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…
TL;DR Summary This poster uses humor and transference to get its point across. The message is simple and direct. If the target is other Democrats , it is good. If the target is Republican primary voters, it is unlikely to be successful since they likely voted for Palin. The poster was actually aimed at Democrat supporters the poster came from Occupy Democrats) – and successfully transfers their likely negative view of Palin to Scott Walker. However, only Republican voters can vote out…
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…
Most highly successful social media propaganda is visual, has few words, and is processed within seconds by the intended target, Liked and Shared, passing along the message to others. This is our System 1 quick, easy, intuitive thinking style in operation. In other words, we do not think, we respond at a gut or emotional level. Much propaganda messaging can only be countered, typically, with logic and facts, which requires, slow thinking (System 2), which is hard and thus the…
If you have followed this blog, you understand social media has become a frictionless conduit for the spread of propaganda. Propaganda is messaging intended to encourage a target to take some action. There are two sides to propaganda messaging – those promoting a propaganda message and those with opposing views. The strongest form of opposition is when platform operators directly censor third-party opinions. Normally, the answer to speech someone disagrees with, is more speech, not censorship. Today, Reddit censored comments from those quoting…
Year over year usage of social media platforms, through social media apps, is plummeting. Of all four major platforms, there has been a 9% decrease in the number of installed apps, year over year (some are up and some are down). People are spending less time using social media apps, a new study from marketing intelligence firm SimilarWeb found. Source: People are spending much less time on social media apps, said report. These changes might be because users are concerned…
“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…
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has published his “The Persuasion Reading List”. His thesis is that people may be easily persuaded – and that those with the skills to persuade others end up winning, regardless of whether they are correct. Source: Scott Adams Blog
I have no idea if Trump is a master propagandist but Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams thinks Trump is highly effective at using the methods of persuasion. Propaganda is a set of methods for persuading others to adopt an action (in this case, vote for Trump): SCOTT ADAMS: I’ve been studying persuasion for decades and when I saw Trump last summer displaying the tools of persuasion I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s not a crazy clown. Everything he’s doing, including his…
TL;DR Summary Occupy Democrats makes an assertion that is easily proven wrong. The link between the bridge collapse and the real world events is a logical fallacy. This is the same format as last year’s false claim about an overpass collapse (Read that link – its unbelievable). What actually caused this collapse? A truck crashed in to the bridge, causing the collapse. “Officials say the collapse of the bridge was not a design or maintenance-related issue.” But, alluding to last year’s false poster…