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Category: Lies

Rent A Crowd “Crowds on Demand” – and How Absolutely Everything is Fake

Rent A Crowd “Crowds on Demand” – and How Absolutely Everything is Fake

A local politician came out to speak to an enthusiastic audience? Could be an entirely fake audience of paid participants.[1] A local protest takes to the streets to demand ACTION over whatever – and gets extensive media coverage? Could be a fake group of paid participants. Or sometimes, it is a mix of paid actors plus others who think its an organic, grass roots event. But its fake too. There are “public relations” firms (a.k.a. propaganda firms) that specialize in…

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Photo said to be from August 12 – Charlottesville, VA, circulating on social media is not from August 12

Photo said to be from August 12 – Charlottesville, VA, circulating on social media is not from August 12

The following photo is now circulating widely on social media as shown in this screen capture from Twitter:  The image used here appears, currently, in Google Image search results spanning an astounding 15 pages. The above tweet has alone been shared 227,000 times on social media. This is not the only social media copy, either. It is likely this has now been shared tens of millions of times on social media. The photo, while from Charlottesville, is of a different…

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Nonsense: “the supervolcano is ready to blow and WIPE OUT life on Earth”

Nonsense: “the supervolcano is ready to blow and WIPE OUT life on Earth”

Really? YELLOWSTONE volcano has been struck by 1,400 earthquakes in recent weeks, leading to fears that the supervolcano is ready to blow and WIPE OUT life on Earth. Source: Fears that deadly Yellowstone supervolcano about to BLOW after 1400 earthquakes hit | Science | News | Express.co.uk Click the link and play the video with am ominous and scary musical sound track to really drive home the point – IT’S GOING TO BLOW AND KILL US ALL! This story does…

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The remarkable power of propaganda

The remarkable power of propaganda

I just scanned Twitter for items about the Affordable Care Act. I estimate 99% of the Tweets were lies, contained significant errors, left out key information, or significantly exaggerated points. This included linked news stories at mainstream news services such as the Los Angeles Times and NPR and others, which contained significant inaccuracies or left out crucial information and data that refuted the thrust of the article. How many read the ACA? Probably a number approaching zero. How many researched…

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Most car crashes caused by cellular phone usage?

Most car crashes caused by cellular phone usage?

I saw an item on a Facebook group where the general meme was that everyone knows cellular phone usage while driving is the cause of most vehicle crashes. The data, however, paints a remarkably different picture. Cellular phone usage, per the government’s own data, is a minor causative factor in vehicle crashes. There are many causative factors in car crashes: one category of causative factors is “distracted driving”. Cellular phone usage is a subset of “distracted driving”. The U.S.government’s National…

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How bureaucrats use passive language to escape responsbility

How bureaucrats use passive language to escape responsbility

Long article (link below) explains how corporations and governments torture language to escape culpability. By carefully crafting the message, these organizations use propaganda to intentionally mislead the target audience – and they get away with it because it works and rarely does anyone call them out for their malfeasance and lies. What became clear to me in this exchange is that the passive voice is itself unsuited for the lexical landscape of United’s email, which itself is part of a…

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Did a Congressman really say we do not need satellites because we have the Weather Channel?

Did a Congressman really say we do not need satellites because we have the Weather Channel?

The 2017 social media meme: 2017 True Story: A Congressman was at a hearing for a request for funding for GOES satellites. He asked the scientist why do we need to spend money on satellites when you can turn on the weather channel and get the weather! TL;DR Summary This quote appears in 2000 and 2007 and 2011 and has nothing to do with events in 2017. As we will see, it appears several people who claim to have been…

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The first story is the one that is remembered, even if wrong

The first story is the one that is remembered, even if wrong

TL;DR Summary A media outlet ran a story with the headline “”Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point Scholarship“, based in part on muddled comments from Ben Carson that were not clear. The false version of the story was picked up by media and spread rapidly on social media. The story was eventually shown as incorrect and prominent media called the story a “lie”. But the damage was done. Propagandists know that the first message received by the target, even if…

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