will now link to a snippet of information on the topic from Wikipedia. ....…

I'm so old I remember just a few weeks ago when I suggested social media will soon require certification to…

The headline to this post sounds like a headline from The Onion, but its not. National Geographic admits to exploiting…

"Soon I noticed something peculiar. YouTube started to recommend and “autoplay” videos for me that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust…

The hoaxers largely copied the original Spectre and Meltdown web sites, changed a few things, and then put out a…

Twitter has become mostly useless, over run with bots and fake memes, as illustrated here: Continuing its battle against the…

It's called the "40% trick" and people in the know should learn to recognize it: Talking heads have learned if…

Protestors shut down a speaker at an event that is local to where I live. I am not familiar with…

A young waitress who helped an elderly customer at a Houston-area Waffle House is being praised for her kind gesture.…

More than half of users between the ages of 18 and 24 revealed they are “seeking relief from social media,”…

This, says Pivotal, reflects a 24% decline in time spent per person.” Instagram, too, saw some poor engagement numbers. Though…

As noted here and in the next post, below, fake and false items spread faster on social media than truthful…

On Twitter TWTR, -2.27% , false news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than true stories, and it…

We've all seen news quotes like this one: Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight on…

[embed]https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/827zqc/in_response_to_recent_reports_about_the_integrity/[/embed] As for direct propaganda, that is, content from accounts we suspect are of Russian origin or content linking directly…

The embattled publisher of Newsweek and the International Business Times on Tuesday admitted that three of its websites were running…

An Australian musician posts a Youtube video containing nothing but generic white noise - and receives five copyright infringement notices…

This is not disclosed in their privacy policy either. Privacy? What privacy? Source: MoviePass CEO: 'we watch how you drive…

The top three percent of channels got 64 percent of all views in 2006. A decade later, the top channels…

As long pointed out here, the problem is that frictionless sharing platforms enable rapid dissemination of propaganda messaging, often intended…

Twitter CEO says platform has become toxic and they have no idea how to fix it

Russian operatives said to use social media propaganda to control U.S. environmental activists It's the medium, not the message that…

Existential crisis slams social media business model as platforms overrun with propaganda by everyone At the link, the author suggests…

I downloaded the dossier that Facebook created on me. The dossier contains a list of all Android apps I had…

If you do not comply, Facebook will lock you out of your account: Facebook is locking users out of their…

There's a file showing everything Facebook has on you. And it's pretty scary. Source: The weird and surprising things I…

Not content with monitoring the movements of its own users, the largest social network in the world is building secret…

The State Department is launching a $40 million initiative to crack down on foreign propaganda and disinformation amid widespread concerns…

Senior executives have resigned or been fired and dozens of staff and reporters have quit. Source: Newsweek in Turmoil: Probe…

Once considered darlings, bigtech is now under fire for their role in destroying privacy, their platforms' use for spreading propaganda,…

The U.S. media has buried its head in deeply to the Russian-propaganda meme, as if this was new and nefarious.…

One of my hobbies is 3D or "stereo" photography. I saw this in my Twitter feed: And what is this…

Facebook was the major mover in Social traffic in 2017. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a positive move. Their share of visits…

It's not the message, its the medium - duh! The central problem of disinformation corrupting American political culture is not…

This sounds familiar, where have I heard this? 🙂 Experts, however, say what they call “computational propaganda” doesn’t just piggyback…

Starting to see a trend here: Oppressive governments around the world have realized that social media have become powerful alternative…

Okay, whatever: There’s no doubt in my mind that the ones that have been harmed most by it are news…

Of interest - a government body says it will force compliance with the government's desired speech by using the tax…

Source: Mark Zuckerberg has sold $357 million in Facebook shares in February

The Center for Humane Technology is a world-class team of former tech insiders and CEOs who are advancing thoughtful solutions…

I logged into Facebook and had a pop up survey from Facebook itself. The survey asked, basically, Is Facebook good…

Social media has become weaponized. And, while this weaponization poses serious threats to our country in the long term, the…

"This video should never have appeared in Trending. Because the video contained footage from an authoritative news source, our system…

Hoaxers impersonate legitimate reporters In the first incident, a perpetrator used a software tool to create two fake tweets that…

The senator [Sanders] from Vermont says 40 percent of guns are sold without a background check. The Washington Post notes…

A UCLA student journalist reported a story using a photo of a sign in front of a student housing home…

Or as a friend points out, a culture of idiocy promotes outrage! Face palm. A U.S. flag is flying above…

CNN speaks with people unwittingly used by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency. Source: The unwitting: The Trump supporters used by…

Had this announcement in my notifications today: Facebook intends to stop showing me content that I actually want to see.…

Civil War re-enactment will relocate from Fort Stevens State Park after 27 years from The Daily Astorian Fort Stevens is…

Twitter doesn't make it easy to track Russian propaganda efforts — this database can help Source: Twitter deleted 200,000 Russian…

Source: Twitter says most recent follower purge is about bots, not politics Twitter users see their follower counts drop by…

These were provided to me yesterday, by a friend, in a post that claimed the students appearing on TV in…

the FBI allegations paint a frightening picture of the modern power of social media that leaves us with one of…

U.S. politicians and journalists call social media propaganda originating in Russia during the Obama Presidency an "Act of War" on…

Software will use artificial intelligence to accurately identify prohibited speech and automatically censor online posts. This is what they are…

Social media platforms are under intense pressure to actively censor online speech. The pressure comes from advertisers, corporations, special interest…

For several years I have been pointing out the problem of social media dominated by propaganda. In the past week,…

A conservative web site notes that CNN and MSNBC amplified the messaging of Russian connected propaganda operations. Neither seemed clear…

Mexico said to be early adopter of computational propaganda and other social media propaganda techniques: The country’s high level of…

Welcome to our Western social media future! China’s popular, social-media platform Sina Weibo reintroduced key elements of its service a…

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were designed to help us keep up with friends and share photos,…

The spin on this article, like 99% of such articles, is that propaganda is primarily used by government and state-like…

The Central Bank of Poland has admitted to funding anti-cryptocurrency campaigns on social media, specifically Polish Youtuber Marcin Dubiel and…

Whose responsibility is it to keep fake news and terrorism off social media? Source: Governments are stepping in to regulate…

Indictment shows how Facebook and Twitter got seriously played by Russian agents. Source: Indictment: Social Media Firms Got Played by…

Everyone participates in the process of persuasion, which is the use of words and other symbols to influence people. People…

The threat of fake news is about to get immeasurably worse. Start-ups and internet users are discovering ways to quickly…

Facebook became the world’s most dominant conduit of news and information but said it would remain neutral to what spread…

Guest post from my friend Keith V Fischer, who originally posted this on his own FB page. Reprinted here with…

Two computer science students created a Google Chrome extension that when clicked tells you if a Twitter user appears to…

Parties in Russia bought ads on U.S. social media regarding candidates for U.S. President in 2016. About $100,000 was spent…

Not only is a "strong social media presence" now a prerequisite for many, if not most, jobs, but companies have…

Self explanatory: Only the EU can break Facebook and Google's dominance | George Soros | Business | The Guardian  

This has been a crazy week with some side effects that impacted posts on this blog, my other blogs and…

The social media group uses different methods to track the online behavior of people if they are not on the…

A photographers notices that almost all photo journalism awards go to photographers who focus on pain and suffering, giving us…

Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday indicted 13 Russians for violating U.S. laws to interfere with the 2016 elections. The…

Facebook has added a Protect item to a screen in its iOS app that lists Facebook services. Tapping Protect takes…

Of interest, a bot army is said to have "taken to Twitter" to influence Twitter social media posts. Bots generate…

This poster came across on Twitter - and surprise - the quote is authentic! Surprisingly (for social media memes!) Tesla…

An obsessed viewer of a Youtube channel sought to kill a Youtube star. One Youtube star has already been killed…

According to the Washington Post, the number is fake. It was spread on social media as propaganda from a non-profit…

This morning I looked at Twitter and saw several shared tweets displaying "This Tweet is unavailable". Supposedly, this occurs when…

Young people no longer signing up for Facebook accounts and 2 million other young people are leaving Facebook each year…

As this blog has noted, much of social media has devolved into a culture of perpetual outrage by angry people…

In its ruling, India's competition watchdog said the internet giant has “abused its dominant position” that “enables it to operate…

Vala Afshar shares wise advise on Twitter: The flip side of the above describes much social media - filled with…

The DPRK News Service is one of the funniest Twitter accounts in existence as it hilariously makes fun of North…

  Newsweek on Monday fired all of its top staff amid turmoil that has upended the newsroom .In a company…

"A group of Silicon Valley technologists who were early employees at Facebook and Google, alarmed over the ill effects of…

This linked piece was shared into my FB news feed. The item argues that President Trump suffers a fragile ego…

I just saw this term on Twitter. It refers to the use of automation to deliver propaganda messaging on social…

Source: YouTube to start labeling videos posted by state-funded media - Feb. 2, 2018 The label will apparently apply to…

Traffic acquisition costs are payments made to third parties to direct web traffic to Google web services. Traffic acquisition costs,…

This blog has long suggested that Newsweek appears to be based on the fake news publishing model. Now we learn…

Much noise is being made over Facebook seeing a decline in usage of 50 million hours per day and a…

More and more people seem to be reducing their involvement with social media. Not necessarily eliminating social media but curtailing…

"Hundreds of bridges in Oregon and Southwest Washington are structurally deficient, according to a new report released Tuesday." Source: Bridges…

Most people associate Facebook with cute family photos and think of Google like a semi-reliable encyclopedia. But these services have…

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/27/technology/social-media-bots.html[/embed] Not surprisingly, everything about social media is mostly fake. "Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and…

Americans are said to use 500 million plastic straws each cay. Where did the 500 million estimate come from? Someone…

"They claim they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near- monopoly distributors makes them public utilities…

Social media companies have argued they are immune from liability (say for libel) as they are carriers of the speech…

With discussions about Russian interference in US elections and the addictiveness of consumer tech currently at the forefront of the…

According to the Pew Research Center, Americans are between two and three times more likely to trust the local news…

Facebooks says it will periodically survey users to rank the trustworthiness of news sources that may be seen on Facebook.…

This problem pre-dates social media but it is likely that social media has amplified some of its effects: “We’ve gone…

Online, social media-based, for profit, fake news publisher Occupy Democrats sent out another false meme for viral distribution on social…

Interesting essay. The most subtle and interesting conflict of interest at the heart of Facebook is user vs user. The…

Net neutrality is gone and had nothing to do with FCC rules on net neutraliy. Google has or is in…

Anti-propaganda is just propaganda in front of a mirror. Facebook, Google and Twitter say they're creating more anti-terror propaganda to…

The multiple failures are piling up at a time when Baltimore is particularly desperate to present a positive face to…

Facebook is said to be rolling out changes to how content is selected for each of us to see in…

I just received an email from Change.org thanking me for online signing a political petition - a petition I know…

I searched for #shadowbanned on Twitter and found this: My account has the default settings. Twitter chose to hide the…

Twitter admits it can "downrank accounts", which is a modified from of shadow banning. Source: Twitter Responds to Project Veritas's…

Here is some insight in to how Twitter's shadow banning algorithm's may be operating. In addition to their "machine learning"…

See here. On Instagram, if you use the same hash tags too often, Instagram shadow bans your account because they…

For a little over a month last fall, I ramped up my daily use of Twitter. During that time, I…

Then: Twitter and others warn FCC of 'disastrous' net neutrality reversal "Disastrously, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week released…

In Russia, billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin funds the Internet Research Agency (IRA) social media "troll farm". His organization has tripled in…

This tweet is not the way to respond to accusations of "fake news". Maggie Haberman is the White House reporter…

In a free advertisement courtesy of USA Today, author Andrew Keen, who has made his living writing books condemning the…

A cartoonist, who has done this sort of satire before, posted the following on Twitter: He made this fake excerpt…

Life Time fitness, a chain of gyms in the U.S. and Canada has removed all cable news channels from the…

Staying informed is a strength, but for many people it's mushroomed into an obsession with the news. Source: My therapy…

This came across my social media today - with the comment that this was posted by Nancy Pelosi on December…

By "effective" we mean, propaganda that is more successful at persuading someone to adopt someone else's agenda: "What really makes…

This came across my Facebook time line today: "The world's hunger is getting ridiculous" - the word "getting" implies global…

This is a standard propaganda technique - "Get on the Bandwagon", which uses peer pressure to encourage you to adopt…

State lawmakers around the country are pushing schools to put more emphasis on teaching students how to tell fact from…

The Head of the Chechen Republic is the title formerly known as "President of Chechen Republic". The strongman leader of…

Many Twitter tweets I see are from people I do not follow yet their tweets appear in my Twitter feed.…

This past week we learned about social media idiots! In a world where facts and logic no longer matter, a…

Major U.S. employers use social media's ability to display job ads only to those in certain age groups, such as…

He posted photos of his wife, who died at age 32, of cancer with words encouraging others to get appropriate…

The very first passenger train with paying customers crashed on a brand new rail line with a brand new locomotive. …

Google and Facebook are some of the most prominent trackers, according to Ghostery. Google is in the top ten of…

In his 2014 book “Zero to One,” Peter Thiel notes that because Google “doesn’t have to worry about competing with…

Facebook will automatically scan all uploaded photos and automatically identify who appears in the photo - if someone posts a…

Term was first coined in 2014 as part of a spoof article claiming selfitis was to be deemed a mental…

Facebook reports that it is using machine learning tools to analyze posts. Posts that seek to boost reader engagement by…

I ran across a link to an old CNN Money financial news report from October 24, 2016. Every speculation made…

Dave Weigel is a politics reporter for the Washington Post. Recently he posted a photo of a mostly empty arena…

This may be the first of several posts on the degeneration of "news" into speculative, gossip-focused, entertaining drivel. They -…

Using Facebook without contributing, in the form of messages and comments on your friends’ posts, makes you feel bad, the…

(This item - featuring a polar bear - emotionally hooked many people - and for some, any discussion is controversial.…

As described in 1852: We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in…

A community college instructor teaches students to to think for themselves by analyzing social media content: There were no wrong…

The old web URL will continue to work but I just registered SocialPanic.org as an easier way to access this…

"I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works" .... “The short-term,…

The next morning, my comment remains shadow banned by the Oregonian. Here is the description of the shadow ban, from…

Today, the Oregonian ran a story from the AP about the high costs of ACA insurance policies. I added two…

social.coldstreams.com has moved to socialpanic.org If you previously subscribed to posts by email, you need to re-subscribe at the new…

Sheer idiocy to have written this: The "baby boom" is officially defined as those born from 1946 to 1964. Per…

Lucky for me, I was busy all day and did not learn about this until it was over with. ABC…

Google's GMail service "scans" your emails and Google Docs to serve you ads. The word "scans" implies scanning for keywords…

The Times of London discovered that Youtube was running hundreds of thousands of videos basically containing "scantily clad" children, and…

Sigh. Entertainers, including sports entertainers, earning millions of dollars per year and looked up to by millions of fans are…

TripAdvisor admitted to censoring some specific negative reviews by consumers reporting that crimes and acts of violence had occurred at…

It made me wonder if we’re in the same boat as the neolithic cities, only for what you might call…

This came through my social media feed earlier today. Another example of a simple, well crafted social media propaganda posters…

Some people think Starbuck's is promoting "Gay agenda" on holiday cups Men who hold doors open for women are sexist…

This item appeared in my Facebook crap feed yesterday and linked to a supposed news report. I searched Google News…

This crossed by Facebook crap feed this week. It is a fake, of course. The "rules" were written by author…

Is this fake news? Duh? Hello? I've been writing about this for a long time and researchers just notice that…

Not certain what this means - Twitter says it will start judging "verified" Twitter users on the basis of their…

Source: Seattle hits record high for income inequality, now rivals San Francisco The data presented in the article is correct.…

Has the simple thumb-and-forefinger “OK” hand gesture become a white supremacist hand sign? Source: No, the "OK" Gesture Is Not…

Previously, this blog pointed out that public opinion polls are primarily a measure of the effectiveness of propaganda. Routinely, members…

Major US "news" publishers cited tweets now known to originate from propagandists in Russia as the source for their reporting.…

[I wrote this item in October but never published it. In light of the news about TripAdvisor.com deleting and censoring…

The more we learn about the ads linked variously to parties in Russia, the more they look like online, social…

Source: Russia hackers had targets worldwide, beyond US election | The Seattle Times When this story blew up in the…

Update: TripAdvisor claimed to have apologized about deleting negative reviews but it turns out they lied about their apology: They…

“I’ve expressed how upset I am that the Russians tried to use our tools to sow mistrust,” he said. “What…

Verge reports the Trump administration will drop a mandate to require all automobiles to contain automated vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems. The…

[embed]https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html[/embed] The article details an attempt to gather information about the Internet Research [Agency] organization in St Petersburg, Russia, described…

Emphasis added: Facebook said Russia-backed operatives published about 80,000 posts that were delivered to approximately 29 million people on the…

Who gets to be the censor? Crazily, Americans say they favor free speech and censorship! ... the survey also found…

Even if the error turns out to be a technical glitch, the fact that Google is capable of identifying "bad"…

ObamaCare propaganda is simple and not at all sophisticated. Like almost all ObamaCare news stories, the article linked below discusses…

Facebook ads also reach 12 out of every 7 young adults in the U.S.! Facebook makes up their advertising reach…

Facebook Explore Feed is rolling out globally this week. Most people around the world can see it in their bookmarks…

This fake news nonsense came through my Twitter feed today. The story traces back to this fake news web site.…

Disney has a secret army of mothers who flood the internet with Disney propaganda While this sounds like a big…

Most of us believe crime is getting worse. How often do we see yet another news report about car prowling,…

Highlighting the work of social psychologist Roy Baumeister, Seppälä points out that our brain's "tendency to give more weight to…

Teens are said to be suffering from anxiety, more so than in the past. No one cause is identified but…

Here are the set of advertising trackers used by a local newspaper that is part of the USA Today Network,…

Funny - Google's Adwords system has been placing "fake news" ads on web sites like Snopes.com that do fact checking…

Newsweek "Violence towards cops skyrocketed in 2016 and whites are mostly responsible" "More cops were killed in the line of…

I received the following email message regarding one of my Youtube accounts Hi There! Your channel is too good. We…

Reporters from many organizations have posted personal thoughts on Facebook and Twitter, revealing they hold extraordinarily partisan perspectives and lack…

Wow! ...what Wood and Forest discovered was that sharing negative thoughts or feelings apparently made users less likable ... ....…

Interesting summary - people vent, people post negative stuff, strong views tempt us to respond which degenerates into negativity, comparisons…

According to science, you need 3 positive thoughts or experiences to make up for 1 negative one. This is called…

(Update - the title of this was changed on Oct 13, from "CNN really is a fictional news service" to…

Last winter I created an informal policy on what to do about the propaganda appearing in my social media news…

This is a very clever bit of propaganda messaging. Preliminary job market data for September indicated a loss of 33,000…

CBS today fired a vice president/senior legal counsel after she made unsettling comments on social media regarding the massacre in…

Just days ago I wrote about the "Begging the question" fallacy "sometimes known by its Latin name petitio principii (meaning…

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a conviction to stand, where the individual was convicted of making violent threats on…

Mark Zuckerberg argues that more information reaching more people enhances democracy. But, as the adage goes, quantity does not equal…

Propagandists find new way to reach Facebook users: Through an unknown mechanism, these junk sites are managing to get their…

Still unsure if this is a real news story or a fake news story. Paul Horner, one of the most…

Sports is entertainment. Why do we play the national anthem at sports events? Why do we not play the national…

This is not the Part 2 I was planning to post. Guess there will be Part 3! Earthquakes! A 7.1…

An IndiGo flight from Mangalore to Dubai was delayed on Tuesday following a major security scare when a suspicious "clay-like"…

"Begging the question, sometimes known by its Latin name petitio principii (meaning assuming the initial point), is a logical fallacy…

It has been a bad fire year but some mainstream reporting is getting ahead of itself and seems more intent…

We are now in the annual Fall time frame social media tag meme of #hangry and #hungeraction and the "wear…

Sorry for the long quote - each sentence here is meaningful to see how social media's use as a friction-less…

Until this week, when we asked Facebook about it, the world’s largest social network enabled advertisers to direct their pitches…

Today I saw a tweet from an apparently famous person (I have not heard of her) saying that the current…

I am using the Epic Privacy Browser which blocks trackers and deletes history and cookie type information at exit. Yesterday,…

This might be the first of more than one post. I have been collecting, when possible, social media propaganda items…

I spotted this sign at a political party booth at a county fair. This poster is designed to frame the…

The Seattle Times publishes an opinion column advocating Medicare for All. The column gives quotes of insurance prices with and…

But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body.…

This past week, my Facebook news feed showed a shared item that claims Confederate soldiers of the U.S. Civil War…

Snopes.com has a "Hot 50" list of their top most stories and analysis. As you read the titles, you get…

But Google is, first and foremost, an advertising company and its largest product is a targeted advert service, which it…

TV audiences can’t get enough news coverage of Donald Trump. Reporting on pretty much anything else is ratings poison. Source:…

Cross posted from my Internet of Things/Technology blog. Tech companies have argued they are not and cannot be held responsible…

Social media outrage led to amateurs falsely identifying a University professor as participating in the Charlottesville, VA mob, leading to…

Headline says "space suits". Lead photo shows astronauts in space suits. But they actually found blue coveralls worn by some…

I originally hosted this on my own virtual server at social.coldstreams.com.  I chose to stop self hosting because: The self…

Eating too much protein will kill you? That's the message left by hundreds of headlines and news stories earlier this…

Facebook has taken the step of allowing people to share the post only if they also condemn its content, which…

A local politician came out to speak to an enthusiastic audience? Could be an entirely fake audience of paid participants.[1]…

This one is making the rounds - but it is not of Antifa: It is a Getty Images from May…

The following photo is now circulating widely on social media as shown in this screen capture from Twitter:  The image…

The NY Times reported it had obtained a secret, suppressed government study on climate change that had not been made…

As a result, dozens of counties throughout the country have been left with only one or no insurance choice on…

Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda: Oregon Health Authority Lynne Saxton has resigned in the wake of news of her involvement in a…

"Facebook and Google get their revenue from advertising, the effectiveness of which depends on gaining and maintaining consumer attention." Source:…

Oregon's Oregon Health Authority put together a taxpayer funded "communications plan" (a.ka. propaganda program) to publicly demean and malign a…

Which ones are the most widely shared on social media? (Story doesn't answer that question) Something you can do for…

Fakes news sites have been so successful (they make a lot of money from advertising) that many traditional news services…

Really? YELLOWSTONE volcano has been struck by 1,400 earthquakes in recent weeks, leading to fears that the supervolcano is ready…

Yahoo News goes full on stupid with this fiction news headline, which links, in turn to a news report having…

He posted photos of himself and friends, tagging the images with names. But what Licata, now 34, didn’t know was…

And then they produce useful headlines like this

Posting updates about your holiday on social media could leave you vulnerable to being burgled – and even worse, your…

Here is how the story appeared: A New York couple upset over their rising health care costs jumped to their…

A popular meme in media and social media is commentary about income distribution. The typical chart distributes the population into…

Some major players, such as Anthem, plan to no longer offer coverage in many places next year in part because…

Los Angeles Times: That’s why I’m increasingly thinking that our best solution to keeping trolls at bay may be a…

An in-depth analysis of the false allegations and misleading claims made against the 45th President since his inauguration. Source: The…

This is a photograph of an animal crossing bridge in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. This bridge has nothing to…

I'd read several of the recent national press stories about Reno, Nevada, all of which acted as cheerleaders for the…

Something is missing from this story (and other versions of it that are all over the media) - a 14…

Natural Disaster: 5.8 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Montana, Raising Supervolcano Concerns By Ryan Bort On 7/6/17 at 11:03 AM Yellowstone National…

Source: Your social media activity could help, or harm you If you do not have a social media presence, employers…

Basically, as we are flooded with more and more posts, our ability to discriminate between real and fake becomes blurred.…

Everything is fake on social media: Ghostwriting for social media stars is the secret new Millennial It-career. Source: Which Internet…

This blog has extensively documented the use of propaganda methods to deliver propaganda messaging on social media web services such…

Saw this on social media - I do not know the original source. But it captures the idea of how…

In media, propaganda and advertising it's all about "emotional jolts per minute". The media provides "celebrity-like" coverage of political personalities…

A GOP donor who once had ties to IBM is the man behind the millions of Twitter bots President Trump…

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE A questionable source exhibits any of the following: extreme bias, overt propaganda, poor or no sourcing to credible…

What is the claimed average cost of a wedding in the U.S.? $35,329 in 2016, says "The Knot" (not including costs…

Actual Headlines: Woman 'distracted by cellphone' falls headfirst into open cellar door Legally blind woman falls into sidewalk opening Woman…

Humans have a natural need for approval, and this is most evident on social media. People don’t spend hours on…

I just scanned Twitter for items about the Affordable Care Act. I estimate 99% of the Tweets were lies, contained…

Harvard rescinded admissions offers to at least ten prospective members of the Class of 2021 after the students traded explicit…

This is a MUST READ item - see the link below. Should you share political posts? The first question you…

The US government announced today that applicants requiring a visa to enter the U.S. must turn over All social media…

In the past couple of hours, my social media feeds have *exploded* with loudly expressed perspectives on the Paris Climate…

A SWISS social media user has been convicted of defamation for “liking” posts on Facebook accusing an animal rights activist…

Local TV stations make extensive use of "video news releases" which are pre-packaged public relations (PR) created fake news stories.…

Twitter, just like Facebook, will now present content to you that Twitter's algorithms believe you are interested in seeing. Effectively,…

Facebook has collected massive amounts of personal data through our online habits (including advertising networks that track the web sites…

The CEO of British Airways, standing in their operations center, apologizes for their terrible service and lack of contingency/disaster planning:…

An individual harassed two teen women on Portland's Trimet MAX rail system, verbally attacking Muslims and others. Three local heroes…

(Note - this post is about the media - not about the candidates or the political parties). Actual headlines: "In…

How social media "adhocracies" are "more likely to be one-hit wonders" as they enlist social media propaganda to whip people…

"Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the mainstream press is full of fake news, a sentiment that is held by a…

Surprisingly large list of contemporary "fake news" reports circulating online right now, from Snopes.com.

Think of the possibilities for propaganda! Easily erase items from photographs! Google Demos News Technology that Scrubs Objects from Photographs

This is real, not a fake. This is based on the Face2Face technology developed at Stanford University. The facial movements…

"Drought over, but eclipse event will raise fire danger" That is the odd headline of a KATU local TV news…

It turns out, the comments we make online reveal a lot about us. Researchers are now analyzing online comments for…

This post is about how social media propaganda appeared immediately after a proposed House bill was passed, then spread like…

Facebook, Google News and other online services automatically try to filter the information you see, to deliver to you what…

Google wants to give higher priority, in search results, to authoritative sources. However, no one outside of Google knows what…

Twitter is today filled to the brim with tributes recognizing the death of Gabriel García Márquez, recipient of the Nobel…

I saw an item on a Facebook group where the general meme was that everyone knows cellular phone usage while…

The man who set up the most popular social network in Russia [VK] axed all of his online friends in…

The data is from circa 2012-2014: For the first time in Pew Research findings, more than half (56%) of internet…

Google and Facebook are a duopoly for online digital advertising. Through their ad placement programs, they are now - basically…

This is also true of CNN, News.Yahoo.com and numerous other mainstream media web sites that allow advertisers to display fake…

Crackdowns on fake social media accounts are unlikely to hurt the multi-million-dollar spam industry — in fact, it could make…

I am not the only one noticing this peculiar form of propaganda, now prevalent on Instagram and Youtube social media:…

"On the left if you're consuming fake news you're 34 times more likely than the general population to be a…

When individuals post photos of their wonderful lives on social media, we do not typically think of this as propaganda…

  Our Communicator of the Year, United Airlines’ CEO Oscar Munoz, said it best when he came on stage to…

My Twitter feed has several tweets that appear as follows: And what is this "sensitive material"? In every tweet, it…

Source: Viral story about 'married couple who found out they were twins through IVF' appears to be fake - Mirror…

As everyone now knows, last week Sunday evening, United Airlines forcefully removed a passenger from one of their United Express…

Because they have all adopted the online, social media based publishing model a.k.a. fake news: Profit-centered coverage means that the…

This news report is 100% fake and was created by an advertiser. Pamplin Media does not disclose this is a…

The viral video of a ticketed passenger dragged forcefully off a United flight is only the latest example of bad…

Lies work because people are absurdly trusting of others and surprisingly trusting of authority figures. We saw this during the…

Long article (link below) explains how corporations and governments torture language to escape culpability. By carefully crafting the message, these…

Many financial "news" sites publish articles pushing stock investments without revealing the articles were secretly paid for propaganda to pump…

Windows 10 uses the Log In screen to display scenic pictures - sometimes with overlay text explaining the photo, sometimes…

Social media services use tricks to manipulate your behavior. One of the most powerful is to drive the obsession with…

This blog has noted that many social media enthusiasts enjoy the culture of perpetual outrage that seems so prevalent there…

Social media's "self-affirming feedback loop" encourages "expectations for a custom-made reality" and indignation about anything "that deviates from our preferences.…

Survey of college students find that Instagram is "the most narcissistic platform" that is "all-about-me". Same survey also found that…

I tried to update this web site to https by redirecting the social.coldstreams.com address to coldstreams.com/social so I could use…

TL;DR Summary This photo and caption was widely distributed on Facebook. The assertion at the bottom is an outrageous lie.…

Long ago, a survey found that 75% of Americans believe violence on television leads to violence in society. The results…

As a general rule, you can make lots of assumptions about people from their social media feed. If they’re always…

Today, some tweets appearing on Twitter are accompanied by the following warning: I did a search on Twitter for #DrudgeReport…

After the Westminster attack in London, some one posted a photo on social media purporting to show a Muslim woman…

The 2017 social media meme: 2017 True Story: A Congressman was at a hearing for a request for funding for…

"Another interesting addition to the curriculum meant to enhance the children’s digital competence will also involve classes on how to…

As noted on our blog, many users turn social media into a platform for perpetual outage, with their outrage volume…

Attkisson: When people get online every day and take part in social media or do searches for news, what is…

She apparently responded to a comment on her page by directly quoting the Bible - six months ago. Six months…

Source: Scott Adams' Blog - Scott Adams says he was shadow banned by Twitter. Apparently the ban has been removed as…

TL; DR Summary This appeared in my Facebook news feed yesterday. Many of the commenters to it, believed this to…

My Occupy Propaganda page on Facebook was shadow banned beginning about December 15th. Read on for the update - and…

The sites were designed by an experienced fake news publisher using the traditional, emotionally laden headlines, with false stories designed…

The comments to this opinion column in the Oregonian (via Bloomberg), are mostly from people not happy with how Facebook…

The creation of fake news is not the core problem - lying has been around for as long as people…

Source: Traffic deaths surge in 2016 My local paper (not linked here) spun this story with anecdotes and quotes that…

Just hours after a mass evacuation order was given, the emergency in Northern California turned social media into its usual…

Just hours after a mass evacuation order was given, the emergency in Northern California turned social media into its usual…

"The results of the January 2017 poll show a statistically significant increase in stress for the first time since the…

Lies can be made to seem true when they are repeatedly told, over and over and over again. Repetition is…

Starting with last year's election and spilling over into these first weeks of President Trump's presidency, the rioting and looting…

Social media: "It's the polarization of America based on fleeting statements without substance," Flores said. Much of social media can…

New data from Kaplan Test Prep say admissions officers do look at accounts. Source: Colleges Really Are Looking at Your…

Social media in the age of Trump presents us with two opposite dangers: a quantum increase in our political anxiety,…

Everyone is working to manipulate you on social media: "It's recently been revealed that the U.S. government contracted HBGary Federal…

There's another type of "fake news" that surfaces during virtually every political campaign: propaganda. Propaganda is weaponized speech that mixes…

USA Today goes full social media fake news stupid Based on an unverified report citing unnamed sources, USA Today publishes…

Retailers once again find themselves in the middle of a political and cultural fight, and many have simply stopped making…

TL;DR Summary Propaganda poster distributed on social media notes that the number of Americans killed annually by "Islamic jihadist immigrants"…

The Social Action Team is a simple way to turn energy into action. Members will receive special updates they can…

Regarding those who closely follow the news: '“These are the people with an intolerance of uncertainty, and are probably already…

Besides the dangers of social media used as a friction-less conduit for propaganda, social media users encounter other emotional roadblocks:…

Dozens of news outlets reported on a purported scam wherein fraudsters supposedly falsify charges by randomly calling people and asking…

Definitely a growing trend: "I’ve been screaming my opinions at the world via the internet for a solid decade now.…

Study finds it is doubtful that fake news changed vote outcomes. "It may be less that false information from dubious…

Cam Harris, who fabricated viral stories about Hillary Clinton, did so while living in the home of his boss, a…

TL;DR Summary A media outlet ran a story with the headline ""Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point Scholarship", based in…

Social Media has changed the way we live and interact, it can also have changes on our mentality. Here are…

TL;DR Summary From a design standpoint, this poster is effective. Readers likely see it, quickly nod agreement, and then click…

TL;DR Summary President Obama selected as the most admired man in the world, per Gallup Poll of U.S. residents. Analysis:…

TL;DR Summary The phrase "In God We Trust wasn't always on our money" states the propaganda poster. This poster is…

"The candidate with the most favorable Facebook profile picture received approximately 21% more positive responses to his application in comparison…

The need to have more Likes and views than others - plus the perpetual outrage culture present on social media…

I posted this previously on November 17, 2016. Social media and media messaging have turned our entire world into a…

Use the Fake News Checker web site as another tool to identify the source of fake news articles.

TL;DR Summary The Daily Beast reported the Trump administration deleted references to "climate change", "LGBTQ", "health care" and "civil rights" and…

Seems like this is becoming a movement: many are leaving social media or thinking about it. What happened? Many discovered…

TL;DR Summary A true quote but taken out of context - the quote is  referring to something completely different than…

TL;DR Summary Good, simple design, good eye contact, simple message, easily processed. Former President Bill Clinton really did say this…

While much social media propaganda is created by amateurs, much is also created by professionals who have titles like "Public…

For a matter of seconds today, sfgate.com, the online web site for the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, had a headline…

Professor Melissa Zimdars, at Merrimack College in Massachusetts compiled a lengthy and updated list of known "fake news" web sites,…

TL;DR Summary This poster appeared on social media. The quote is accurate: "The phrase “Fake News” has exploded in usage…

Spot on: "...increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information, whether true or not, that…

TL;DR Summary A long time ago, there was a law known as the Fairness Doctrine that required over the air…

After Trump calls Buzzfeed a "failing pile of garbage" regarding their distribution of a  discredited intelligence report, Buzzfeed responds by…

Simple rule: Do not post items on social  media that contain links to content you did not create yourself. You…

Facebook aims to "give people information so they can make smart choices about the news they read". Their intent is…

President Rodrigo Duterte.... allegedly deployed a sort of “social media army” to not only push out pro-Duterte propaganda but to…

Companies are data mining your social media posts and attributes when you contact their customer support services. In a matter…

"...one German official has proposed fining Facebook 500,000 euros ($528,700) for failing to delete fake news stories and hate messages within 24 hours, describing…

TL;DR Summary An emotional story about a troubled young child in elementary school whose entire life is changed by a…

TL; DR Summary Part 1: Denmark is the world’s happiest nation because of the following reasons (Not true) Part 2:…

As of January 7th, almost every post associated with the Twitter tag "#estebansantiago" are fake news items, with photos showing…

The state’s largest newsroom, facing falling ad revenue, will be reduced by almost two dozen positions, even as it plans…

Thus, as I’ve said again and again, the answer to “fake news” and the issue of false and misleading information…

Key points about social media (and how this applies to the dissemination of propaganda) from peer reviewed research: Information is…

This really was a fake news story from the Washington Post, since retracted, and labeled as fake news by many.…

"It's about chasing the viral dragon," said Matt Waite, a professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska and developer…

Banning fake-news sites doesn't address the real problem: Social-media companies make big money off lies and hate. Source: Fake News…

The real weakness exposed by fake news may be this: critical thinking skills. Source: Your new civic duty: Flagging fake…

Be careful about what you post online. Up to 76% of hiring managers review the social media posts of job…

This "news" report is based on an anonymously authored social media account: While the American media and leaders in Washington,…

Facebook is going to start fact checking, labeling, and burying fake news and hoaxes in the News Feed, the company…

In a survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for BuzzFeed News, 71 percent of self-identifying Democrats surveyed mistook fake news headlines…

TL;DR Summary Media editors make choices in the words they use in media headlines. These words shape your perspective and understanding…

"I noticed that Twitter, Facebook and other digital forms of communication fed and nurtured my very real anxiety until it…

If you use the Chrome browser, you can add an extension called "B.S. Detector" that checks links to "news" for…

Now with a correction added to the original story: Update: The feature appears to be an implementation of the Chrome…

As this blog pointed out long ago, its all about money. There are right wing sites published by left wing…

TL; DR Summary If you need to spend more than 5-10 seconds to gather the propaganda message, then the message…

With the help of uncritical journalists, a story about "fake news" ended up disseminating far more than it exposed. Source:…

TL;DR Summary Celebrity endorsement and Testimonial. This quote is true. How well this poster was shared is unknown. The quote…

TL;DR Summary This is an example of a poorly designed social media propaganda poster In terms of design, it is…

TL;DR Summary Testimonial from unknown (or "ordinary") person in Belgium Half true, half logical fallacy. Works in part, on the…

What media consumers reward outlets for are rarely deeply reported stories on matters related to consequential items of public policy.…

The story linked below is an excellent report - real journalism - about the linkage between fake news as click-bait…

I prefer propaganda to describe the use of propaganda methods to influence others to adopt ones agenda. "Fake news", however,…

"...viewers think that staying informed and ‘reacting’ to the news is a form of participation (helping their favorite causes, teams…

Our analysis of three hyperpartisan right-wing Facebook pages found that 38% of all posts were either a mixture of true…

These fake news sites are apparently more profitable than "real news" web sites. One of the websites that ended up…

Yet another observation as to how to recognize emotion-targeting propaganda on Facebook. This observation comes from New York Magazine: If…

The following analysis points to the high emotional content of posts on Facebook: These two factors – the way that…

Facebook employs thousands of contractors, mostly overseas, who are tasked with evaluating posts at the rate of one every ten…

If internet users are predisposed to believe false information that confirms their prejudices — and if they enthusiastically take part…

[Professor] Zimdars puts the news sites into four categories. Category one deals with sites that rely on "outrage culture", using distorted…

We have a media system that loves to yell and scream. It is basically its default setting. Forget deliberation and…

I marked the day after the election by doing the following: I deleted Twitter from my phone. I deleted Facebook…

But much of the news on Facebook was fake, media watchers pointed out, compromising the platform as well as confidence…

Last week Buzzfeed reported on an entire cottage industry of web users in Macedonia generating fake news stories related to Trump vs Clinton in order…

Screen shot of CNN web page taken several days ago. Note the story about fake news sites is followed by…

They’ve written dozens of stories about the proliferating number of anonymous, low-rent websites that publish bombastic and clearly inaccurate stories designed…

BuzzFeed News identified more than 100 pro-Trump websites being run from a single town in the former Yugoslav Republic of…

A 16-year-old who runs a site called BVAnews.com told him it’s averaging 1 million page views per month. He declined…

Goal: Dr. Ben Carson is an idiot Method: Assertion, Strawman Argument: Fabricate a statement about your opponent and then use that…

Studying geology is a hobby for me. I subscribe to some FB groups that feature items about geology. However, this…

Yesterday, in my Twitter feed, there appeared an official warning from Twitter that a post in the feed may contain…

Recent Wikileaks revelations have unleashed a torrent of absurdities on social media. A search of Twitter for #Wikileaks turns up numerous…

UK auto insurer planned to scan your Facebook posts to determine your risk factors and use that information to set…

Many years ago, email spam and phishing attacks via email became a big problem. Most such attacks originate from email…

Researchers examined a selection of social media posts about the Zika virus, looking at posts placed on Facebook for one…

The rise of the Internet has expanded the ways in which information may be delivered to end users, going around…

A popular propaganda method is to give you some information that leads you to a likely incorrect conclusion, but the…

This is bizarre on many levels: The files are read as HTML (text) files via the Wikileaks.org web site, which…

Source: Labeling fact-check articles in Google News It appears they will add links to sources that might help to check…

Glenn Greenwald presents the basic principles: 1. A source’s motives are irrelevant in deciding whether to publish. 2. Journalists constantly…

Recent releases from Wikileaks are, without question, exposing ethical failures and outright corruption in our government officials. The emails contain…

There have been leaks of emails whose content is embarrassing. In response, U.S. intelligence agencies issued the following statement alleging that Russia…

In politics, "grass roots" supporters refers to an organically developed  group that supports an initiative, a party or a politician.…

All presidential campaigns have their favorite reporters, try to plant stories they want published, and attempt in multiple ways to…

Beware of fake documents widely distributed on social media, and purportedly coming from Wikileaks. Wikileaks IS distributing thousands of documents…

This post first appeared on my technology blog in early 2014, prior to creating the Occupy Propaganda web site devoted to…

The following poster has appeared many times in my social media feed. The conclusion you are intended to draw is…

This post documents - in detail - how white supremacists used social media to create genuine fear and hysteria at…

TL;DR Summary 'Milwaukee police "accidentally" shot a 13 year old girl at an elementary school after she became "combative".' By…

TL;DR Summary In this poster, the "facts" do lie. This poster was modified from 162 (or may be 163) to…

TL; DR Summary The assertion that this is a rally against Islam in France is false. Social media passes along…

Perhaps people are more aware of propaganda methods and prevalence than realized. Trust in mass media reaches an all time…

A topic we have covered before is the prevalence of "famous quotes" said to be by historical figures. Much of…

So it goes with propaganda. For propaganda to be effective, it requires submissive subjects. As Professor Nicholas O’Shaughnessy wrote, propaganda…

TL; DR Summary The backpack belonging to a deaf student was thrown into a toilet. When we see this headline,…

TL;DR Summary Graphic photo of a little girl with bite wounds to her face was presented online as proof that…

TL;DR Summary Native Americans and others are protesting oil pipeline construction in North Dakota. This "news" item says the "U.S.…

Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of an abuse of power after Facebook censored one of the most famous images of…

Many of the fake stories conservatives are tricked into sharing have been deliberately planted by the left to make fools…

The news that big insurance companies are dropping out of the exchanges doesn’t mean Obamacare is broken, writes Tim Mullaney.…

"Content that is considered inappropriate for advertising Content that is considered "not advertiser-friendly" includes, but is not limited to: Sexually suggestive…

Ninety percent of the team identified as liberal, including the copy editors, who essentially had the final approval on topics. If…

"Throughout the document, OSJI’s position appears to be that private actors on the internet must be brought under international control in…

TL; DR Summary Social media propaganda poster says "Never forget the fact Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine's "Man of the…

Facebook temporarily shut down Gaines' account at the request of the police. It came right before officers opened fire, killing…

Political polls are often a form of propaganda messaging. However, the propaganda connection is not the purpose of this post. UPDATE…

High tech ought to be driving our economy forward, but as the linked article highlights, our productivity improvements and job…

Analyzing the test results showed that students who frequently used social networking sites like Facebook or apps like Snapchat ended…

TL;DR Summary This photo is spreading today (August 7, 2016) on Twitter and Facebook and purportedly is a contemporary photo of…

TL; DR Summary A shared social media poster asserts that Bernie Sanders would have been the first president who wasn't…

The rapid spread of information -- and in some cases, misinformation -- via social media has made Chipotle's late 2015…

  TL;DR Summary Conservative social media protested that school children were ordered to write "Allah is the only god" for…

This odd study looked at women who wear heels and tracked their heel height as they geographically moved. The researchers…

TL; DR Summary The Seattle Post Intelligencer says the Republican Platform calls to "Sell off public lands in the West, log…

"In the age of the internet, the truth does not matter. The message you want to propagate can be told,…

The former top spokesman for Portland Public Schools knowingly gave a journalist flawed information on the district's water testing, according…

TL;DR Summary This Right Wing News poster is one of the few effective posters they distribute (right wing social media propaganda…

  TL; DR Summary This poster comes from a left wing web site "GOP-The Party of Mean" and uses the…

Social media stars have been paid - quite well - to secretly promote various brands and products. Source: FTC spanks…

This chart appeared on a blog post saying auto sales are "down again" and this should worry us about a…

Scary to think about considering the high degree of manipulative propaganda techniques applied and shared on social media: "Nearly half…

Each of the following widely publicized statements about the Affordable Care Act are not true: HealthCare.gov's web site problems were…

TL;DR Summary This poster uses humor and transference to get its point across. The message is simple and direct. If…

The petition that was supposedly blasting through 3 million signatures 3 days after the Brexit vote, is acknowledged to have…

In the U.S. the propagandists are out in force, spinning the British non-binding referendum election vote to leave the EU.…

Google - the online search gateway to nearly all information today - engages in widespread censorship, including political censorship, says…

Most highly successful social media propaganda is visual, has few words, and is processed within seconds by the intended target,…

If you want the tl;dr response, stop here: social media is a pretty effective mechanism for peer pressure. If you…

If you have followed this blog, you understand social media has become a frictionless conduit for the spread of propaganda.…

TL;DR Summary Photo allegedly shows injuries to a female Trump supporter after violent protests against Trump at a Trump campaign…

TL;DR Summary Patton said "Liberal democrats are the lowest form of politicians". No, very, very unlikely he said that. It…

TL;DR Summary Photo purports to show the ejection of a USAF Thunderbird pilot in Smyrna, TN in early June 2016.…

TL;DR Summary This is a popular type of propaganda poster on social media: the poster features many claims pasted over…

Year over year usage of social media platforms, through social media apps, is plummeting. Of all four major platforms, there…

"Russia’s campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion of Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training a new cadre…

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has published his "The Persuasion Reading List". His thesis is that people may be easily…

I have no idea if Trump is a master propagandist but Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams thinks Trump is highly effective…

TL;DR Summary Occupy Democrats makes an assertion that is easily proven wrong. The link between the bridge collapse and the…

TL;DR Summary This poster uses the method of Celebrity endorsement and appeal to authority  to deliver its message. This quote…

A popular and widely distributed social media propaganda poster proclaims Denmark as the happiest nation on earth because of a…

TL;DR Summary This type of quote is known as a "glittering generality". The clearly implied assertion is that more people go…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Facebook Nation president Mark Zuckerberg to request that Facebook Nation censor certain kinds of…

The Washington Post reports that Facebook selects news stories for you based on your sex, location, and what they believe they…

TL;DR Summary Hillary Clinton says Democrat voters are stupid. And it's completely fake. Uses an "Appeal to Authority" propaganda method…

Or something like that 🙂 After allegations of bias and censorship by Facebook towards conservative viewpoints and groups, a survey…

Groups opposed to some U.S. immigration programs claim Facebook has suppressed their content and visibility of their groups. These allegation,…

A prominent "Mommy blogger" says the genre of "Mommy blogs" is fake - with nonsense content, stories of fake lives,…

The WSJ takes a look at how Facebook classifies users as either liberal or conservative, and then, how this yields…

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Millennial Democrats who say they are very likely to participate in their state’s primary or caucus…

If you read this blog, you know the terms public relations, communication and propaganda are synonymous. All forms of public…

This is a fun "meme" to getting targets emotionally riled up so they will share this false claim others. I…

TL; DR Summary Many people insist their views are based on science and education (fact-based) but on many topics, they…

Read the story of the smug, arrogant and elitist Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor for strategic communications in…

This is an update to the previous item, below. According to Gizmodo, quoting former Facebook workers: Facebook workers routinely suppressed…

The trending news section is run by people in their 20s and early 30s, most of whom graduated from Ivy…

The past few weeks have been a media fire storm over "transgender rights" and access to public and privately owned…

Under pressure to meet click thru targets, reporters and editors start putting out fake news. Really. Truth no longer matters.…

TL;DR Summary The media is ignoring that Sanders has attracted someone's estimate of 45,000 people to a rally in NYC.…

TL;DR Summary In 2011, Bernie Sanders spoke forcefully against a free trade agreement with Panama because Panama operates as a…

TL; DR Summary Excellent use of humor Simple message, quickly processed by the viewer Humor is a polite propaganda way…

TL;DR Summary Actual photo: Taken by an Iranian photographer, of her cousin, who had fallen a sleep while drawing chalk…

TL; DR Summary All true. Illustrates the ease of creating propaganda posters. Share if you agree! As I continue to…

TL; DR Summary Part 1: Denmark is the world’s happiest nation because of the following reasons (Not true) Part 2:…

TL; DR Summary Sanders has traveled by bus and also by airline coach but he recently began using a Gulfstream jet…

TL; DR Summary Occupy Democrats issued propaganda posters in 2015 proclaiming that in spite of a $15 minimum wage, Seattle's…

The “spiral of silence” is a well-researched phenomenon in which people suppress unpopular opinions to fit in and avoid social…

TL;DR Summary Fake news is a profitable industry. More on that in a previous post. Fakes news that goes viral,…

TL;DR  Summary   Part 1: Denmark is the world’s happiest nation because of the following reasons (Not true) Part 2:…

TL; DR Summary For the math challenged: 99% of 1% is about 1% of all voters 57% of 99% is about…

TL; TD Summary The details on the poster are somewhat true. The person who created this is the  unbiased[not] publisher…

TL; DR Summary Doctored or "PhotoShopped" photos are common in propaganda. This photo appeared in my social media this morning,…

TL;DR  Summary Part 1: Denmark is the world’s happiest nation because of the following reasons (Not true) Part 2: Denmark…

TL;DR Summary Funny-made me laugh. But the humor only works if you succumb to "What you see is all there…

TL;DR Summary In Part 1 of this review, we showed the claim that Denmark is the happiest country in the…

TL; DR Summary Denmark is the happiest country because of an alleged $20/hour minimum wage, 33 hour work week, etc.…

TL;DR Summary Shared into my FB stream today, purportedly showing that pilots are well aware of the dangers of alleged…

TL;DR Summary Hillary Clinton is accused of admitting to taking a political bribe from President Bush. It's framed as a…

TL;DR Summary False, yet these posters are used by huge charities to raise "awareness" and funds Relies on a survey…

TL;DR Summary Conservative media said that  President Obama not attending the funeral of former First Lady Nancy Reagan is unprecedented…

TL;DR Summary This poster comes through my FB feed frequently: "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will…

The more that online advertisers learn about you, the more effective their targeted propaganda becomes in urging you to take…

Scammers are posting innocuous posts on Facebook designed to "go viral". Such posts usually appeal to your emotions, condemn some…

TL; DR Summary This poster is designed to lead you to the conclusion someone died because Republicans fund wars rather…

TL;DR Summary Sen. Ted Cruz was bribed by the Koch brothers and is their puppet in the Senate. Politifact rates…

TL;DR Summary Poster suggests that Hillary Clinton is advocating the same policies as Adolf Hitler by pairing up alleged quotes…

Just as Trump ran an ad featuring Nazi soldiers, Rubio has now run a TV ad shot in Vancouver, British…

TL;DR Summary Interesting quote attributed to The Dalai Lama using an "appeal to his authority" propaganda method. But he never…

TL;DR Summary The poster conveys that James Madison believed in 1817 that business corporations are inherently evil regarding accumulation of…

TL;DR Summary This an odd one. This poster about former Republican Presidential candidate Scott Walker asserts 2 untrue facts and…

TL;RD Summary A positive message, albeit, a "feel good" glittering generality. The message is honest . The design of the…

TL;DR Summary Why do we play the national anthem at sports events? Why do we have the emotional re-uniting of…

This is from Bill Gates. I have not vetted the content of the chart, but I assume it is true…

A common social media propaganda technique uses quotes from well known historical figures or celebrities to strengthen one's argument. Not…

TL; DR Summary Each sentence is true. But Sanders is intentionally making a straight up, outright lie when he talks…

TL;DR Summary Viral photo on social media purports to show that today's youth are so "wired" they just sit and…

TL;DR Summary Making the rounds on FB again today: "A dog dug a hole in the tomb of his owner,…

TL;DR Summary This propagandist is using the humorous observation that  many propaganda posters are not true - and twists that…

TL;DR Summary This is referred to as a "glittering generality" that is vague but feels good. Many posters feature bland,…

TL;DR Summary This poster uses the appeal to authority, transference and testimonial methods of propaganda on behalf of the Sanders…

TL;DR Summary Making the rounds on FB, this poster supposedly shows Europeans fleeing to North Africa to escape WW II.…

TL;DR Summary This poster was widely distributed on social media propaganda web sites, often in conjunction with Bernie Sanders statement…

TL; DR Summary This promotional messaging associates positives feelings about nature with their product. They encourage sharing this with the…

TL;DR Summary There is a whopper error in this poster. Can you spot it? Let's rewrite the first line: US $7.25…

TL;DR Summary Propaganda symbols are obvious in this classic propaganda poster. This poster could come from WW I, WW II,…

TL;DR Summary False quote posters, like this one, appear every day on social media, for and against numerous topics and…

TL;DR Summary False quote posters, like this one, appear every day on social media, for and against numerous topics and…

TL;DR Summary: Most people view propaganda as something undertaken by governments, especially in war time, and by politicians. But propaganda…

TL;DR Summary: Most people view propaganda as something undertaken by governments, especially in war time, and by politicians. But propaganda…

TL;DR Summary: Employers encourage employees to share company propaganda on their personal social media pages. Interesting. Because social media is…

TL;DR Summary: You can defend yourself against the propaganda onslaught but to do so is hard work. We tend to…

TL;DR Summary: You can defend yourself against the propaganda onslaught but to do so is hard work. We tend to…

TL;DR Summary:  By sharing social media propaganda posts we become a cog in the chain of propagandists trying to tell…

TL;DR Summary:  By sharing social media propaganda posts we become a cog in the chain of propagandists trying to tell…

TL;DR Summary: TV news, especially, but print news too, relies on a concept of "emotional jolts per minute" to engage…

TL;DR Summary: TV news, especially, but print news too, relies on a concept of "emotional jolts per minute" to engage…

TL;DR Summary: Example of a simple to understand poster that is out of date and misleading but lives on forever…

TL;DR Summary: Example of a simple to understand poster that is out of date and misleading but lives on forever…

TL;DR Summary: The numbers are wrong, but numbers give propaganda an aura of authenticity! This poster, like so many, is…

TL;DR Summary: Kafkatrapping[1] is an argumentative form used frequently in propaganda messaging to convince you of someone's agenda. If you have…

Source (FB) - this item had been shared in to my news feed.  

Source (FB) - this item had been shared in to my news feed.  

TL;DR Summary: A widely shared poster makes exaggerated and false claims to rile the emotions of the message target. The…

TL;DR Summary: A widely shared poster makes exaggerated and false claims to rile the emotions of the message target. The…

TL;DR Summary: HOW IT WORKS - Fear is a powerful motivator and is frequently used by the propagandist. Fear of…

TL;DR Summary: HOW IT WORKS - Fear is a powerful motivator and is frequently used by the propagandist. Fear of…

TL;DR Summary: HOW IT WORKS: An Internet meme sounds plausible but it is not true at all. The best propaganda…

TL;DR Summary: Greenspan never said this. Prof. Noam Chomsky said this quote to illustrate what he thought of Greenspan. HOW…