Browsed by
Author: Edward S

Propaganda comes to restaurant menus

Propaganda comes to restaurant menus

A little more information on restaurant menus could encourage people to choose meals with a lower climate footprint, according to a new study, which found that adding climate impact labels to foods was an effective strategy to reduce red meat consumption. Source: Beef burger or fish sandwich? Climate labels on menus can encourage people to eat less red meat, study shows | CNN To be fair, all restaurant menus are designed to encourage your purchase of higher profit items. They use…

Read More Read More

Media myth busted: Suicides do not increase at holidays

Media myth busted: Suicides do not increase at holidays

Half of recent news reports about holiday suicides spread disinformation that suicides go up over the holidays: Summary: Despite media claims that suicide rates increase dramatically over the holiday period, researchers report the average daily suicide rate during the holidays remain among the lowest rate of any period of the year. Source: University of Pennsylvania The holiday-suicide myth, the false claim that the suicide rate rises during the year-end holiday season, persisted in some news coverage through the 2021-22 holidays, according to…

Read More Read More

The asymmetry of “Freedom of speech”

The asymmetry of “Freedom of speech”

Academics have long maintained they have a “freedom of speech” to pursue whatever they want to pursue in terms of research; this freedom extends to political opinions. In my state, all public sector workers have protection on their off-the-job speech. Private sector workers have no such protections and may be fired or receive negative performance reviews for their off-work speech. Which means when it comes to speech, some have more freedom than others, and that means, for example, that viewpoints of academics and public sector workers could be more influential because others may not be able to counter their comments.

Spin: Why misinformation didn’t wreck the midterms

Spin: Why misinformation didn’t wreck the midterms

Two years ago, we were told by multiple “sides” that misinformation and disinformation on social media threw election results. Two years later, oddly, everyone is pretending the same misinformation and disinformation no longer is an issue – which is not very believable. And then spin: “The amount of content we saw that you could call kind of election disinformation was actually larger than what we saw in 2020 — but overall, the effects were much more muted,” Source: Why misinformation…

Read More Read More

How not to conduct a propaganda campaign

How not to conduct a propaganda campaign

Climate hypocrites – they travel about the world with wild abandon while telling us we should not travel. This is how not to run a propaganda campaign and their hypocratic behavior, and not believing in what they are preaching, falls flat on the rest of us.

Censorship: Who regulates offline speech?

Censorship: Who regulates offline speech?

Promoters of social media censorship say it is necessary to combate misinformation and disinformation. But then, who regulates offline speech, such as political hit pieces that arrive via postal mail the week before an election? No one does. In fact, the government regulating either is a First Amendment violation – they cannot regulate our speech.

Perpetual Culture of Outrage: Wow, people got bent out of shape over an innocent social media comment

Perpetual Culture of Outrage: Wow, people got bent out of shape over an innocent social media comment

Wow – a woman posts on social media that she and her husband enjoy coffee each morning, sitting in their garden. The perpetual culture of outrage piles on and turns her tweet into a viral, and then mass media, story, about how everyone has a need to be perpetually outraged!!!!!