Social Panic – Page 53 – Opinion: Practicing Factfulness on Propaganda, social media, censorship, media and privacy

Can email scammers steal medical records? Yes

July 11, 2018 Edward MS

This week, one of the largest health care providers in the State of California emailed to me the entire 101 page medical records of one of their patients. I have no relationship with this health care provider and do not live in California. By sending someone’s medical records to a random stranger on the Internet (me), this health care provider lost all control of their patient’s medical records. I informed the provider, and I also filed a HIPAA violation complaint…

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Manufacturing negative news about SpaceX’s team delivery of mini-sub

July 10, 2018 Edward MS

Elon Musk calls out BBC New’s incorrect news report. The full correspondence may be seen here. BBC News is well aware of Richard Stanton and his role in the cave rescue. But as is typical, the news had to find “fault” with someone who is voluntarily spending his own money and assigning his own team and delivering a solution, at his own expense and time, to the incident. The BBC has since rewritten their story. The media establishment has, for…

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We may be wrong but he is even “wronger”, or something :)

July 9, 2018 Edward MS

The adversarial relationship developed into a full-scale propaganda war between the Administration and the media. The way to respond to accusations of fictional news reporting is to double down on accuracy, objectivity and remaining calm. Unfortunately, the news industry continues to harm itself through self destructive behavior typical of middle school drama. This behavior is bewildering. [1] Some of the items described in the article were previously confirmed by me, although not necessarily mentioned on this blog. Based on my…

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Yet another fake social media propaganda poster

July 9, 2018 Edward MS

Some one took quotes that were manufactured for a satirical news web site and turned them into a propaganda poster. The title and quotes are from a satire news site called The Babylon Bee. This was widely shared and commented upon as if this was real, showing the gullibility of idiots who believe what they see on social media. The title is humorous (had us LOL) but this is all fake. And do take note of the last sentence in…

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Journalism executive creates online news service as click-bait propaganda outlet

July 5, 2018 Edward MS

NowThis News claims to be in the journalism business, but don’t be fooled. This click-bait venture, which was founded in 2015 by Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer, is your basic, run-of-the-mill propaganda outfit. Its real goal is the spread of political agitprop. The twist here is that NowThis disguises itself as a genuine newsroom. In reality, this site has less in common with the Wall Street Journal, which does actual journalism, than it does with the low-level Resistance grift, which…

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Hold the presses! National news! “Starbucks barista in Philadelphia alledgedly mocked customer’s stutter”

July 5, 2018 Edward MS

This is a LOCAL story at best. The news media continues to damage itself into irrelevancy by promoting local click bait trivia stories into a national conversation: A barista at a Starbucks cafe in Philadelphia is accused of mocking a man with a stutter. Source: Starbucks barista in Philadelphia alledgedly mocked customer’s stutter This is not national news. This is creative writing by a trivia reporter designed to hook an emotional response. Emotional nonsense news is perfect for sharing on…

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Smart TVs track everything you watch, and link that to your computer and smart phone connected devices too

July 5, 2018 Edward MS

Once enabled, Samba TV can track nearly everything that appears on the TV on a second-by-second basis, essentially reading pixels to identify network shows and ads, as well as programs on Netflix and HBO and even video games played on the TV. Samba TV has even offered advertisers the ability to base their targeting on whether people watch conservative or liberal media outlets and which party’s presidential debate they watched. …. Samba TV can also identify other devices in the…

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Fun with statistics: When survey results do not mean what you may think they mean

July 4, 2018 Edward MS

Gallup poll found that 52% of Americans say they were extremely proud to be American in 2016; 51% in 2017 and 47% in 2016. Gallup says this is a record low. Source: In U.S., Record-Low 47% Extremely Proud to Be Americans At the very, very bottom of the press release, in slightly greyed out type, we read that the results had a sampling error of + or – 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Let’s rewrite the 2016-2018…

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Did Kurt Cobain predict in 1993 that Donald Trump would be President? No.

July 4, 2018 Edward MS

I just unfollowed the person who posted this item today. It’s not true. He should have known better than pass along such silly propaganda posters. Several online meme debunking web sites have branded this as false (and Snopes here). The meme was created by a Facebook page called “Trump Train” in July of 2016. Cartoon character Lisa Simpson, of The Simpsons, did in actual fact, predict President Trump all the way back in 2000. For some reason, she is never quoted…

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