#misinformation superhighway

[feuilletoniste]

This is AI-generated by Stephan Vasement.

[eugenedebs1920]

We do have an immigration crisis happening in America. When foreign agents come to our country, with the sole intention of enriching themselves through exploiting our system of capital, it is problematic.

Peter Theil. Openly anti-democracy, yet somehow pro freedom. Wants to circumvent taxation by building man made islands off the mainland. Attempted to purchase two senate seats. Succeeded in purchasing one, a senate seat from Ohio (an astronaut, fighter pilot defeated his other pick in AZ) for the now republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance. Theil praises Hitler and believes rape is an “inconvenience” for the victim. HE is a dangerous immigrant.

Elon Musk. The once awkward, seemingly climate friendly entrepreneur, has become a pro-fascist, free speech for him and his views only, vote buying, misinformation spreading, sycophant, cartoon villain oligarch. A vast majority of Elon’s wealth came from government subsidies regarding climate friendly proposals/grants. He later repurchases twitter under the guise of free speech, turning the platform in to an extreme far right mis ans dis information superhighway, while at the same time altering the algorithm to suppress anti Trump posts. His deep involvement in military and government activities amplifies the threat he poses. HE is a dangerous immigrant.

Rupert Murdoch. What can’t be said about the harm he, Rodger Ailes, and his army of dishonest employees around him, have inflicted on the Republican Party and American in general. He has turned the GOP from a respectable, conservative, family values, balanced budget platform into a conspiracy theory driven, fact denying, tinfoil hat wearing, group of racists. His Fox News channel is an affront on the concept of journalism. The constant spread of lies, division and fear is a major element in the potential downfall of our democracy. HE is a dangerous immigrant.

The danger doesn’t come from the willing to work and hard working Latin fellow outside the Home Depot. The threat is not from a brown skinned family, traveling thousands of miles on foot looking for a better life. No! The real danger is the foreign oligarch and their agenda of chaos and self enrichment. Jose, who’s willing to be the general labor guy on your jobsite is no threat. Maria who’s cleaning the hotel rooms one stays at is not a danger. Juan who’s tending to the produce we consume isn’t trying to undermine our institutions. It’s these white, entitled pricks (there’s others) who pose the greatest risk to Americas security.

I’m gunna sound like MAGA here but. If you come to this country with the intentions of slowly destroying it, don’t come at all.

In the immortal words of the movie Forrest Gump. Seats taken!

[newsofthenight]

Government Introduces Speed Bumps to Slow Down the Spread of Fake News

In a surprising move to tackle the rampant issue of misinformation on the information superhighway, the government has announced plans to install digital speed bumps to curb the reckless acceleration of fake news. The initiative, named “Project Slower,” aims to make navigating the internet a safer and more deliberate journey for users bombarded by sensational headlines and dubious claims. The…

[quillusquillus]

a great many people in the comments have already pointed out the errors on this caption, but I feel like this is so egregiously unrepresentative of my country that I have to post the actual Lake Brienz, which gets its colour from glacial runoff and not blue algaecide pigment and/or a painted floor, depending on whatever's going on here

Deer enjoying the clear water of Lake Brienz, Switzerland

[chaoticpkk]

Misinformation superhighway

[feuilletoniste]

It is. It is a dumb comparison.

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

“This really should be a call to action for parents,” Ashwin Vasan, New York City’s health commissioner, told me. “We’re trying to raise the alarm here.” Vasan, whose uncle was paralyzed by polio and whose aunt died of it, in India, said that “there’s no doubt anti-science and anti-vaccine movements have gained power and visibility in recent years. And now, in social media, they have a misinformation superhighway through which they can disseminate their message.”

Antivaxxers, you know that not vaccinating your children is wrong. They deserve the best chance to avoid polio. Your job as a parent is to protect them. Please do your job.

[atomicjellycat]

Truly amazing how they unleashed a learning AI onto the misinformation superhighway and expected the poor little line of code to be able to thrive

Like

They truly and genuinely didn't see it coming

Amazing

they told me not to eat rocks but google has my back

[migleefulmoments]

They said the staff of TSG said TSG was family friendly then they posted a screen shot of the staffer saying . "we are a family environment and we strive to be you home away from home". Not even the same thing. I guess they have no concept of making friends you pseudo family especially in the LGBTQ community when bio families often shun them and so the had to make make-shift families. A family environment is more about a sense of belonging then being rated PG.

Dear CC Fandom:  IT’S A BAR. OF COURSE IT ISN’T “FAMILY FRIENDLY” in the context of taking your children. This is one of your most asinine claims yet. 

Love, Me.

First of all, all bars have the right to whatever theme they want. This is America and we are capitalists. Every business has the right to present themselves and whatever product or service they wish to sell and the market will either support that or it won’t and they will go out of business. Mia, Darren and Danny get to decide what drinks and entertainment they will offer and if customers want to spend money one those offerings, they will come and if they don’t, the business either adjusts or closes.  

Non-customers like Abby and the other ccers who are watching it like a hawk over social media and misinterpreting and misrepresenting situations should be not feel entitled to then post their misinformation campaign on TSG’s social media and Yelp. Abby and the other ccers don’t understand the social boundaries that we are supposed to keep non-customers from interfering simply because they saw something on social media. The other day the person commenting on the appropriateness of Open Dyke Night was a self-described underage kid from across the world. She had no business taking them to task. 

Abby truly believes she is saving innocent Americans from the horror of taking their children out for a nice drink and a few Disney songs at a bar called Tramp Stamp Granny’s. I mean WTF people...use the logic the universe gave you. I believe in CA you can’t even enter a bar if you are under 18.  

Abby is also fighting for all of the poor chaps who accidentally take their old mother and father or a business client out for a nice glass of Boob Soup and some Disney show tunes but find themselves face-to-face with Gurlesque or Queer Cabaret. Oh the HORROR. Her concern are valid because OMG It isn’t as if there is any way to know what the bar is doing night to night. It isn’t like there is any sort of information superhighway or MaBell. That kind of Information is completely inaccessible. If only there was some way for people to leave comments about the experience and rate the bar or even a way for the bar to advertise what their featured entertainment is or a sample menu so you can choose the right bar. It’s diabolical. Everyone is left to the mercy of chance as to whether they have a nice evening with Disney tunes and covers of Shallow and Your Song or end up a night when TSG hosts queer events. Oh, what does a good daughter or business person do? Once you walk in you are locked in for the night- whether you wanted to visit a family friendly piano bar or see men in wigs. 

Finally, your point is exactly it. They have created a friendly environment where everyone on the LGBTQ spectrum is safe. 

Protip: If you don’t like a bar, you don’t have to go. TSG is in LA, where there are thousands of bars from which to choose.  I know there is one that is perfect for everyone. Stop trying to make TSG the be all, perfect-for-all-occasions bar. It was never meant to be that kind of place. It was meant to be a safe place for all people to enjoy an ADULT piano bar and for Darren to connect through music. It is purposefully elegance meets debauchery. I suspect they purposefully opened a bar that was neither a straight-bar nor a gay-bar but a combination to bring everyone together but that is just my speculation 

[rjzimmerman]

I’ve posted links to several articles and stories telling us why this fire, why that fire, what’s the science, what are the causes, etc. This is a link to a Greenpeace analysis published by EcoWatch. A lot of the information is not new, but some is, but Greenpeace writings tend to be direct, to-the-point and sometimes a little radical. Worth a read.

Excerpt:

Dramatic media stories tend to highlight what's currently happening with firefighting efforts, but little attention is spent looking at the suite of issues that can make wildfires bigger, faster and more dangerous to people and our nation's treasured wildlands.

Worse, some politicians and corporations spread misinformation and false solutions when fires burn in an attempt to use these emergency situations to push an anti-environmental agenda. Trump and his Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke are parroting talking points of a logging industry that is trying to gut environmental safeguards and increase taxpayer subsidized logging on public lands.

The following list is not a specific analysis of the current disasters, but rather a wider look at trends impacting the occurrence of forest and wildland fires today.

1. Industrial Logging has Increased Fire Risk

Industrial logging has dramatically increased fires and fire risk by removing large commercially-valuable trees—the very trees which are the most resistant to fire, and which create shade. Logging older trees and opening up the forest canopy makes things hotter and drier, and more prone to fire. The sticks and wood left over from logging, called "slash," often remain behind for years on the ground like kindling.

Industrial logging also requires roads. Many thousands of old, unused logging roads riddle the U.S. National Forests, serving as superhighways for flammable, invasive weeds. In addition, these roads increase accidental and intentional human fires in our forests. The legacy of taxpayer subsidized logging on our public lands and industrial logging on private lands has left us with a mess that will take many generations to fix.

Solution: Refocus the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management away from subsidized industrial logging to jobs focused on ecological restoration and preventative fire safety.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Wild Bill on The Prepper Journal.

Preppers are planners and the basis for our planning is information. We collect it through the methods we have learned through the normal processes of education, life experience, observation, analysis, and my favorite, trial and error. And as soon as man discovered how to record information, in crude cave drawings, etched into stone, or clay there, I believe mis-information was invented as well. There is an old joke about two cavemen talking, the first says “Ugh!” and the second says “Ugh! and then the first responds “Ugh, Ugh!” and the second replies “Don’t change the subject!” I know somewhere during the stone age Gork was rejected by Petunia and he etched some insults in a cave wall about her. Funny thing is someone college professor probably used those etchings to do his or her PHD thesis.

Fast forward a few eons and now information, and its counterpart misinformation, travel at speeds approaching the speed of light. For example in the financial world if you are reading about some investment opportunity in the Wall Street Journal you have already missed the boat because it reports what already happened. Others closer to the origins of the data have already seized the opportunity, set the base price and you will be paying their dividends should you bite.

The information super highway has so changed the world that while we attempt to catch up and think we are keeping up we are like the racing greyhounds forever hoping to catch that mechanical rabbit.

And, as preppers, seeking information upon which to base real economic decisions on (do I build out that greenhouse to increase my sustainable food production? More ammo or more MRE’s?) is challenging as we now live in a world where we are bombarded with information and misinformation – “thousands WILL DIE as a result of (fill-in-the-blank)!!!!!” has lead to a new equation of skewed TRUTH:

Where E = Establishment source, a = Agenda, F = Fake, and T = Truth, and the only solution is null; one must be prepared for increasing accidents across the information superhighway as a result of skewed information. I have used this example before: a horse race between an American horse and a Russian horse. The American horse wins. Headline in America: “American Horse Wins!” Headline in Russia: “Russian Horse Finishes Second, American Horse Finishes Next to Last!” – both true statement.

So, in  a recent post on finding information when the grid is down I thought it appropriate to followup with a post  on the challenges of finding information before the grid goes down, something that has become a labyrinth. And since the Internet is becoming more the source for information I want to focus on that medium. For instance I question the following map presented by Oxford University claiming to show internet usage worldwide:

Really, the world’s second most populated country and the home of call centers and outsourcing IT services, India, is less “connected” than some Central African Republics??!! Really? (And I would feel slighted if I were Canadian though it does depict where most Canadians live.)

Okay, so where does the internet stack up against print media and television in the delivery of news.

The internet surpassed print media several years ago and it is now challenging television, and that passes my smell test. Everywhere we go we see people heads-down focused on their electronic devices. Even if only 15% of that time is watching the news it makes sense AND so many people get their news feeds through social media outlets, Facebook in particular.

This has become so prevalent that there are college degrees now in optimizing web content (SEO.) I have taken a couple of on-line courses through the University of California in the past year to learn how to increase market penetration, to place keywords and phrases strategically to get better results from searches, to mimic the searching patterns that most people use. I use it everyday, all day in adding pictures as well as key phrases that are relevant to the posts you see on TPJ.

Really, What Are They Selling?

“Every time I Google a current news story it give me the related articles from CNN, The New York Times, Vox, NBC, Express.co.uk, Salon, and the BBC”…..TPJ – all impeachable sources. All sources that even Wikipedia lists as “leftist, or left-leaning, or skewed to liberal politics.”  Why? Because Google is also left-leaning. Few secrets in this world are as guarded as the specifics of Googles search algorithms. 

The news media is a business, and like every business it sells a product or service in exchange for monies (advertising). The product is content and their business used to be information as content. But dry factual information does not sell itself or well in our faster and faster paced society. Information needs to be “embellished”, that is spun, dressed up, and packaged for the target audience. This has lead to specialization which, in some things is very good (medicine, for example) but alas in the media it brings with it agenda, spin and secondary goals.

There is an upside to this – we don’t have to sit and watch all the fluff news stories to get financial information we might be interested in, we can go to those sources directly and thus attempt to keep up with the ever increasing flow of information. We can also go directly to sources for weather information as opposed to again, sitting through the story on the truck load of live chickens that were loosed on the interstate as the result of an accident. Specialization I believe is the result of so much information being available. If one were to attempt to get a degree from a university in Physics these days, 4 years is not enough cover all the specialties. The same with medicine, the law (legislators just have no discipline) and many other technical degree programs.

But really, What Exactly Are They Selling?

The news media is selling Google Analytics, period. Bold statement, let me make my case.

Google Analytics are used to sell advertising. The higher their rating the more they can charge for ads. Google provides the web best audience analytics on the planet and is the go-to source for all media outlets when it comes to the details on their audience. And the more the “news” is skewed to their demographic, the higher their score, the more they can demand for advertising, the more they can narrow in on a demographic (female voters between the ages of…., professionals….., etc.) This circle is indeed vicious as it is self-perpetuating, it feeds upon itself and spirals inward faster and faster – in that sense it is an amazing thing to watch. By this I mean that the analytics received are the result of the SEO and the manipulation of the data presented to generate better scores in the analytics. There are rules in place to stop the obvious ways to skew the results (excessive use of key phrases, use of unrelated keywords to increase traffic, etc.) but where there is a way, there is always a way around.

TV vs The Internet

I know I don’t have to convince anyone that when Frank Loyd Right said “Television is just chewing gum for the eyes” (or did he?) some 60 years ago he was speaking to what has become a universal truth. Bruce Springsteen released a song titled “57 Channels and Nothing On” in 1992 and now cable TV services have 300+ channel of nothing on. I counted my Direct TV channels once and it was 336 at the time, with 157 being 24/7 infomercials. Dish and all the cable companies have the same business model. They sell content masked (poorly) as infomercial channels that are pure advertising.

The internet has clearly disproved the age-old theory that if you put enough monkeys at enough typewriters (keyboards) for long enough they will eventually produce – the works of Shakespeare, the Bible, or some other established literary accomplishment. Mythbusters would declare this “Busted!”

While the world of information it has opened is impressive and pervasive the information superhighway is now blurred it its reporting of news, in a fog generated by Google, FaceBook and the other social media platforms. I have seen videos on YouTube related to chemicals and weapons that are downright dangerous in the misinformation they provide, more a case of lack of knowledge as opposed to some sinister agenda in my opinion. I do not cut the news media the same slack, which is my whole point.

On social media every political statement by a celebrity, one currently working, or one from a sit-com cancelled in the 1970’s “gets the pulpit” as long as they have said something negative and political. Fox News and Breitbart promote these just as much as all the sources I mentioned above. Why? Because they draw endless comments and the more comments they get the better the Google Analytics they receive, the more that can make the case for larger audience penetration and ask for increased fees for advertising. But that is only the first layer for social media. The next layer is the fake-comments. In almost every post on any subject, be it politics, or a cat video, or a swift water rescue, there will be a comment about politics. They will state an outrages position. These are usually done by the news producer who posted the article in the first place in order to generate comments which generate higher Google Analytics which…you see the agenda. They are usually in the first three comments posted and if you look at the poster of the comments most are fake, made up, just a few pictures, no real data on the individual. Tools of the new advertising trade. THIS is how the internet news business is now run on the information superhighway. It was not taught in the courses I took but anyone looking for “a way” to increase traffic will think of it when they see the Google Analytics Case Studies.

As preppers making financial and lifestyle decisions on an almost daily basis by processing the information at hand and our understanding of it I think most of us knew already that the “news business” is first and foremost a for-profit business, and that the news presented is merely content to produce their product, increased Google Analytics . All the old cliche’s apply: follow the money, Caveat-emptor, believe 50% of what you hear and 90% of what you see.

We prepare as a result of the information we get and the information we get is highly suspect from the news media. Proceed accordingly.

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              The post Accidents are Increasing on the Information Superhighway appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

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[randomrainman]

full-circle (social media and the internet)

Ah, the good ol’ information superhighway.  Part of me misses when you were a mystery and not a monstrosity.

One might be led to think, what with the ubiquity of social media and the access to information at one’s literal fingertips, that we had evolved beyond the idiosyncrasies of Homo habilis. Against all things sane, I often enter the internet cesspools of YouTube and Instagram comment threads.  Every once in a while, I see a neutral and wholesome interaction going on between these digital representations of human beings.

“Ah, so there is hope for our species,” I muse naïvely. 

A much more virulent comment thread then figuratively uppercuts me in the dick and provides me with a stark reminder that we really haven’t changed much since our days of grunting unintelligibly and bludgeoning the ever-loving shit out of our mates with blunt objects for no apparent reason.

We’re basically the same, only even more useless physically. (Image: Le Moustier Neanderthals, Charles R. Knight, 1920)

2020 has entered the chat.

Ignorance of this magnitude doesn’t occur instantaneously: much of it was excavated from the coffers of the internet and social media and given further credibility by the soon-to-not-be-president of the United States of America (which, in turn, caused a further spread of misinformation). In addition to the well documented laissez-faire American attitude toward the now-out-of-control SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the Trump-sanctioned batshit-crazy QAnon conspiracy theory and its myriad and equally nonsensical tributaries have taken the internet by, erm, storm. They have done the Fusion Dance with existing conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and the anti-vaccine movement to create an Independence Day-esque firestorm of bullshit, and the gasoline for it is social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

In theory, such a surplus of accessible platforms, in combination with the amount of readily available verifiable information, should have yielded more positive results for us.  Instead, I am greeted with an avalanche of Facebook memes composed entirely of bollocks.  Since I see so damn much of it, I sail through the waves of bullshit until I reach the web version of dry land.  Eventually, however, I encounter a 40-metre-tall tsunami of unverified diarrhoea and I can no longer ignore it.

Typically, virtually every comment on said rubbish is largely in agreeance with the sentiment expressed within the meme, with the odd statement expressing disagreement.  I, of course, chime in, usually with an article or a link to something factual, and am immediately burned at the stake.  The original poster, in keeping with whatever it is they posted, then either cites even more bullshit, tells me that I can’t trust the media, or calls me a sheep, all while ironically not acknowledging both the entirely sheep-like behaviour of believing every conspiracy in existence and the existence of actual fact-based journalism.  In their corner of the universe, up is down, left is right, and the Konami Code makes no goddamn sense and grants you infinite deaths.

Damn, I miss when memes were only funny and not trying to kill you.

What is it good for? Absolutely ... something?

Social media isn’t entirely useless; after all, it is a method for sharing information, networking, keeping in touch with friends, watching informative videos, and obviously porn.  Speaking of porn:

Literally my entire Explore page on Instagram. Every. Single. Mother. Fucking. Time.  I’m not exaggerating in the slightest.

Look, women are extraordinarily beautiful and intelligent creatures, possibly more so than men.  I also greatly enjoy large posteriors, and am guilty of having slid into a DM or 26, but ... man, as much I admire the ladies, I don’t need that to be everything I see on my feed.  And that leads me to yet another thought...

WHY?!

For the record, before everyone tries to murder me, I’m a feminist.  That is to say, women should be equal to men in every facet of society and should never be subjugated in any way.  I also believe that women should have bodily autonomy, and should not be objectified simply by existing. There are also numerous issues within contemporary society, such as the gender wage gap, that still need to be resolved, and a mountain of others in plenty of foreign nations, but...

Social media seems to have reverse-engineered the concept of feminism, turned that sumbitch sideways, and shoved it straight up our candy asses.

If there is any thing I have learned from image-based media platforms, namely OnlyFans or Ass-sta -- erm, Instagram, is that all women need to be successful is to objectify themselves and show their goodies on the ‘gram, which effectively devalues some of the other things for which women of previous generations have fought. I recognise that those in sex-based professions should not be denigrated, and sex work should be 100% legal. While I also realise that we have the freedom of choice, sex work or anything resembling it (in my opinion) shouldn’t be a thing to which scores of women flock as a primary source of income or for a sense of power.  

Social media also has the possibly unintended consequence of exacerbating body-image issues, primarily among women. A thing that almost certainly makes this worse this is the superfluity of so-called “fit” channels. There are a handful among them who are legitimate fitness experts and know what they’re doing, but the rest of them are just women who have hit the genetic lottery and do only booty exercises so that they can jiggle their substantial hindquarters on camera for likes (while also giving bad advice).  The majority of them have little to no interest in promoting a healthy lifestyle.  I can’t really knock the hustle if you decide to do this -- after all, you do get the attention (and possibly money) you seek.  But don’t conduct e-thottery and promote your e-thot friends and call it “female empowerment”.  I feel strange saying this, if only because I am a dude with a penis, but femininity should not be relegated to physical appearance.

Everything comes full-circle, and I suppose we’re doomed to this cycle of self-sabotage until we cease to exist as a species.

|the kid|

[feuilletoniste]

I love, and by love I mean hate, whenever someone who clearly hasn’t bothered to read anything other than socmed posts is like “why doesn’t [elected official] just do [something that is not in said official’s position’s power]?!” like it’s a gotcha. why doesn’t biden ban fracking? because the u.s. president can’t do that. why didn’t kamala harris subpoena mnuchin? because the california attorney general can’t do that. why didn’t the democrats force the republicans to do something? because a senate minority can’t do that. why doesn’t carl marks himself come down from the sky and stop fascism

[accio-hqpromo]

YOU ARE C O N N E C T E D  ⇒

Your information is whirring through the air. It buzzes around your head. It finds its way into the pockets of others. It wanders - it doesn’t always end up where you want it.

Your soul wanders with it, tethered, a window into your being. Electricity pulses through your fingers with every letter you type. Your body emits magnetic energy ; your body draws the charges closer.

They always told you to be careful what you post on the internet. Are you one of the few who  ｌｉｓｔｅｎｅｄ ? Your phone is a portal to another world, your laptop a vortex into the   ｕｎｋｎｏｗｎ.

Every picture you take is meticulously edited, preened and primped for the online world before you post it. You craft a caption, you wait. They observe. Their eyes feast on your content ; do they feast on you? Do they feast on your ｓｏｕｌ?

You aren’t scared of the superhighway. It only knows what you ｔｅｌｌ it. It only knows your username, it only knows when you press enter. A screen is only a screen, and even a hammer cannot expose what is ｉｎｓｉｄｅ.

But where there are boundaries, there are people finding ways to overstep them. A genius mind can hitch a ride on the highway and leech off of the ｕｎｓｅｅｎ. It worms its way into the mainframes, the harddrives that were until then ｓｅｃｒｅｔ. Information can be used against you, and when there are no barriers between ｅｖｉｌ and the parts of you that you keep closest to yourself, there is no telling what ｄａｒｋｎｅｓｓ can be used against you.

Summary: We are a sci-fi-inspired Modern-Marauders’ HP AU roleplay centered around the idea of technology as a means for corruption. Rumors, lies, manipulation, and misinformation play key roles in plots and relationship development.

             Home || About || Characters || Rules || Application

[theamericanpatriotpage]

[unclesamsmisguidedclub]

Warped News, Fake News Pave the Misinformation Superhighway

Warped News, Fake News Pave the Misinformation Superhighway

As if “fake news” wasn’t creating enough negativity and false “facts,” the mainstream media is also using “Warped News” to misinform and mislead. Both of these tactics have become staples of mainstream media reporting as it continues to fuel travel on the Misinformation Superhighway. Not a new thing In light of the furor that has recently erupted, it may come as a surprise that “fake news” is…