The inventors of “public relations” (the name given to the field after “propaganda” grew out of favor) argued for rule by technocratic elite, thinking that important decisions should be left to “experts” and not democracies.
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.
I had never investigated the Blue Check program until moments ago. It is used to further our neo-feudalism of elite versus the plebians, ensuring that we know our place. Only the truly elite are supposed to get Blue Check marks. Blue Checks are a mark of techno-nobility.
Two appalling bad studies were widely shared by “experts” on social media. One was so bad, and its errors so obvious, that they only way they could have decided to share was to do so without having read even the abstract of the study.
UK lawmaker proposes requirement that social media companies evaluate and score the truthfulness of every statement made online, and issue a cumulative “truth” score for each individual. What could possibly go wrong?
Researchers in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui say they have developed a device that can determine loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) using facial scans. Source: Chinese researchers develop device they say can test loyalty of ruling party members — Radio Free Asia Says it uses facial recognition and emotion detection AI, combined with EEG and other metrics to determine one’s political party loyalty.
Russian officials denounce the West while simultaneously sending their kids to universities and jet set lifestyles in Europe and the U.S. They pretend to believe their own propaganda that the West is evil.
Dr. Fauci has barely appeared in the media for the past 4 weeks, and possibly not at all in the past 2-3 weeks. After 15 days to flatten the curve turned into 2+ years, he may have exceeded his “Best if used by” date as many politicians want to bury the pandemic fast as they can (it is a Congressional election year).
Public health communications is described as inconsistent, contradictory, confusing and incoherent. Since assuming her role, Walensky has worked to improve her internal communications and sought to cultivate a better messaging approach, according to officials. Yet there remains dissatisfaction among both administration aides and outside public health experts in some of the ways the CDC has communicated its decisions as the pandemic enters what officials view as a new phase. Source: CDC director turns to media consultant as Covid-19 messaging frustrations…
“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.”