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!
While researching overuse of the “crisis” label (literally everything is now a crisis), I ran across a Google News linked web site whose own description largely labels itself as a propaganda mill. Yet this is what passes for “news”?
Study finds that “science communications” has routinely devolved into propaganda messaging intended to persuade targets to adopt someone’s agenda.
It’s propaganda all the time now: “The only way to hold a viewer’s attention is to continually ratchet up the emotional stakes. It’s not enough to connect passionately to a picture or a video clip; the audience also expects a fierce attachment to news anchors and reporters — they want to see journalists emote, which is embraced as a more reliable truth than the facts and figures being reported.”
A photo of a young Nazi presented as an alleged photo of a young George Soros, is false. George Soros’ family was Jewish.
Snopes goes off the rails with a recent “fact check” of violence in Portland. What was Snopes thinking by writing this bizarre fact check? Mind boggling.
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.
The Daily Beast makes up a completely false claim for their pretend news report. The media desperately needs to stop engaging in this self destructive behavior.
The story about cell phones causing young people to grown “horns” was fake, with those claims made up by the reporter.
Youtube deletes thousands of historical videos because “hate speech” – destroying resources used by educators to teach students about the Holocaust and the evils of Nazism.
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.