Google’s internal culture – to those of us outside the company – was looking like a free-for-all of political divisions and internal disarray. Google is now trying to halt these activities, which might lead to less outrage and more productivity 🙂
This item was shared into my FB feed today, claiming these two were killed in Afghanistan in June of 2019. In fact, the photo is copyrighted with all rights reserved, and is from 2011. The purpose is to emotionally hook viewers into sharing it, thereby getting exposure for their online business. The page appears to be maintained in Kosovo, and their organization’s address for their Pet Cemetery in New York City is that of a college student housing dormitory.
Only 8 left in stock? Bogus claim to urge you to “Buy now!” “Sale ends soon!” after which the sale continues forever. “25 people just viewed this hotel room” – nope, that’s a random number to get you to “jump on the bandwagon” and act quickly.
Twitter has been leaking personal information to 3rd parties for a year. Twitter has also been making “inferences” or assumptions about each of us to aid in targeted advertising. In my own case, Twitter and Facebook have both made false inferences – yet they use these false assumptions to target ads – and presumably to curate our news feeds. We only see what Twitter and Facebook wants us to see – which is literally machine driven propaganda.
Interesting and well stated comments on the power of large tech companies to control our democracy as most public discourse now takes place via online forums.
When “news” services run “news stories” containing a lengthy list of Amazon Prime Day specials and links to Amazon, is this news? No, its apparently turning “news” into “spam”. It’s possible that “news” is now being funded by affiliate links embedded in stories (very likely), but what ever this is – its not news!
The “Trump Bump” and political outrage news is no longer driving viewers to TV (or print) news coverage as all see big drops in viewers. TV news, especially, is now looking for the next topic to entice outrage viewers.
The NY Times (presented here via the Seattle Times) reports that counterfeit products run rampant on the Amazon.com web site. This is especially difficult for book authors whose works can takes months or years to create, but which are copied or scanned, re-titled and re-published under fake author names and fake publishers. Coupled with fake product reviews, counterfeits can end up stealing substantial revenue from those who wrote the books. I had one of my own books sold by counterfeit publishers on Amazon.com too.
Six months ago, I wrote about airlines’ new policies of dividing cabins into as many as 9 different tiers or classes of customers, creating a sense of peer pressure between the haves and have-nots. Now, researchers say this passenger hierarchy appears to lead to more in flight aggression by passengers.
The business model of the Internet is spying. Supposedly, by knowing everything about everyone, marketers selling products, services and political B.S., can target their ad (aka propaganda) messages precisely to each individual. An academic study finds these targeted ad do not work well and do not deliver a value commiserate with their higher price.
CrossFit abandons Facebook due their privacy problems, security problems and that FB randomly and without warning deletes legitimate accounts and groups with millions of followers. Keep this in mind if you believe there is no “slippery slope” in what FB is doing to public discourse, positive and negative.
An academic study finds that Google steers news searches towards articles in left leaning publications versus to similar stories in right leaning publications. This is another post in our series about the influence that publishers and corporations (including social media) exert on public opinion.
Amazon, for some time, blocked advertisers from running ads that were said to contain “religious content”. This included gifts and clothing items with “biblical quotes and religious language”. Amazon has now announced this was done in error. This is another in our series of how large publishers and corporations use their online dominance to control online speech and thought.
Facebook bans those who appear to engage in hate speech or promoting acts of violence, and says it will ban those who may, in turn, make supportive comments about those who have been banned.
Social media companies want to act like an edited publication that is liable for its content while simultaneously saying they are like the telephone company which is not liable for the content carried over their network. Social media companies promote net neutrality to require third party Internet networks to carry their content unimpeded – while social media company’s simultaneously disable other people’s contents. This is a challenging problem.