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.
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.
You can tell this is an Internet meme that isn’t true because Corvettes have never had a back seat – 2 seats in front, that’s all.
Facebook continues to claim they oppose discrimination in all forms, in spite of mountains of evidence showing they continue to discriminate based on age, gender and other attributes in their ad platform.
Social media promoters know that “outrage” leads to more views. That’s why conspiracy theories and other outrageous content flourish on social media – because they are watched.
Facebook’s advertising tools enabled advertising to target potential housing customers by “race, religion, familial status, disability” in order to exclude members of protected classes from renting or buying property.
“A good cause makes a lie easier to buy”. This is why many propaganda campaigns use themes such as “for the children” – even though their claims are exaggerated or not true. The target buys the propaganda message since its for a good cause.
Third party companies offer to install solar PV arrays on your home and promise to save you money on your monthly electric utility costs. Bloomberg found they use a mix of false assertions, lies, cherry picking and fear as sales methods, to persuade homeowners to sign up and lease the solar PV system for decades. Over time, the lease costs increase such that the homeowner spends far more in the future, while the third party company collects large government subsidies. Few homeowners understand what they got in to. When they go to sell their home, the lease is transferred to the buyer – in effect, TPO solar PV arrays become a dead weight on the home’s future sales potential, particularly to informed buyers who understand the game.
Journalism today: “If you want your story to be well placed and if you want to be professionally rewarded, you have to generate page views — you have to incite social media. The way to do that is to reinforce the prejudices of your readers.”