WordPress 5.0 broke this web site
The Wordpress 5.0 release was a mega disaster for many people, including breaking this web site. Update: I think I have made some fixes that work, including rolling back to version 4.9.8.
Is Twitter becoming irrelevant?
“Today, Twitter is mostly dumb people yelling at each other and self-appointed hall monitors trying to shut down accounts they don’t follow.”
#Facebook #FB falls to $133 per share
The world’s largest propaganda platform sees its share price in free fall.
#Facebook uses propaganda troll methods to boost public’s image of Facebook
Facebook deploys propaganda campaigns to tarnish its competitors and to discredit FB critics by associating them with those who may have unsavory public reputations. Facebook adopts the same methods used by the Internet Research Agency of Russia but for the benefit of Facebook. None of this is a surprise considering that Facebook is the world’s leading propaganda platform.
The socialpanic.org blog could go offline for 1-2 days
I am going to transfer the domain name to a new registrar and socialpanic.org could temporarily disappear during that. You can use https://social.coldstreams.com as an alternate way to access this web site.
UPDATE: The transfer has been completed.
Rent A Crowd “Crowds on Demand” – is back in the news
We wrote about rental protest crowds back in 2017. They are now back in the news.
Social media mob targets wrong person
A social media mob targets the wrong person after a viral video shows a man harassing a woman at a protest. Yet another example of the dangerous and reckless characteristics of social media. (Updated: The correct individual has been identified)
Automated detection of copyright violations on social media does not work
Source: Platform Censorship: Lessons From the Copyright Wars | Electronic Frontier Foundation I had two music publishers both claim copyright ownership of a music track in one of my videos. Obviously, both could not own the copyright. The music selection I used was written during the U.S. Civil War, decades before music was copyrightable, and the performance was by the U.S. Army with a specific license that it may be used by anyone for any purpose. I challenged the copyright…
An inside look at how political propaganda operations function
An interesting inside look at how political propaganda operations function.
“Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Loederman sold his medal for $765,000 to pay medical bills”
A Nobel prize recipient dies. Vox misspells his name and makes a false claim about his medical bills. This 21st century reporting stuff isn’t turning out so well…
“LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media”
A new book explores how social media has become weaponized and is being used to disrupt our societies, to push people in to a state of perpetual outrage and anger. This is not for the better of any of us.
Staged photos used to illustrate a “news” story
The way to respond to accusations of fictional news reporting is to double down on accuracy, objectivity and remaining calm. Unfortunately, the news industry continues to harm itself through self destructive behavior typical of middle school drama. Here, an online magazine staged their photos to accompany an interview, down to providing the clothing worn by the subject being interviewed.
Creative news writing – “First solo flight” claim is false
Numerous “news” outlets botch a new story saying a 17-year student pilot made a successful emergency landing on her “first solo flight”. In reality, her first solo flight was a year ago. However, this erroneous report was repeated by numerous news stories, nation wide. When they cannot get even the simplest of facts correct, should we trust anything in the news?
How Google’s Artificial Stupidity manipulates image search results in to propaganda messaging
The news media uses a photo to illustrate an article, but selects a photo having nothing to do with the subject. The photo is from a festival at a horse race in Great Britain on “dress up” day.
Google Image search was used to research the photo. However, Google misinterprets the photo and falsely adds “richest 1 percent of Americans”. That happened because this photo has been used, repeatedly, by U.S. media outlets to illustrate “wealth” and “richest 1%”. Google’s search algorithms then incorrectly associate “richest 1%” with this photo; Google then reinforces that incorrect conclusion by automatically adding “richest 1 percent of americans” to a search for this photo.
We learn from this that reporters and editors routinely use fake photos to illustrate “news” reports in what appears to be intentional propaganda messaging. Then we learn how Google’s artificial stupidity algorithms incorporate fake photos and textual analysis in to computational propaganda messaging.