Fake headline: “Someone just made a floating hovercraft Delorean”

Fake headline: “Someone just made a floating hovercraft Delorean”

Here’s the fake headline: Someone just made a floating hovercraft Delorean – Esquire Middle East.

Matt built his Delorean look-alike hovercraft between 2010 and 2012 which is hardly “just made”. He has, however, put it up for sale. We both have hovercraft and we both flew them at solar eclipse viewing events in Oregon in 2017.

How marketing propaganda persuades us to buy stuff we often do not need

How marketing propaganda persuades us to buy stuff we often do not need

We are surrounded by marketing propaganda that has enlisted networks of individuals posting online reviews. These ecosystems seem like organic grass roots “from the people” reviews. But most are marketing “astro turf” operations. That is, they are corporate sponsored activities designed to look like they are “from the people”.

TripAdvisor has credibility problems

TripAdvisor has credibility problems

The problem with user generated content web sites -a.k.a. social media – is that much of the content is fake, incorrect or even fraudulent. TripAdvisor has a history of censoring bad reviews while letting businesses write fake bad reviews of their competitors.

This is genuine and not faked reporting – Anderson Cooper was intentionally showing the dangers of unseen drop offs in flood waters

This is genuine and not faked reporting – Anderson Cooper was intentionally showing the dangers of unseen drop offs in flood waters

This image does not show what people think it shows. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was moving around in the water to illustrate the dangers of unseen drop offs in flood waters. I’ve seen clips of the original that show this is what he was doing and this was not “fake news”. The original broadcast occurred after Hurricane Ike. This Internet meme illustrates how an instantaneous, moment in time still image loses all context – and can be readily repurposed into a propaganda message.