A widely shared social media post about the Supreme Court contains 4 major errors according to an expert on law. Yet at the time of his writing, had been shared over 18,000 times on Facebook. Social media enables anyone to act as a propagandist, and once memes go viral, they become “facts” even though they are completely wrong.
Log in to Instagram in a browser. Click on your profile icon at upper right. Click on the round, slightly gear shaped icon next to your channel name and “Edit Profile” button. Click on Privacy and Security option on the pop up menu. Page down and click on View Account Data. Here you can see that they record – forever – any current and former phone numbers and email addresses you have provided. They also record – forever – any…
Much of the online criticism about the Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, was driven by Russian troll farms and bots as a form of information warfare intended – successfully – to tear our society apart. It’s pretty ugly.
During election season, local media outlets post their “voter recommendations” or “endorsements” in a form of straight up propaganda messaging intended to persuade a group of people to adopt the publisher’s own agenda. All media – from traditional industrial media operations to social media – are primarily propaganda operations.
This image does not show what people think it shows. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was moving around in the water to illustrate the dangers of unseen drop offs in flood waters. I’ve seen clips of the original that show this is what he was doing and this was not “fake news”. The original broadcast occurred after Hurricane Ike. This Internet meme illustrates how an instantaneous, moment in time still image loses all context – and can be readily repurposed into a propaganda message.
Weather Channel actor Mike Siedel, who plays the role of a journalist and meteorologist, is shown faking a live TV shot. Former NBC News actress Michelle Kosinski, who played the role of a journalist on NBC News is caught canoeing in a flooded street – having just inches of water. Journalism is dead due to death by self inflicted wounds. Sadly, there is no way for a news consumer to know if their news source is reliable or trustworthy as all major news outlets have been caught making significant errors.
The week started off with an internal Google email from a high level manager describing how Google worked behind the scenes to attempt to get Clinton elected in 2016. A few days later, an internal Google meeting video appeared, showing executives behaving oddly, to say the least, after the 2016 election went for Trump, and suggesting that Google would uses its resources to manipulate voters to achieve Google’s desired outcomes. Ouch.
Tweets published by those with verified “blue check mark” accounts get greater visibility on Twitter. Twitter also admitted to using algorithms to shadow banning 600,00 accounts including those of U.S. Congressional representatives. Twitter is a mess.
You’ve seen those tweets that show up in your Twitter feed telling you that your friend “Liked” someone else’s tweet. Turns out that your friend didn’t Like those tweets, Twitter just made those up and now blames a “bug”.
A Pew Research study finds that social media political posts change the views of relatively few people, but are more likely to change the views of Democrats than of Republicans (by about 2 to 1).
Reporter appears surprised and dismayed that social media platforms designed specifically for the purpose of propaganda messaging, whose business model is dependent on their use as propaganda, are, in fact, used for propaganda.
Irish government seeks proposals from vendors for a system to monitor social media for “keywords”. Some think this proposal may violate EU privacy rules and might also be used to stifle political speech.
A new way that individuals – or groups – are manipulating social media to indirectly trash organizations and businesses on social media. Clever and very mean.
A left wing group launches a secret propaganda operation to combat secret right wing propaganda operations. Funded with 81 staff, the program will uses tools of propaganda theory and the new tools of social media to direct messaging at individuals by identifying their personal emotional hot buttons. Right wing groups are likely conducting similar propaganda operations but their battle plans have not been published for all to see.
What can we do about this? Walk away from social media and avoid voluntarily signing up for mind control and manipulation operations. We are entering a dangerous era well beyond WW II and Soviet-era propaganda.