#advertising
Souls For Sale – The Times Interviews Noam Chomsky
Media Lens
(...) Recall the context in which news and commentary appear: the tsunami of 24/7 corporate advertising that is subject to no discussion whatever regarding its bias. Unless we accept that these adverts should be balanced by a counter-tsunami of anti-corporate advertising, there is no question of media impartiality for this reason alone.
But this is still just scratching the surface. In our corporate society, the greatest triumph of the corporate monoculture is not the filtered content of the daily newspaper or nightly newscast; it is us, our conception of who we are, of what it means to be human. We may mock the Sun and lament the Mail, but look in the mirror – we are the ultimate product of propaganda. (...)
(Text continues underneath the image.)
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if millions of corporate men and women fundamentally perceive themselves as products to be sold on the job market, the question of non-conformity, of challenging corporate society, does not even arise. (...)
When Fromm says ‘nothing is too serious’, he means that we are fundamentally indifferent.
Can we point to evidence? Last week, it was reported that the highest April temperature ever recorded in Spain – the kind of record that might, historically, have been broken by a fraction of a degree – had been blown away by a rise of 5C.
This latest sign of impending climate catastrophe was reported briefly and then forgotten. It received a tiny fraction of the merited attention and concern – not just from the press but also from the public. It was just one more example of how ‘modern man exhibits an amazing lack of realism for all that matters. For the meaning of life and death, for happiness and suffering, for feeling and serious thought’. (Fromm, p.166) (...)
We learn a lot when the likes of Chorley encounter Chomsky and other dissidents whose souls are not for sale; not because the Chorleys have much to say, but because we are witness, not just to a clash of ideas and values, but of ways of being. It is a clash between sincerity and fakery, clarity and obfuscation, engagement and indifference, compassion and egotism. (...)
‘We’re racing towards a precipice of environmental destruction. We’ve got a couple of decades in which we could mitigate or control it, but we’re racing in the opposite direction – nothing could be more dangerous than that. That means reaching irreversible tipping points, at which stage, just steady decline to the destruction of human life on Earth. We’ve never faced that before. Actually, we’ve been facing it in a way since August 6th, 1945, but never at this level of danger.’
Typically for this kind of disengaged journalism, Chorley responded to this awful assertion as if he hadn’t truly heard what had been said, responding: ‘It’s interesting that; I was going to ask you…’. ‘It’s interesting’ was not a serious response to the gravity of what Chomsky had said. Chorley blandly recognised that politicians didn’t seem very interested in responding to the climate crisis. As for the rest of us, he said, ‘we spend our time talking about trivial things’. (...)
Chomsky mentioned some non-trivial crises that are discussed: the Ukraine war, the Yemen war, ‘the total destruction of Iraq, going on still; these are all very serious issues’.
He noted, further, that, last year, fossil fuel production had increased. (...)
Chorley then raised the issue of Ukraine:
‘Certainly, in the UK, the left – actually under people like Jeremy Corbyn – argued that it wasn’t Russia that was the enemy, it was the US that was destabilising the world. (...)
Chomsky responded:
‘Well, the invasion of Ukraine is plainly a war crime. You can’t put it in the same category as greater war crimes, but it’s a major one.’
Which crimes did Chomsky have in mind? He noted that the UN and Pentagon estimate that about 8,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine:
‘That’s a lot of people, what the United States and Britain do overnight.’
Of course, the 8,000 figure is ‘presumably an underestimate’, Chomsky added, before offering a series of thought experiments:
‘Let’s say it’s twice as much – that would put it at the level of the [1982] US-backed, Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which killed about 20,000 people. Let’s say it’s off by a factor of ten… that would put it in the category of Reagan’s terrorist atrocities in El Salvador, roughly on the order of 80,000. Of course, Iraq is just another dimension.
‘So, it’s serious, a terrible crime. But you can understand why the Global South does not take very seriously the eloquent protestations of Western countries about this “unique episode in history”. They’ve been victims of far more. (...)
These, indeed, are simply facts – the approximate death tolls are well-known, highly credible. The killers are known. There is no ideological bias in these observations. There is ideological bias in the notion that these facts are somehow ‘leftist’. (...)
Chorley again fell back on the ‘equivalence’ theme:
‘But you’re then drawing comparisons between Nato and China and Russia; you see an equivalence between…’
Again, Chomsky rejected the claim:
‘No, I don’t; Nato is a much more aggressive alliance. Nato has invaded Yugoslavia, invaded Libya, invaded Ukraine – backed up the invasion of Ukraine – backed up the invasion of Afghanistan. It’s an aggressive military alliance. Everybody outside the West can see it. In the West, we’re not allowed to think it because we’re deeply controlled by adherence to the party line. But everybody else can see it.’ (...)
In a final, remarkable question indicating just how disengaged and indifferent he had been throughout the interview, Chorley asked:
‘Finally, then, let’s round this off; let’s try and be a bit more optimistic… Will the next century be better than the last?’
Again, it was as if Chorley hadn’t heard what Chomsky had said. Heroically, Chomsky retained his patience for a few seconds longer:
‘There won’t be organised human life a century from now, unless we reverse the course the leadership is now taking towards racing over the precipice on climate destruction.’
By way of a final little joke, Chomsky added:
‘You read the latest IPCC report, I’m sure.’
Tags: #media #news_media #censorship #propaganda #coporate_media #bbc #the_guardian #advertising #fromm #erich_fromm #new_statesman #Mehdi_Hasan #jonathan_freedland #times_radio #noam_chomsky #chomsky #murdoch #rupert_murdoch #chorley #climate #climate_change #climate_crisis #climate_destruction #global_warming #ipcc #extinction
The Future's News Today
90% of Social Media Users Revealed to be Deep Fakes
On Instagram, almost all photos are fakes, picturing people who never existed.
As creating extremely realistic fake photos and AI-written text has become easy and free, social media companies have quietly replaced human users with fictional users. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have admitted that most of their users are not actually human beings. Musk explained that "Artificial users are much easier to please, and they love to watch ads!" Zuckerberg pointed out that "Artificial users don't violate copyright, post porn, or start fights. They're wonderful. I can't believe that we didn't think of this sooner."
When asked if advertisers will be upset about this, Zuckerberg replied, "Why should they? Artificial people buy things. They're actually better at ordering online than humans. And you can cheat them by not sending them what they ordered. They can't complain to the police and courts; legally, they aren't even people. Merchants can sell the same goods again and again. They can even sell fictional goods. Where do we get the money our artificial people spend? Easy. From advertisers, of course."
Musk pointed out that "You can't violate the privacy of an artificial person. They have no right to privacy; they have no rights at all! They don't exist."
#internet #advertising #big-tech #social-media #business #capitalism #social-media #innovation #artificial-intelligence #ai #fakes #deep-fakes #finsta #fake-accounts #chatgpt
Most folks in the US can identify with this story.
The sensible parts of the world will prhaps find it puzzling.
Or just Very American.
The three drugs mentioned in the article are Dulaglutide (Trulicity) , Varenicline (Chantix ), and Tofacitinib ( Xeljanz) all very hyped on broadcast tv and print media.
They are just three examples of the 70% of advertised drugs with "Low therapeutic value ".
ars technica
#Advertising #medicine #PrescriptionPillPeddling #hanginthere
Internet
I'm really annoyed by the #Internet of today:
- #Trackers and #data #collection everywhere
- #JavaScript-heavy #Web #applications instead of document-oriented #websites
- No #JavaScript most often translates to an empty page with a single sentence: "Please activate JavaScript"; the page content however is often nothing that actually requires JavaScript, the website creators just want to feel like actual #application #developers, so they re-build much of what the #browser already supplies with #inefficient and #bug heavy JavaScript code
- Content almost always behind a #login wall
- More often than not only very superficial #information
- #Ads
- Thousands of 3rd party JS files included, most of which have the only purpose of tracking you across websites
- #Misinformation and #biased #information everywhere
- Deliberately misleading advertisment, sich as "save 80% now", and artificial time pressure)
- "Best viewed on #Google #Chrome"
- "Login with Facebook"
- Newsletter subscription and cookie pop-ups featuring #dark #patterns
- #Search #engine #optimization ( #SEO ) acts in the worst interest of the user by skewing search results
- Artificial restriction of web #app functionality to promote their native apps
- Large parts of the Web are only accessible by #smartphone
- You have to provide your #phone #number to login
- If you didn't provide a phone number, your account is being blocked right after the initial login because we suspect you being malicious actor because why not (=> #Instagram, #Facebook)
- #Proprietary #platforms are required to participate in public #online life (Amazon, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube)
- One-sentence-paragraphs and sloppy language (especially found in #Medium #articles)
- "We care about your #privacy" actually means: "We were forced by law to do this shit, we just want to collect and store as much information on you as possible to make money off of you now or in an undescript future"
- JavaScript code minimizer
- Large font sizes, much whitespace, large illustrative, but useless images, HD screen required to browse most websites
- Lack of #government #regulation and #law #enforcement, too many malicious actors (#spam, #phishing, etc.)
- Emotional content to increase #interaction, #clickbait
Once being an open platform geared towards information exchange and bringing people into contact, most of the public Internet today is nothing but annoying useless #marketing, #advertising and #data #collection. Providing information, connecting people, and making life convenient is definitely NOT the primary goal of whoever is big on the Internet today. It's shocking to see how much of it is only to sell you stuff or to sell your information.
And the worst is: we are even paying them to do this shit. #Marketing spending will be reflected in product prices, and with much of marketing being done in 1st world countries, a substantial amount of the price goes into this destructive industry.
I could go on with this for hours. Really sick of it.
Ads/commercials never had the intended outcome with me personally (even as a kid I generally just viewed them as a form of entertainment and couldn't care less about the products they want me to... want) but I do support this campaign:
Stop Advertising to Kids – Stop Predatory Advertising
'She's Listening!' ... I snapped this photo 5 years ago in the City of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia).
#listen #advertising #streetphotography #myphoto #mywork #photography
♲ anonymiss - 2022-10-10 23:55:17 GMT
#Google #Chrome - It's a damn bad idea to use the #browser of a company that makes #money from #advertising!
Chrome turns off #support for #ad #blocking #extensions: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/more-mv2-transition
Use #Firefox to keep the #web free of #advertisements ...
#Google #Chrome - It's a damn bad idea to use the #browser of a company that makes #money from #advertising!
Chrome turns off #support for #ad #blocking #extensions: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/more-mv2-transition
Use #Firefox to keep the #web free of #advertisements ...
Google Allowed a Sanctioned Russian Ad Company to Harvest User Data for Months
https://www.propublica.org/article/google-russia-rutarget-sberbank-sanctions-ukraine
Of particular concern, the analysis showed that Google shared data with RuTarget about users browsing websites based in Ukraine. This means Google may have turned over such critical information as unique mobile phone IDs, IP addresses, location information and details about users’ interests and online activity, data that U.S. senators and experts say could be used by Russian military and intelligence services to track people or zero in on locations of interest.
Google doesn't care. They just want more money.
The root problem is that the hardware, software, and protocols people use don't minimize the amount of information they exfiltrate. There is no excuse for allowing hardware devices to uniquely identify themselves with mobile advertising IDs. There is no excuse for including useragent and referer headers in the HTTP protocol. These are self-evidently terrible ideas. If we want any privacy at all in 2022 we must never access any network with a phone. As for HTTPS, I think we need to move to simpler, more privacy-friendly protocols like Gopher and Gemini.
Someone comes up with a good idea, and the billionaires "monetize" it into another Orwellian nightmare.
I want to use and control my computers, but I don't want to be used and controlled by them.
#privacy #security #surveillance #google #russia #ukraine #war #surveillance-economy #ads #advertising #smart-phones #trackers #tracking
Google Analytics declared illegal in the EU | Tutanota (via Mastodon)
Max Schrems, the lawyer who successfully sued Facebook for privacy violations against European citizens, has scored another victory, this time against Google: In two landmark court rulings, Austria's data protection authority as well as France's privacy watchdog has found that Google Analytics is illegal to use on European websites.
#technology #tech #internet #web #advertising #GoogleAnalytics
The #advertising #propaganda in #Russia is the same as here: you hire a few #models and make them pretend to eat #FastFood and still have a slim #body.
Unfortunately, I have to admit to myself that Mc Donalds is something like #international #understanding. All over the #world they eat fast #food although they should know better. While I was in China, I actually went to #McDonalds because I knew what I was getting and didn't accidentally order some jelly. Let them all be full, #fat and happy rather than at #war with each other.
source of the image: https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-russia-sold-record-burgers-opening-day-vkusno-tochka-rebranded-2022-6
#health #humanity #knowledge #economy #fail #problem #philosophy #humanRights #diplomacy #politics #trade #globalization
Of Rats and Ships
Today, I am sharing the news that after 14 years, I will be leaving Meta.
-- Sheryl Sandberg, formerly COO, Facebook
Pushed? Jumped? Couldn't hang on? Lured?
https://facebook.com/sheryl/posts/10166258399565177
#Facebook #SherylSandburg #FuckYouMarkZuckerberg #FuckYouSherylSandberg #SurveillanceCapitalism #Surveillance #Advertising #Recession #SocialMedia