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Astroturf, and the manipulation of media messages. ( Why you should question EVERYTHING you find online )

Raveling

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MJ/ admins, Please feel free to move this to a more relevant thread if you think this isn't the best place for it. It's all about corporate Scripting via media manipulation.

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook. In short, it shows how companies manipulate virtually ALL sources of online media including Wikipedia, "independent" nonprofits, news media, medical conferences...to manufacture false realities that fit their interests and agendas.

Astroturf, and the manipulation of media messages.

Another enlightening and disturbing documentary is on Netflix right now and reveals how Cambridge Analytica used the same methods to get Trump elected, Brexit passed and help skew elections in favor of oppressive regimes in multiple countries.

The Great Hack

timbgreen
 
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ChrisV

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Did she really just say "vaccines and autism"? Lmfao, this lady is a crackpot. She thought the FBI was hacking her computer but it turned out her backspace key was just stuck.

That being said, she is correct about wikipedia paid edits, but she blows it way out of proportion. Conspiracy theorist. And no, I'm not paid by Big Pharma.

She makes some valid points, but keep in mind that she's a nutcase.
 

RazorCut

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Call me a sceptic but whenever I see stats quoted and 'new scientific evidence' I always think "what connection has the Dr, scientist, statistician, etc. have with businesses that will benefit from the advice given".

Who is paying them, who commissioned the report.

Often I find that the 'research' has been sponsored by a specific company that stands to gain from the findings. There seems to be much less genuine independent reports out there these days and it is so easy to skew graphs by omitting data or focusing on too narrow a data range then covering themselves with a load of smallprint hardly anyone reads. The trouble is big sections of society swallow it all up without questioning a single thing.
 
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AFMKelvin

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Everything you see on TV or mainstream media is manipulation. Propaganda has been used on the American people by corporations for over 100 years. In 100 years of studies and propaganda use you learn a thing or two. Just stay away from mainstream media. You're been manipulated.
 

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Another enlightening and disturbing documentary is on Netflix right now and reveals how Cambridge Analytica used the same methods to get Trump elected, Brexit passed and help skew elections in favor of oppressive regimes in multiple countries.

You went from “question everything” to trusting Netflix pretty fast there buddy.
 

Raveling

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You went from “question everything” to trusting Netflix pretty fast there buddy.
That's an oversimplified understanding buddy.

Gather data from everywhere, always question it intelligently within the context of the source and it's potential biases and agendas, and test it when possible.

Do you need a lesson on how science works?
 
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Raveling

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Everything you see on TV or mainstream media is manipulation. Propaganda has been used on the American people by corporations for over 100 years. In 100 years of studies and propaganda use you learn a thing or two. Just stay away from mainstream media. You're been manipulated.
Probably, but that's not to say there isn't ANy truth or something to be learned from it. No data, no learning.
 

Raveling

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Did she really just say "vaccines and autism"? Lmfao, this lady is a crackpot. She thought the FBI was hacking her computer but it turned out her backspace key was just stuck.

That being said, she is correct about wikipedia paid edits, but she blows it way out of proportion. Conspiracy theorist. And no, I'm not paid by Big Pharma.

She makes some valid points, but keep in mind that she's a nutcase.
I forget whether she linked vaccines to autism, my guess is that she was probably mocking such a claim. Even if it was true ( I think it's a ridiculous, crackpot claim ) I'd bet that the data show vaccines PREVENT more deaths and increase health WAY beyond any harm they cause.
 

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ChrisV

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I forget whether she linked vaccines to autism, my guess is that she was probably mocking such a claim. Even if it was true ( I think it's a ridiculous, crackpot claim ) I'd bet that the data show vaccines PREVENT more deaths and increase health WAY beyond any harm they cause.
Agree. But I looked her up and she's a huge Vaccine/Autism advocate.


But I agree with the overall message. I do some wikipedia writing here and there and paid editors thing is a problem. What she's wrong about is, usually the community figures it out and reverts their edits. It's not the paid editors ganging upon the good guy, it's usually the good guy ganging up on the paid editors.


Call me a sceptic but whenever I see stats quoted and 'new scientific evidence' I always think "what connection has the Dr, scientist, statistician, etc. have with businesses that will benefit from the advice given".

Who is paying them, who commissioned the report.

Often I find that the 'research' has been sponsored by a specific company that stands to gain from the findings. There seems to be much less genuine independent reports out there these days and it is so easy to skew graphs by omitting data or focusing on too narrow a data range then covering themselves with a load of smallprint hardly anyone reads. The trouble is big sections of society swallow it all up without questioning a single thing.
You can usually check the original paper if you follow the citations. They have to legally disclose who's funding the study. A lot of studies are just funded by taxpayers, and in those cases there's no financial agenda.
 

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She talks mentions the vaccines/autism thing at 3:43:

View: https://youtu.be/-bYAQ-ZZtEU?t=223

As soon as she said that my quack-o-meter went off, so I looked her up and it seemed my intuition was correct. She has a number of interesting theories. But the talk is good and yes, there's a lot of BS online. I recently made 2 posts (1, 2) on identifying reliable sources of information.

Read the info. Follow the citations. See if there are any potential conflicts of interest (financial or otherwise,) and use critical thinking.
 

Ernman

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This isn't a new problem in society. All through the ages the general population has been inundated by propaganda and advertising. Some countries were/still are better at controlling their media: Pre-WWII Germany and Japan, the Soviet Union, now Russia, North Korea, China. In free range societies, we suffer from a combination of self-serving profit and political motives.

The challenge today is that we have much more efficient methods of getting to the public. The dark side of social media is that it makes manipulation so much easier.

Our only defense is to THINK. Ask ourselves challenging questions and don't mindlessly fall into the trap of believing.

At the risk of giving the issue more exposure than it deserves...take the Vaccine/Autism issue for example. Given how many people have been vaxinated for so many years, if there was a link wouldn't we have nearly as many people with Autism as have been kept disease free by vaccines? (Anti-Vaxers can begin rant now) It just seems like a common sense question to ask. Again, it is just an example that each of us must take responsibility, THINK and use our common sense...not just believe what we are told.

IMHO
 
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ChrisV

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Netflix is simply a medium of communication. The information can be factual or unfactual. It's a logical fallacy to criticize the source rather than the information itself.
 

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Let call it like it is - Netflix isn’t neutral and it isn’t a “medium”. They produce their own content and they get to decide what other content goes (and doesn’t) on their platform.

I’ve never seen that doc or plan to - my point is it’s quite funny to talk about media manipulation and then cite the documentary you watched about it on Netflix.

That’s like talking about health and then referring to the leaflet you got in your happy meal.
 
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ChrisV

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It can go either way. It's like when people say "YouTube isn't a reliable source"... well it depends. One of the worlds top physicists can post a video to YouTube with a well-founded argument, and it can also be some nutter who believes in lizard illuminati people. These places are simply outlets for communication in the form of media.

Yes, netflix produces some of their own content, but they also have stuff from PBS, etc. A documentary on Netflix can be high-quality and well researched, or it can be utter shit. It depends on the specific content.

I mean I don't generally like Netflix and find much their content misleading, but that doesn't mean there can't be legitimate content on their. Perhaps even 80% of the content is misleading. But that doesn't mean there can't be reliable pieces of information.
 

A_Random_Guy

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Netflix is famous for its propagandas against several governments and religions, with it especially being left-leaning. Most of its shows are distorted facts without any logic, and sometimes they create their own facts to keep the flow of content.





 
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