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Category: Social Media

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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More “Look at me!” propaganda memes

More “Look at me!” propaganda memes

I am not the only one noticing this peculiar form of propaganda, now prevalent on Instagram and Youtube social media: There is an undeniable aesthetic and demographic conformity in the vanlife world. Nearly all of the most popular accounts belong to young, attractive, white, heterosexual couples. “There’s the pretty van girl and the woodsy van guy,” Smith said. “That’s what people want to see.” …. King clicked on the account’s most successful post, which has more than eight thousand likes….

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If you have lots of friends, social media can make you feel better

If you have lots of friends, social media can make you feel better

When individuals post photos of their wonderful lives on social media, we do not typically think of this as propaganda – but literally, these are propaganda messages that say “I have a cool life” and you should follow and Like my posts. A new paper comes up with the remarkable (not really) finding that if you have a lot of friends, social media can make you feel better about yourself. Buried at the end: if you do not have a…

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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 perpetually outraged on social media are virtue signaling their personal goodness

The perpetually outraged on social media are virtue signaling their personal goodness

As noted on our blog, many users turn social media into a platform for perpetual outage, with their outrage volume set to 11. Why do they do it? A research paper explains: Getting outraged on others’ behalf often isn’t about altruism but soothing personal guilt and asserting one’s status as a good person. Source: Moral Outrage Is Self-Serving, Say Psychologists In other words, the perpetually outraged think they are virtue signaling that they are better than others. And “When people…

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Confirmed – Facebook has shadow banned this web site

Confirmed – Facebook has shadow banned this web site

My Occupy Propaganda page on Facebook was shadow banned beginning about December 15th, 2016. Read on for the update – and confirmation. (This web site, when it started, was titled Occupy Propaganda, partly making fun of several “Occupy” political groups. I later changed the name to Social Panic. I discontinued cross publishing this web site to Facebook a few months after this shadow ban occurred.)

Oroville Dam emergency turns in to social media political propaganda opportunity

Oroville Dam emergency turns in to social media political propaganda opportunity

Just hours after a mass evacuation order was given, the emergency in Northern California turned social media into its usual outrage culture filled with political propaganda. This event has provided a real time illustration of the way that social media is collapsing in on itself. The first and third comments in this screen capture illustrate both sides:          Water scientist Peter Gleick says he cannot tell which is worse: “gloating comments” on social media might be worse…

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35% of college admissions staff check college applicants’ public social media posts

35% of college admissions staff check college applicants’ public social media posts

New data from Kaplan Test Prep say admissions officers do look at accounts. Source: Colleges Really Are Looking at Your Social Media Accounts | Best Colleges | US News And what they find can improve admission chances – or rejection. The key takeaway: “College applicants need to be aware of what others can find about them on social networks and make sure it reflects well on them,” said Alpher. “For better or worse, social media has become an established factor…

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