Quote by H.L. Mencken: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep …”
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
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.
Simple Facebook experiment demonstrates how FB amplifies left and right extremist perspectives
A simple research study demonstrated how FB’s algorithm readily amplify extremist political viewpoints on the left and right. The root cause is that FB optimizes for time spent engaged with FB – and does not optimize for what you may wish to see. The result is FB optimizes to keep you perpetually outraged.
Facebook’s algorithms reward outrage
The algorithms lead to an increase in angry people and divisiveness, leading to a world of angry people, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The culture of perpetual outrage: “The harmful ableist language you unknowingly use”
This is what happens when we constantly seek out reasons to be perpetually outraged. The world is overrun with individuals who every day, intentionally seek out things to be outraged about. Common speech is now perceived as intentional and hurtful sleight to someone, somewhere. There is nothing we can say anymore without offending someone, somewhere. I have referred to concepts as “brain dead”, which is likely offensive to those with brain injuries. Which, should be obvious by now, includes me.
“Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health”
In the midst of an ineptly managed pandemic and ineptly managed civil unrest and economic fiasco people try to make sense of it by reading everything they can. Scrolling through post and news story after news story is called “doomscrolling” and it destroys your mental health. Sadly, much of the bull shit is not from random social media posts but from actual experts who spew nonsense.
Revisiting an old topic: “How White Supremacists incited panic and fear using social media propaganda at the University of Missouri – Social Panic”
Back in 2016, fake social media posts from fake social media accounts were used to incite fear and hysteria, with attempts to start riots. I documented this in detail back in 2016.
Today we again have fake social media posts being used to incite violence, looting, arson and anarchy – none of which leads to productive solutions to bona fide injustices and societal problems. Social media is playing a central role in this non-productive destruction of our society – and is not providing a platform for problem resolution.
Study used cherry picked data to prove a false conclusion
A fake study cherry picks the start date of the pandemic to make a false claim that billionaires became far richer due to the pandemic. The actual purpose of the “study” is propaganda messaging using the methods of cherry picking, appeal to authority, and emotion. The errors made are large enough to be treated as lies, as well.
News media is just an act: Reporter feigns outrage about people not wearing masks while his own crew is not wearing masks
A national TV reporter hyperventilates on a live broadcast about people not wearing masks as someone walks by and points out his own crew isn’t wearing masks either. Because this is faked news intended to get your emotions going one way or another. Television news is just a big act now days. I may not be a real TV reporter but I play one on TV …
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 🙂