Opposition to social media fact checking censorship gaining traction?
Bloomberg opinion: “The fiasco was the media’s propagation of the lie that the issue was settled and that anyone questioning it might be deemed an idiot or conspiracy theorist.”
Cherry Picking: “How Not to Diet” by Dr. Michael Greger: A Critical Review
The book “How Not to Diet” uses an appeal to authority and extensive cherry picking to formulate the author’s argument that we should all eat a plant-based diet.
Facebook’s fake fact checkers
Someone with enormous conflicts of interest over whether or not SARS-CoV-2 was bioengineered and escaped from a lab was used by Facebook to “fact check” posts suggesting the possibility of the lab leak hypothesis. This individual heads an organization that provided funding to the Wuhan virus research lab.
Nigeria blocks all access to Twitter
Twitter argues that access to, apparently, Twitter is a “human right”. Yet Twitter itself frequently cuts others off of Twitter for bizarre reasons. This tweet by Twitter does not seem to have been well thought out.
Wow: FBI demands list of who read a USA Today news article
WASHINGTON — USA TODAY is fighting a subpoena from the FBI demanding records that would identify readers of a February story about a southern Florida shooting that killed two agents and wounded three others. Source: USA TODAY fights FBI subpoena demanding records that would identify readers of Florida shooting story
Bing searches for Tiananmen ‘tank man’ returned nothing
Microsoft blames “human error”: A significant percentage of the Microsoft employees who work on Bing are based in China, including some who work on image-recognition software, according to a former employee. Source: Microsoft says error led to no matching Bing images for Tiananmen ‘tank man’ | NewsNation Now
When billionaires control our public discourse
Facebook, Twitter and Google outrageously censored scientists and doctors for asking questions about challenging issues in the pandemic. Today, we are recognizing that these discussions were important – but silenced by the unethical billionaires of social media.
Old social media posts cost another job
Google’s head of diversity has been re-assigned after old blog posts showed him denigrating Jews and possibly making inappropriate comments about the LGBTQ+ community. Old blog posts and tweets have resulted in many losing their jobs.
FALSE: Why 64% Of Americans Have Never Left the U.S.
I ran across this while looking up data on international travel and was stunned to see the logical fallacy used by the author of this piece. The entire thesis of this linked article is fake, based on a faulty premise.
The fake Productivity versus Pay Chart on social media
Propagandists share a poster on social media allegedly comparing the growth in worker compensation to the overall productivity of the U.S. The implication of the poster is that wages have stayed flat for almost 50 years while overall economic productivity has soared. That means workers are being shafted. Except for one detail – the chart compares a subset of labor compensation to total economic output – when all labor is included, both grow at the same rate. Typical of propaganda, it presents data – so it must be true – and highlights the comparison in a simple chart. Very persuasive. Propagandists know that most viewers will not engage their critical thinking skills – and hence, they allow themselves to be intentionally misled.