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Month: December 2018

How online news manipulates your perspectives on events by running the same story each day

How online news manipulates your perspectives on events by running the same story each day

Have you noticed that many online news web sites – both newspapers and TV stations – will run a news story and then leave it prominently on their web page for days – even weeks? The stories are typically ones that inflame reader or viewer emotions – and the effect of turning them into semi-permanent stories is to distort the perception of the importance of the story. The primary purpose is likely “click-bait” to drive advertising clicks, but they may also distort the public’s perception on important policy issues.

Facebook employs over 7,500 censors

Facebook employs over 7,500 censors

Facebook employs an army of censors to stop “hate speech”, but also at times, censors legitimate and fair political speech based on a complex multi hundred page mashup of censorship guidelines. I’m so old, I remember a few months ago when Mark Zuckerberg promised us AI would solve all these problems 🙂

Gatwick Airport drone may never have existed: British police

Gatwick Airport drone may never have existed: British police

British media went crazy this past week, and doxxed a falsely accused innocent couple of flying drones over Gatwick Airport. Piers Morgan and The Mail both called the innocent couple “morons”. Journalism stoops to new lows the same week as Der Spiegel admitted its four time Reporter of the Year recipient had made up perhaps all of his stories or major parts of his stories. It’s fictional news all the way down …