This chart appeared on a blog post saying auto sales are “down again” and this should worry us about a recession. See that blue arrow at the right? Looks horrible!!!! But this chart design is a real mess. First, the blue arrow anchors our view on the blue line and its downturn at the right. But the real chart is the harder to see gray column chart. Column charts are a *terrible* way to show a trend – line charts…
Each of the following widely publicized statements about the Affordable Care Act are not true: HealthCare.gov’s web site problems were just a glitch “70% of consumers are receiving a subsidy” “The Bronze plan covers 60% of expenses” “The average cost of a Silver plan for a 40 year old is…” “People’s policies were canceled because they were junk policies” What they all have in common is the power of propaganda messaging to spin a story, typically for political purposes.
The petition that was supposedly blasting through 3 million signatures 3 days after the Brexit vote, is acknowledged to have been filled with fraudulent signatures added by bots. Source: EXCLUSIVE: Brexit ‘2nd Referendum Petition’ A 4 Chan Prank: BBC Report It As Real | Heat Street The BBC has updated their news report to indicate the petition may contain “suspicious activity” and that fraudulently added signatures have been identified. Fake news runs rampant thanks to social media enabling anyone and everyone to become…
TL;DR Summary Photo allegedly shows injuries to a female Trump supporter after violent protests against Trump at a Trump campaign rally. The photo is actually a test photo of an actress, after injury makeup was applied, as part of a movie production. The photo has nothing to do with a Trump rally. The photo was distributed by a small Facebook page called “Conservative Nation” (the post has apparently been removed) and was then shared thousands of time online. Photos are “re-purposed”…
“Russia’s campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion of Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training a new cadre of online trolls that have been deployed to spread the Kremlin’s message on the comments section of top American websites.” Source: Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America – BuzzFeed News The United States government also does this. Remember back in the fall of 2013 when many of us had our health insurance policies canceled? These were the policies…
A popular and widely distributed social media propaganda poster proclaims Denmark as the happiest nation on earth because of a host of mostly false assertions about life in Denmark. Read the entire series about that nonsensical yet highly effective propaganda here. As yet another counterpoint to that silly poster, Danish households also have the world’s largest level of personal debt: “Danish households owe their creditors 321 percent of disposable incomes, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That’s…
TL;DR Summary This type of quote is known as a “glittering generality”. The clearly implied assertion is that more people go to jail than to college but this is false. The quote makes for good propaganda but it is a lie. Comparing “instant in time” measures, there were 20.6M in college in the fall of 2012 to about 2.4 million in prison or jail or detention. 41% of those aged 18-24 are in college! Poster source: Occupy Democrats Even though the quote is…
TL; DR Summary Occupy Democrats issued propaganda posters in 2015 proclaiming that in spite of a $15 minimum wage, Seattle’s unemployment has gone down and restaurants are booming, But the $15 wage does not take effect until 3 to 7 years into the future. This linkage is a logical fallacy. Poster 2 Source: Occupy Democrats. Shared over 28,000 times. There is no connection between a $15 minimum wage and Seattle restaurants or unemployment in 2015…
TL;DR Summary
TL;DR Summary In Part 1 of this review, we showed the claim that Denmark is the happiest country in the world because of the listed items is a logical fallacy; its not true. In this part, we learn that the $20 minimum wage claim is not true either. Part 1: Denmark is the world’s happiest nation because of the following reasons (Not true) Part 2: Denmark has a $20/hour minimum wage (No, it does not). Part 3: Denmark has a…