Content mills: News you cannot trust
An easy way to spot content mill garbage – the stories have no author! Of course, some AI sites have created fake author bios with AI generated head shots.
Media: Content farms are using AI-generated text to sell eyeballs to advertisers
“Content mills” and “Content Generation” services are becoming the backbone of web “journalism”. 57% of newsroom jobs at newspapers went away from 2008 onwards. What does those people do now? They write stories about that one weird trick that explains why this airport did something to someone… in other words, fluffy filler click-bait articles.
Facebook and IG could have to shut down European operations
Meta (parent of FB and IG) lost one quarter of its market value last week. This occurred because of significant risks to FB’s core business model – which is surveillance of users to build dossiers used for advertising and marketing purposes. FB no longer has control over the collection of data – as Apple, Google/Android have restricted data collection via apps, and as Europe’s data privacy regulations restrict data. This has long term strategic implications for Meta’s business model. The company noted this in its financial report, hinting that at worst case, it might have to shut FB and IG in Europe.
Click bait headline generators
Great example of stupid click-bait fake news services.
FB content that caused emotional responses ranked higher in The Algorithm
Years ago I suggested that FB was designed to create a “culture of perpetual outrage”. People who are emotionally engaged are more susceptible to advertising messages – plus, they are likely to stay connected to FB for more minutes. Internal documents reveal that FB not only knew this but gave emotional content posts higher leverage in The Algorithm that decides what you see online.
“Norway passes law requiring influencers to label retouched photos on social media”
Interesting – retouched photos, posted by advertisers and social media influencers must disclose the retouching. The law, though, does not define re-touching and it is unclear if it applies to exposure, contrast, saturation, sharpness adjustment.
TV news producer says all “news” is driven by ratings
A national TV news producer says all news is basically driven by ratings – not importance or value to the viewer. Most news is intentionally devoid of context and facts.
Communications: A propagandist is manipulative when they attempt to persuade you of something they know is a lie
When someone tries to persuade you of something that is not actually true, and the persuader knows it is not true, then the persuader is engaged in manipulation – versus argument or discussion.
Propaganda: How dark chocolate was turned into health food
How did dark chocolate become a health food in the United States? Industry funded studies finding obscure benefits were then touted by press release, then rewritten into health food stories by news reporters. It’s been a highly successful propaganda campaign that turned high fat, high sugar foods into health foods (contrary to the earlier meme that high fat and sugar foods are bad for us).
Propaganda methods: Framing the story
We all have “frames” of reference that describe various life scenarios. When we walk into a restaurant we have a “frame” that pretty much explains how we expect the restaurant experience to go. We each carry around a lot of subconscious “frames” about how we think the world works. Effective propaganda messaging links to the frames we expect the target to already have. This is not all that surprising but what is old is now new again 🙂