#misinformation clarification 2016

[fandomfluffandfuck]

I'm so glad to read your tags on the Chris announcement (?), I didn't say anything publicly but I thought the same you thought.... like, who cares if it was fake? at the end it's still used to train the military to use real bombs which is gross .. that's the one fact about Chris that I've never really liked... his undeniable support to the USA army... it's just a big no. 😶

#chris evans #I'm glad he said something about this but also... I don't like that it was fake either like we're still using it to train people to #bomb and kill people you know? #sigh #oh celebrity politics #always disappointing #always a little gross because... hollywood

Yeah. Like, babe, that's terrible clarification. Do I feel a tiny bit better knowing it wasn't real instead of speculating that there's no way it was real but living in the unknown? Sure. Is all of that better feeling swept away by the fact that this is the clarification Chris gave and he didn't attach anything else to it like regret or perhaps giving information on what people can do to help get the actual, real, active bombs being dropped on Palestinians right now to stop? Yes. Do I wish he hadn't shaken hands with the president who's allowing the U.S. to fund a genocide and refuses to call it one? Yes. Do I wish he would use ASP to call attention to the intentional media misrepresentation and politicalization of Palestinians and this genocide as a whole? Yes. But he hasn't. I will not excuse that or wave it away. I'm allowed to be mad at him, even as a fan--especially as a fan, perhaps.

I do understand how the moniker of Captain America will follow him around for the rest of his life even though he no longer is, and Anthony Mackie now is, and how that plays into what he's expected to do and how he's viewed and his PR. It's similar to my interpretation of Steve Rogers, the character, and how he's always looked at, on the surface and by those whom it benefits, as this pure U.S. American with good ol' Republican values running through his red blood and reflected in his blue eyes and written across his white skin. But Steve isn't. The circumstances that Steve grew up in would make him much more liberal to me. His life experience. I don't think it's on the same level with Chris, not by any means, but I do think people (and Hollywood standards) expect him to be a certain way, and he allows that. And I think that Chris holds more of those expectations as personal values than Steve. Chris has always been pro-military in a way that doesn't sit well with my alignment. Whereas Steve sits well with my alignment of fuck shit up when it's not right, no matter who's telling him it's okay.

And I actually had someone bring this signing of a maybe-real-maybe-not-real bomb up a few weeks ago. I started to draft a response to it because it bothers me as well--it's one of the things that Chris has done that I hate. But, then, whether it was the same anon or not, I got a bunch more asks following the first that made it clear they were not actually looking to discuss anything or hear any of my thoughts on it. They were simply looking for drama, and I could not care less about that. I feel it may be worth interjecting here, though just because I sat down and thought about this and wrote it:

*I wrote this before he put out that weird statement, and before I knew if it was real or fake or what*

Did Chris sign an artillery shell in 2016?

Yes.

Do I agree with everything Chris has done?

No.

I have a parasocial relationship with him and quite a few characters of his, but I recognize that he's a human being that I do not actually know. He sometimes does things that I don't like or I outright hate. For example, shaking hands with Biden in the midst of an ongoing genocide. Biden has blood on his hands, as all presidents generally do, but also in an ongoing way. Blood is still actively being spilled, with nothing being done to stop it.

Now, I understand that the handshake was mostly a public relations thing, mostly for the purpose of celebrity endorsement in a how-do-you-do-fellow-kids way, trying to encourage young people to vote. And that is a good thing. Everyone who can vote should be voting, especially young people. But... does the voters he may or may not have encouraged outweigh the knowledge of shaking hands with someone who could stop this slaughter of Palestinians but hasn't? Personally, I don't think so.

It's easy to say I wouldn't do it. But I don't know if Chris chose that or if someone on his team did or if they [Chris, his PR, whoever] just didn't look at it like that. That's unknown. It still isn't my favorite--not by a long shot. It's the same with the artillery shell. It turned my stomach the first time I saw that, and it still gives me the ick. To put it lightly.

Again, I wish he hadn't done that. And who's to say, maybe he wasn't bothered by it, so he just did it. Maybe it did bother him, but he was around all these people who really wanted him to do it, so he did. The whole USO tour bothers me, generally, because while I am pro-veteran and giving them the support needed, I am anti-military and anti-war. So... it really fucking rubs me the wrong way. However, I understand it makes sense to make Captain America do that. Public relations. Whether or not Chris was eager and willing to do it, I won't know. Leading by the examples of most things he's done, I don't imagine he was thrilled, I don't imagine it didn't make him lose some sleep, but again, I don't know. He totally could have been excited to do it, too. Who knows. He's a person with complex understanding and thinking and the ability to choose to do things or not.

What I know is that, yes, I am biased toward him. But I don't know him. So, baseline, he did. If you're looking for permission to be angry at him or permission to sweep it under the rug from me, I will not give it to you. How you feel about actions some else takes is based on how it strikes you and your understanding of the world with your morals.

[onecornerface]

Leeja Miller's video on civil war is irresponsible & ridiculous + red flags

Leftwing Youtuber Leeja Miller’s recent video is mostly a decent video about why civil war is unlikely to happen in the United States despite polarization. However, some aspects of her video are severely irresponsible-- especially one batshit claim she makes within the first 10 seconds. Miller flatly asserts in the first 10 seconds:

“Political violence in the United States is at an all-time high.”

WTF? No it isn't! What do you even mean?? She doesn’t cite this claim with any evidence, and doesn’t clarify it with any metrics. The statement as written is definitely false, and I don't know any reading where it comes out as well-established.

For starters, she must mean only the last several decades-- obviously the American Civil War and much of its aftermath were more violent. I strongly suspect the 1960s-70s were too (at least by some metrics, but I don't know a lot about this). But she doesn’t even clarify this.

I'm going to harp on this statement a lot, because it's such a ridiculous and irresponsible assertion, and it's at the start of the video. She knows full well that most people only watch the first part of almost any video and not the entire thing, so almost all viewers will hear that statement.

I’m not even sure that it’s true within the last few decades. It sounds like the sort of statement she thinks she doesn’t need to earn, because so many people already assume it’s common sense. But a lot of “common sense” (even among progressives)—about topics like polarization, the criminal justice system, and even “misinformation” itself—is either false or highly suspect. Hate crime statistics are controversial, and categories like “terrorism” and “political violence” require a lot of caveats.

One possibility is that she might be implicitly referring to a single chart she later shows at 9:54 in the video, measuring "terrorist attacks" in the United States, which appear to spike in 2016 and remain high thereafter. But this can't justify her opening statement, for several reasons: (1) "terrorist" is of course a contentious category, (2) the start of the video is still uncited and does not clarify if it is referring to the later chart, (3) the chart only goes back to 2000 (so it doesn't support the "all-time high" claim-- and nor does a later terrorism chart starting from 1994), and (4) "terrorism" just is not the same as "political violence."

In several places, Miller cites a 2023 paper called "Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says" by Rachel Kleinfeld. This looks like a probably very good paper. I'll try to read it in full later. The better parts of Miller's video are probably cribbing mainly from this paper. But I looked over the paper, and it only affirms that political violence has increased in recent years-- which is quite bad, but says nothing about it being at an "all-time high."

It’s irresponsible for Miller to say “Political violence in the United States is at an all-time high” at the outset without any clarification, metrics, evidence, or caveats. She delves into a few relevant categories later in the video, but never really backs up the initial assertion. This is a serious omission.

Other Complaints -Imprecision, Bad Citational Practices, Red Flags More broadly, there are a bunch of points in the video that I’d like Miller to include a few more caveats on. For example, she mentions that over the years, a bunch of railroads have been “targeted” by cyber attacks and this seems worrying—but she doesn’t mention what impact these attacks did or didn’t have on railroad operations. So we’re left without any clear picture of how serious or nonserious the problem is. At least she cites a source onscreen here, so the viewer can research it further (albeit inconveniently, since it is not linked). But why not spend a few more seconds in the video to clarify the extent of the damage?

More broadly, Miller’s citations seem shoddy. She does cite various sources in the video itself (not for her opening assertion about "political violence" at an "all-time high", though!!), but there are no sources in the description below it. In this regard, she's even worse than Iilluminaughtii (who at least linked to a disorganized list of citations). I was hoping, in the aftermath of Hbomberguy’s video exposing the misinformation and plagiarism by Iilluminaughtii and James Somerton, that video essayists would start holding themselves and one another to a higher standard of citational rigor, accuracy, clarity, and accessibility. Apparently not! This still needs to happen!

Another red flag: Leeja Miller churns out a LOT of videos on a wide variety of topics on an extremely frequent basis. In light of the above stuff, this is now known to be a red flag that someone may be cutting corners on the research.

To be clear, I don't know who precisely is at fault here. According to the description, the research and writing are done by someone named Victoria Marchiony, so this may be on her. I'm focusing on Leeja Miller here, since she is the speaker and the face & name of the YouTube channel.

Irresponsible Sensationalist Clickbait Title + Thumbnail Finally, I think the title and thumbnail are really bad and reinforce the problem Miller criticizes. The video itself provides some decent reasons to be skeptical of the notion of impending civil war. This is an important topic. Many people are wildly exaggerating the likelihood of civil war, and causing needless fear.

But the question should have been answered in the title & thumbnail. Instead, the title and thumbnail both just provocatively ask “Is Civil War Coming?” without indicating that the answer is “probably not.” Some people will likely see the video’s title & thumbnail without watching it, and think to themselves “Wow, this person takes the idea of civil war seriously—I guess it’s serious” and thus come away increasing their fears of an upcoming civil war. So this kind of title & thumbnail is seriously irresponsible on Miller’s part.

[lesbianflaghistory]

Seeing a lot of misinformation flying around regarding lesbian flags this year, particularly the pink one, so here’s my attempt to set the record straight!

FAQ/Common Misconceptions and Sources are listed below the cut - if anything in this post contradicts what you’ve heard, I’d encourage you to read through them before responding.

Please DO NOT promote flag redesigns on this post :)

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UPDATE 2 (2021):

First of all, a long-overdue note that @moral-autism​ kindly transcribed the bulk of this infographic here, for anyone looking for a text-only version!

Secondly, I have been contacted by @kiloueka, who created/uploaded the high resolution “Pink Flag” to the Pride-Flags DeviantArt account in 2015. They clarified that they did not independently leave out the lipstick mark to create a general lesbian flag, but had previously seen a kiss-less version in a tumblr post (likely one of the ones linked in the update below).

UPDATE: New Information

@deadicateddeath brought my attention to the existence of this pride flag compilation post on Tumblr, published 8 December 2013. This is now, to my knowledge, the earliest record of the pink stripes featured without the kiss mark. The same blog made another post (10 January 2014) which featured the pink flag and claimed that it was seeing use at the time.

I am extremely interested to know if there is any evidence of pre-2015 use of the pink flag outside of this blog, as I was unable to find any during my research.

Additionally, some people feel I have downplayed the extent of the labrys’s usage. As above, I included a note to acknowledge the prevalence of the symbols used in the labrys flag (separately and in combination), but this post is specifically focussed on flag designs, and I can’t find any indication of a labrys flag itself (whether Sean Campbell’s design, or a separate design) seeing much use pre-2015.

I would be extremely interested to see any evidence of this flag being used pre-2012, something which I did hunt for but could not find.

If you have any sources regarding either of these issues, please send them my way! I am 100% open to correction and clarification, provided it can be factually backed up.

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FAQ/Common Misconceptions & Source Requests

So... what flag should we use?

My primary motivation in making this was to clear up misinformation, not to tell anyone what flag to use. Use your own judgement, even make your own if you want, just don’t get stressed out if your flag isn’t “the” flag and remember that flag colours are not the only avenue through which to show pride!

The lipstick lesbian flag is an edited version of the pink flag, which is the original.

There is no evidence to support this. The lipstick lesbian flag had been documented online for years prior to the pink flag, as explained above.

The lipstick mark was removed to make the flag more inclusive.

There’s no proof of this - as explained above, the first instance of the mark being “removed” (i.e. not included) was due to it being too complex to easily convert into a high resolution image.

The pink flag is, and has always been, “the” lesbian flag.

The pink flag has only been in semi-common usage since 2016, and its use is still mostly confined to younger online communities.

The rainbow flag is the gay (man) flag.

The rainbow flag [32] was created by Gilbert Baker in 1978 to represent the LGBT community as a whole (I used his original 8-stripe design in the final panel). It does not belong exclusively to gay men, and it does represent lesbians. Please stop framing it like this:

when it’s actually like this:

This doesn’t mean we can’t have a specific flag for the lesbian community, but it’s not the case that we need to scramble the fill the gap left by a “missing” flag. Stop reading malice into my words... lmao.

The creator of the the lipstick lesbian flag/the labrys flag is a TERF.

I can’t find any information on Sean Campbell that would suggest this, and while a cursory browse through Natalie McCray’s social media did turn up some casual cissexism, nothing indicates she was a TERF. If you have sources that show otherwise, please send them my way!

What is a “Lipstick Lesbian”?

A feminine lesbian, and by many definitions, one who only dates other feminine lesbians. Natalie McCray’s edits to the Lipstick Lesbian Wikipedia page under the name “Nmdesigns” [7] show that she subscribed to the femme4femme definition.

Why don’t you want people to promote flag redesigns on this post?

This post was created to dispell misinformation and explore the online trails of lesbian flags prior to 2017. I don’t want to tell other people what flag to use, nor do I want others to use this post as a platform to tell other people what flag to use, because that’s not the purpose of this post.

I’m not a lesbian, can I reblog this?

I don’t mind who shares this, but if you want to add commentary as someone ouside the lesbian community, please think carefully on whether or not it is relevant or appropriate.

Can I repost this on Twitter/Facebook/etc?

I don’t mind, but I’d strongly recommend including a link back to this post in order to preserve the sources.

Actually, there is an official/agreed upon flag! It’s ______.

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Sources

Scupham-Bilton, Tony. "Putting Out Sean Campbell’s Flags”. The Queerstory Files, 21 June 2012. [archive]

Bayley, Clare. “A Field Guide to Pride Flags”. Clare Bayley, 27 June 2013. [2014 archive] [2015 update archive]

@lovemystarfire. “LGBT Community Terminology and Flags”. DeviantArt, 18 April 2014. [archive]

Volcano, Del Lagrace. And the March Stops. 1988. Photograph. Lesbian Herstory Archives. London [archive]

McCray, Natalie. “Lipstick Lesbian Pride!!!”. This Lesbian Life, 28 July 2010. [archive]

File:Lipstick Lesbian Pride Flag.jpg @ Wikimedia Commons [archive]

Lipstick lesbian: Revision history @ Wikipedia [archive]

LGBT symbols: Revision history @ Wikipedia [archive]

@darciam. “Pride United - Button Set”. DeviantArt, 27 August 2012. [archive]

@LeiAndLove. “Ultimate LGBTQ Flag Guide”. DeviantArt, 17 July 2011. [archive]

McCray, Natalie. “The Official Lipstick Lesbian Flag”. This Lesbian Life, 4 August 2014. [archive]

McCray, Natalie. The Official Lipstick Lesbian Pride Flag, retrieved 1 June 2016. [archive]

@Pride-Flags @ DeviantArt [archive]

@Pride-Flags. “Pride-Flags’s DeviantArt Gallery (page 138)”. DeviantArt, retrieved 5 June 2019. [archive]

@Pride-Flags. “Lesbian”. DeviantArt, 7 October 2015. [archive]

@Pride-Flags. “Lesbian Labrys”. DeviantArt, 7 October 2015. [archive]

@Pride-Flags. “Lipstick Lesbian”. DeviantArt, 25 December 2016. [archive]

@emtmercy. “the lesbian flag is so cute...”. Tumblr, 11 March 2016. [archive]

@sappharah. “the lesbian flag is so cute...”. Tumblr, 27 March 2016. [archive]

@sappharah. “the lesbian flag is so pretty...”. Tumblr, 8 June 2016. [archive]

@allukazaoldyeck. “sorry this should be my last...”. Tumblr, 30 June 3017. [archive]

@allukazaoldyeck. “Lesbian Flag Poll Data Results”. Tumblr, 7 June 2018. [archive]

@which-lesbian-flag. “The Lesbian Flag Survey”. Tumblr, 21 July 2018. [archive]

@taqwomen. “Lesbian Flag Colors”. Tumblr, 26 July 2018. [archive]

@official-lesbian-flag. “Official Lesbian Flag Poll”. Tumblr, 30 June 2018. [archive]

@creatoroflesflagisracist. “Commercial Lesbian Flag Poll (please only lesbians vote)”. Tumblr, 14 December 2018. [archive]

Lydia. “A Lesbian Flag for Everyone”. Medium, 27 June 2018. [archive]

McCray, Natalie. “My Worst Date Ever”. This Lesbian Life, 18 July 2010. [original archive] [2018 updated archive]

@thislesbianlife. “The second season of the real l word has too many butches”. Twitter, 16 May 2011. [archive]

@thislesbianlife. “Why don’t butches shave their armpits!!! IT’S DISGUSTING! Even men trim it!”. Twitter, 8 January 2011. [archive]

McCray, Natalie. “The 10 Worst Things About Being A Lipstick Lesbian”. This Lesbian Life, 18 July 2010. [archive]

Baker, Gilbert. Rainbow Flag. 1978. Nylon. Museum of Modern Art. New York. [link]

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Credit

Font: Pixellari by Zacchary Dempsey-Plante [x]

Pile of Flags:

(NOTE: This is by no means an exhaustive list of recent redesigns, nor am I interested in curating such a list. I am having difficulty tracking down the original posts for 17 and 31, if you recognise them please get in touch!)

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* Indicates that the original post has been deleted, and a reblogged version of it has been archived instead.

[daesungindistress]

Sorry if this is kinda old news but it's been on my mind for a while. Do you think ot5 stans are clinging onto seungri because they're holding onto bigbang's "kings of kpop" title? Like they're afraid bigbang won't be attached to that title anymore..if they forget about seungri.

???

Once upon a time there were five kings. One broke his crown, gave up his throne, relinquished his title, and was banished from the kingdom for being a crook. Now there are four kings. GD, TOP, Taeyang, and Daesung are very much still kings without him. The decline of one, from sovereign to sleaze, does not negate the power and presence of the others.

Except... in the short term I suppose it does. if only they would come back and reclaim their thrones! I’m tired of seeing the “kings” lie so low, even knowing why it has to be so. Seungri was only 1/5 of the group but 4/5 of BIGBANG’s sunken reputation is his doing. It was quite the parting gift. I cannot stress enough the devastation he dealt them before, during, and after his departure... the damage his followers are still inflicting today. The only way for BIGBANG to work themselves up and out of the disgraceful state he left them in is to bring this interminable hiatus of theirs to an end. The title “kings of kpop” is one hundred percent theirs for the (re)taking... and rest assured, they will do it without him.

It’s not that complicated. The main reason most OT5 fans still cling to Seungri is because they are uniformly uninformed. And for those who fancy themselves informed, misinformed. And the scant few who are actually aware? They don't care; they spend their days chasing down damning information and hoping no one will notice as they find new ways to sweep it under the rug. Dumped their dignity down the drain. All the halfway decent Seungri stans saw the writing on the wall and left the fandom years ago, taking what remained of their dignity with them. I am sympathetic to those fans -- or to their memory, anyway. They did the right thing; they saw what he’d become and accepted that his time here had come to an end. His and theirs, and away they went.

The repugnant few who refused to go were bottom of the barrel, even back then. Now, years later, we have a whole new generation of VIPs who don’t have the faintest idea about what really happened during Burning Sun. As international fans all that old news is practically unreachable, except from sources who will never be forthcoming about their fave at his absolute worst. Since their first day here they’ve been raised on lies, like sheep being fattened for slaughter by wolves. “OT5” fans are just Seungri stans’ sad recruits. OT5 as it exists now is a farce and a gross distortion of what it used to be. The old souls know.

Since we’re on this topic... and I know I don’t talk about it much these days but... I’d like to take this opportunity to draw attention to what I think is an interesting update in “the case” as everyone loves to call it. The other day a hearing was held for Seungri’s violence instigation charge, in which (long story short) one victim said he hadn’t felt very threatened at the time and wasn’t interested in pressing charges (okay), while the other said he had felt threatened and verified that the men who took him outside and roughed him up that night had arrived in Seungri’s defense, "talking like gangsters" and saying things like "Don't you know who that was?" inside the room they'd forced him out of. The message being that the person they were shielding (Seungri) was someone of significance. Threats and intimidation to satisfy the up-and-coming CEO’s out-of-control ego, what else is new?

That said, there was an interesting point made at the end of the report: something to the effect of “This is a clear case in which, although the victims did not come forward on their own (they were found through CCTV footage and brought forward by investigators) the incident did happen, there were victims, and it’s confirmed that Seungri was at the center of the conflict.” Not only that, he was the cause of it -- the reason for the disturbance. All these people involved, and for what? To pacify him and his “bad attitude”.

This is important. This goes beyond his violence charge; this has far-reaching implications for several of his other charges: prostitution for himself and others, financial crimes, etc. And did I not say, back in January when this charge was brought against him, that this must be the reason? The argument prosecutors appear to making is that there is a pattern of crimes with Seungri at the center, committed on his behalf, with action taken at his urging. As a high-profile celebrity and a person of influence he managed to keep his hands relatively clean by calling on his connections to do his bidding -- which they did readily.

Funny, because I’ve long been bothered by what I saw in him as a tendency to use others as a means to an end. Including his own fans who, strangely, don’t seem to mind being yanked around by their puppet strings.

Another thing: Seungri is charged with sharing an illicit/illegal photo in the group chat -- that of a woman (women?), naked, from behind. His fans insist it isn’t molka (taken and/or shared in secret, without consent) but that has always been up for debate; because the photo was taken from behind the subject, the victim, could not be identified and contacted for questioning. Seungri claims the photo was sent to him by someone else as an advertisement “for business purposes.” Well, Jung Joonyoung doesn’t agree; not long ago he testified that he believed Seungri took the photo himself. Which makes it molka. And makes him just like his friends. It also makes him a filthy liar, and not for the first time.

This aligns with the chat transcript, by the way; when Seungri posted the photo in the chat his friends thought it was his own and that he was sharing with them who he was with and what he was doing at the time, replying, “Now? ㅋㅋㅋ” Seungri’s response? Not clarification. Nothing about business. Just laughter.

All his attorney could say about the matter was suggest that JJY’s memory of the incident may be faulty. Going the doubt route, I see. Weak.

I just think it’s funny because of course JJY would be the one to rat him out -- after all, we have him to thank (partly) for his role in revealing the truth about Seungri. Back in 2015-2016 when Seungri created the group chat and instructed his friends to exit it routinely, erasing its criminal content as long as everyone did as told, JJY was the one person who didn't listen. Only because JJY did not follow the orders he was given the chats were retained, quietly and carefully investigated, and years later released in a firestorm, leading to every incriminating thing we know now.

Last tidbit: the court also asked, “How is it possible that everyone (in the chat) knew prostitution was being arranged but Seungri alone did not?” Sounds to me like they’re not buying his dumb excuses lol

That’s all :)

[strazem]

I noticed that I’ve been getting blocked by a lot of Ososan artists lately and... At this point I’m sure it’s because of bad rumors and misinfo getting spread about me in discord servers. I’m going to put a lot of this under a readmore because I don’t want to clog people’s dashes with this, but I really want to clear the air here as I feel like there are a lot of things being left out of the narratives people are telling about me, and also the fact this is still happening and has been for four-five years, isolating me from a lot of the ososan community and hurting me in a very deep way...

Now, first off, I’m not here to say that over the past 4-5 years I wasn’t immature and childish. There were many times where I was, even to the point the behaviors could be seen as abusive or toxic even if that wasn’t the intention. I was in my early to mid 20s and had serious issues with oversharing my thoughts and feelings with people I really only knew casually, usually to the point of making them uncomfortable. I would also use all caps a lot, not really realizing the effect it had on people, making others feel like they were being shouted at. I would also act immaturely when I saw that other roleplay blogs were getting more attention than mine, even though the ones I had were for OCs, which meant that of course canon characters would get more traction.

Again, I was very young and not very socially developed. I am by no means trying to use my autism as an excuse, but rather an explanation.

Prior to getting into Ososan around 2016, I did not have any “real life” friends, that is, friends I knew in person. I did not know anyone my age and socializing was, and still is pretty limited to just my immediate family. Almost all of my interactions were online, and even that I struggled with. I had recently gotten out of an abusive relationship as well, and was just starting college. I did not think about how others felt enough and was too concerned with saying my piece and sharing my own opinions, making everything about me or about how I felt, and less about the other person. Again, this is something I’ve struggled with for most of my life as part of my ASD, but I’m still not excusing it by any means, especially considering the fact that other people ended up hurt.

I think the main issue was how immature and self-focused I was if I’m being honest, and how I would tend to make everything about me and how I felt and what I made.

My intentions were always good, that never changed. But as people have stated to me before, good intentions don’t mean anything if the outcome is bad. My immaturity really ended up hurting a lot of other people’s feelings and causing a lot of resentment, and I am by no means saying that anyone has to forgive me or be “ok” with me.

What I do wish though is that perhaps people who I have had struggles with in the past could refrain from spreading biased opinions of me to people who have never even met me. I understand wanting to support your friends, and I also understand that when someone you know tells you someone is “bad news”, it’s natural to take their word for it, especially if they only show screenshots of me at my lowest rather than when I was trying my absolute best to be a good friend, despite my immaturity.

However, I’ll be honest and say that I do think that this behavior in general seems counterproductive and perhaps even concerning... If there’s someone that upset me in my past, I don’t tell others or divulge about them to new people I meet unless I felt they did something actually illegal. I remember misinforming about someone in the ososan community based on false claims and I still feel guilty about it to this day, so I’ve also been guilty of this in the past. It’s also important to keep in mind that if someone is really making someone out to sound terrible or horrible that there is usually a bias clouding their perception. I've sat and reflected a lot on my own biases these past five years in therapy, and at the end of the day, I don’t think most people have bad intentions, at least not lonely kids in a small fandom. I think it’s a lot of miscommunication, lack of confrontation, and fear rather than any malicious intent.

Because if there’s one thing I know that I’m not, it’s a manipulator. I straight up do not have the social intelligence for that. I would all caps, I would get upset and leave chats and worry people, I would go on rants that people couldn’t talk me down from, or get too emotionally volatile, or put my own emotional issues onto other people by panicking and venting and putting on a scary and upsetting scene, but I never tried to manipulate anyone or turn anyone’s friends against them. The only two instances I can think of that even come close to me “warning” anyone about someone (and not for blm*tsu related reasons) happened in 2018 and 2019, well after all of this was (I assumed) done with. 

Most of my issues that people have gotten upset with me for was regarding my social immaturity, self-centeredness, altercations, public panic attacks, public mental breakdowns and a tendency to go off on emotional and heated rants, especially in public areas and in public chats. That’s why this thing about me being a manipulator seems misinformed to me, because I’ve never been great at DMing or talking to others one on one, I think anyone that’s known me will agree. Many of these altercations happened in public group chats.

I’m assuming that many of the bad rumors being spread about me are regarding my skype days back in 2016-2017, back before discord became the new norm for online chatting and servers and such, as well as a very specific “drama” that happened on anti-bl oso-twitter concerning people that had met in an osomatsu-san kin discord server (which I was not in or even knew about). 

Essentially, I befriended some of these people on twitter through people that had been in my second skype roleplay group (the first one I made was in 2016 I believe). I was unaware of any previous dramas or issues and was even unaware that said “person of interest” was even upset with me or thought I was toxic or bad. I had figured we had just stopped talking due to naturally drifting apart. Of course, in my young and naive mind, before understanding “social media etiquette” I went to go ask them why they had blocked me on twitter (I had started being active on twitter during that time.)

And of course, in my immaturity, was freaking out and panicking about having been blocked by someone I thought was a friend to people in my second roleplay group chat... As always... Ugh.. It wasn’t anything malicious though, just confusion and me being scared I had done something wrong.

One member in the roleplay group though, who I guess was a member of the osomatsu-san kin discord, started going off about said “person of interest”, claiming they had gotten their friend into a car accident and that they had groomed minors. Another person in the roleplay group felt the allegations were crazy and unfounded and left. Meanwhile, I was just lost as to what was even happening, I wasn’t aware these people were this connected or knew each other and admittedly, did a pretty poor job as a mod/admin that I didn’t stop the discussions sooner.

I have no idea if the claims were true or not, I imagine they were exaggerated due to bias, I have no idea, but then the same person who had made those claims showed me screenshots that “person of interest” sent to their mutual friend about me. How I was scary and toxic, that I had upset lots of people.. That they were panicking that I even contacted them on tumblr with a friendly “hello!”

Naturally, I responded with confusion. Again, my autism makes it very difficult for me to realize when people are upset or frustrated with me, especially over text. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything I had done to upset them and was very hurt and confused, as our last actual interaction had been seemingly positive. 

I did not try to turn anyone against them though. Here’s what actually happened: After being given this info, I also learned that there was a small discord group of the friend group that the person making the claims was from. I joined it hoping to learn more or get some sort of clarification only to find out that this entire group was very upset with “person of interest”. Like very upset. They made claims that this person lied, that this person liked to play victim as a way to manipulate others, that they had groomed two of the people in the group, that they had said unsettling things, that they would do strange and backhanded things ect. Again, I don’t know if these statements are true and I’m not trying to claim they are, I just know that this group of friends had been very upset with "person of interest” before I had even come into the picture. They were already planning on cutting them off!

I did not sway anyone or say anything, I was literally just there in the hopes of finding out if I’d done something wrong. 

Of course, this doesn’t at all excuse when I was still friends with “person of interest” and subjected them to my barrage of emotional baggage and panic attacks. I just want to make it clear that I never sent anyone after them or tried to turn their friends against them. In fact, I even tried to help them when they came to my twitter DMs asking me for help. I was already incredibly scared of pissing anyone off in general, and tried to keep things peaceful on both sides. When I asked the second roleplay group if they’d be okay with them rejoining, it was a unanimous “no”... I distinctly remember offering to still roleplay with them one on one and to make a new group that they could be in (and this was even after I had been shown the screenshots of them calling me toxic, which I still wasn’t holding against them!), but the offer was turned down.

I’ve noticed this very distinct pattern over the years of me running into a lot of issues due to miscommunication as well. It was very rare that people would express with me how they were feeling, or when they did, it was usually during one of my panic attacks, which were often bad enough that my brain would repress the memories of what happened during them the second they stopped, and it was rare that I would actually go back and read the things I said. People have had a very easy time going to others and complaining or venting about me to friends, but have had a very hard time actually telling me these complaints themselves, as themselves. I don’t really blame them, as we were all pretty young and given how much I freaked out publicly, it would make sense to be scared of how I might react. Not to mention there were probably things in their own pasts that made something like confrontation difficult. However, what I don’t understand is why this would still be happening five years later... I would assume by this point people would have moved on, especially regarding spats within fandoms.

I hold no ill will towards people in my past who’ve gotten upset with me, I do not hold grudges, and for the most part, if someone wants to cut contact with me, I just accept it and move on. But now that I’m noticing that these false claims are being spread around to other people in the fandom, people who weren’t even involved in these situations, blocking me based off of... Stuff they’ve heard about me... I felt a need to say something.

Honestly, my biggest wish or hope is that, given that it has been five or so years, that people who have never spoken to me or met me before maybe give me another chance? If I have personally hurt you, I don’t want you to feel the need to reach some sort of conclusion with me, or forgive me, or whatever...

But at the very least, perhaps people could be more careful when sharing personal issues we went through with other people, people who know very little about me and who I am and only know me through the lenses and narratives of people who felt slighted by me.

I have changed immensely over the past five years, more than I can even describe. I am not the same person mentally that I was, I have had therapy, I have had help, I have reflected, I have become more sensitive to other people’s thoughts and feelings. I even managed to help a friend of mine get therapy! I was not perfect, I behaved irrationally, but I do think it’s important to drive home the fact that it has been a few years and that I’ve made a lot of progress and that as I’m nearing 30, I have mentally matured quite a bit.

Again, no one from my past has to forgive me, I am not here to dictate how people should feel about me. I am just here to try to share my own side seeing as how I am unable to join most ososan servers and communities nowadays, and thus have a harder time being able to get in contact with or reach others.

I’ve been dying to say something, but kept worrying that it would stir up negative feelings or memories for others, but it’s getting to a point now where I’ve felt so isolated and hated by the fandom for five whole years that I’ve actually started having thoughts of self-harm again for the first time in awhile. I’m not saying this to make anyone feel guilty, and I haven’t acted on the thoughts, I just need to be honest.

This sort of behavior on the internet; gossiping about others, spreading misinformation about others, using a position of influence within a fandom to keep someone from making friends in fandom spaces... Or maybe people don’t even realize how much their words can affect others? Especially if they’re well-liked and exist in a lot of spaces. I’m sure there are no actual bad intentions when people say these things or vent to their friends.

And while I explained that one specific incident in detail that was with a specific person, it is not the only issue I’ve gotten myself into over the years either. I simply spoke about that one as I am just guessing it’s the big reason a lot of this is still going on to this day. I behaved poorly enough in the past that separate groups of people have ended up mad at me, regardless of even knowing each other. I was incredibly troubled, dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship, overworked with my animation assignments, and incredibly clueless in social situations or trying to relate to others. Again, these aren’t excuses... But explanations. Mentally ill people are not well, that’s why it’s an illness. In 2016-2017, I was at the lowest of my low, and continued to be until around the Fall of 2019. I have also matured significantly since, and have been working with a far more effective therapist as of late 2018, which I think is why I had such a positive change by 2019, as well as finding wonderful and supportive friends who truly care about me.

I know this is getting really long, too long honestly, but I really needed to get this off my chest...

I’m trying to decide whether or not this will be one of my final posts on tumblr as a whole, as I don’t think I will be able to participate in enjoying ososan publicly with how isolated I’ve been over the years by various groups and people; I think by this point the reputation is too soured for me to be a part of the community. Again, probably not out of malice, but fear and resentment at how I’ve acted.

The fact that I’m seeing more than a few people in ososan fandom I’ve never really spoken to, or people I was mutuals with blocking me is enough I think for me to consider calling it quits for public enjoyment. The fandom is already very small, and the anti-bl side is even smaller, so everyone is pretty interconnected and rumors can spread very easily. There’s no way I can compete with that, especially if I’m barred from most servers anyways.

I’m still going to mull it over, but again, if you’ve never met me, or if you’ve only seen screenshots of me from 2016 while panicking or allcapsing or at my worst... All I can really do is hope that maybe you’ll be able to see past these things and consider giving me a chance. 

As for the people I genuinely did hurt, I know I’ve said sorry many times now, even on my old blog Nutastic which I abandoned for similar reasons, but I don’t know how else or how better to prove how genuinely sorry I am... Because the proof of regret is in changing and becoming a better person, and there’s not much chance to see if I have or haven’t if I’ve been cut off.

No one has to forgive me, but perhaps at least entertain the idea I might’ve changed over the course of five years, and that telling people how I was back then instead of who I am now seems a bit unfair. Again, I suppose I dug my own grave by behaving like that in the first place, but I always try to show empathy even to people who wronged me at a low place in their lives, unless they were incredibly abusive and cruel.

At the end of the day, we’re all just people trying to enjoy a show about wacky sextuplets, and I don’t think anyone actually has any ill-will in their hearts, or has it in them to be “bad”, specifically on the anti-bl side. I don’t hold grudges, there’s no one that I currently have blocked unless they are a bl or a man that made me uncomfortable. My DMs are always open, as is my askbox.

Feel free to ask me anything or confront me about anything, though admittedly, doing so through anon makes it hard for me to reply as I don’t want to post anything potentially upsetting publicly.

And I will try to come to a decision about whether or not to pull a Jenna Marbles and leave social media for good out of regret and declining mental health. I will most likely make a post about it when I’m feeling more capable.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope your year is going good so far despite... Well, everything

[tania-grey]

i do agree with you on some of your points, calling out bad behaviors and harassment are very different things, however your main defense of thecybersmith that i've seen is that it was a hypothetical ethics discussion and the fact remains that people's main issue is that whether or not it's ever ethical to own a human pet is a bad thing to be discussing. it's a bad hypothetical.

I absolutely agree with you there. It was extremely bad taste and hit quite the nerve for a lot of people. However, it still isnt an excuse to for people to continue spreading misinformation.

By all means, call people out and have civil debates and tell people that their analogies are terrible or triggering or insensitive. But to continue to say that poor wording or a poor analogy is the same as condoning or agreeing to it and then to continually harass them over it is wrong.

Why people cant just ask for clarification is beyond me. Instead, people prefer to jump to outrageous conclusions when the wording hits them wrongly and to never let the thing go. This internet culture of not letting people explain or of not letting people move on is toxic. This whole issue happened in 2016, I first met and heard of Cy in 2017. Its 2021 now. Why are people still insisting on spreading this misinformation?

[arcticdementor]

The last few weeks have been a profoundly radicalizing experience.

Before the COVID-19 crisis entered into its current phase, it was reasonable to argue that the post-2016 counter-disinformation effort was based on good intentions but had serious flaws and was entering a state of diminishing returns. The Internet and social media, in destabilizing traditional gatekeepers and spreading lies and half-truths, had created a dangerous vacuum that was being filled by malicious actors. You could disagree with the details of the diagnosis and prognosis, and disagree even more with the proposed treatments, but the underlying assumptions themselves at least could be said to have validity. But what a difference a few weeks makes.

The COVID-19 fiasco is revealing, in a very short period of time, that much of these assumptions are totally wrong. And continuing to act on them is not just misguided but harmful. Doing so compounds the costs of the failures that we have witnessed and hampers efforts that – however imperfect – provide alternatives to them. Why?

…

It is difficult to express how badly almost all legacy “expert systems” simultaneously underperformed during the initial phases of the crisis. Here is a tiny sample of this failure, a failure whose human consequences grow by the day as a cold, inhuman, and utterly ruthless killer relentlessly searches for new targets.

…

It is an exaggeration to say that fringe weirdos on social media often were more well-informed than people that exclusively evaluated mainstream sources, but not that much of an exaggeration as most would think. And that is not accidental. As Ben Thompson noted, the global COVID-19 response depended on an enormous amount of information developed and shared often in defiance of traditional media (which underrated and even mocked concern about the crisis) and even the Center for Disease Control (which attempted to suppress the critical Seattle Flu Study). The response still depends primarily on transnational networks and often must operate around rather than through official channels.

Taken together, all of this is astounding in both its scope and simultaneity. And it makes a mockery out of the cottage industry developed over the last few years to preserve our collective epistemic health.

…

But as we have seen, these institutions are perfectly capable of unraveling themselves without much help from Russian bots and trolls and Macedonian teenagers. And if the fish rots from the head, then the counter-disinformation effort becomes actively harmful. It seeks to gentrify information networks that could offer layers of redundancy in the face of failures from legacy institutions. It is reliant on blunt and context-indifferent collections of bureaucratic and mechanical tools to do so. It leaves us with a situation in which complicated computer programs on enormous systems and overworked and overburdened human moderators censor information if it runs afoul of generalized filters but malicious politicians and malfunctioning institutions can circulate misleading or outright false information unimpeded. And as large content platforms are being instrumentalized by these same political and institutional entities to combat “fraud and misinformation,” this basic contradiction will continue to be heightened.

The cardinal sin motivating all of this is worrying about whether we trust institutions without asking if these institutions normatively deserve trust, whether it is possible for trust to emerge in the absence of agreement about underlying causes of social problems, and most importantly how subjective trust in authorities can be achieved without objective action.

…

Don’t think carefully. Trust expertise. Sit down and go back to watching television. You’ll only make things worse if you do anything. Many of these op-eds – which now have aged horribly in very short periods of time – emphasized public cognitive deficits in evaluating risk. But a novel virus – in a climate of partial and often distorted information – is not so much a problem of risk as much as it is an issue of uncertainty. Uncertainty nonetheless requires bold action, even if action must occur in conditions where even post-hoc information may not fully reveal all of the relevant decision parameters. And more importantly, responsibility is not equal. The nature of the modern ‘risk society’ is such that the impact of individual actions are swamped by those of large institutions and risk is often systematically passed off to society’s losers.

…

Western society fetishizes the appearance of leadership even as actual leaders recede into a malfunctioning technocratic machine that prunes individual agency and leaves behind only a phantom limb sensation of what once was, Hobson and Bristow explain

…

But is there an alternative to this? What can we do? This post will not give a pat answer, but it will once again reference Thompson’s observation about how the Internet fulfilled much of its original promise and other more traditional information management systems underperformed.

…

What it means is that in the next crisis, reliance on legacy institutions alone to save us is a collective suicide pact. Tradeoffs are inevitable in any complex endeavor, and as Thompson has argued we need to tilt the balance further towards opening up control of information transmission and communication in spite of what we have painfully learned about the false promise that technology will save us from ourselves. This is not about salvation, it is about survival. Reframing the question offers much clarification about possible answers and takes us away from debates that have become stale and uninformative.

We need only look back, as Thompson does, to the origins of the Internet to see that beneath the hyperbole about digital life washing away everything else is a basic concern for survival and resilience under severe strain. And this is the best place to start before we do anything else. In the long run, we must repair or rebuild the legacy systems that failed. Starting over from scratch is simply not an option. “Year Zero” approaches are tremendously destructive and attempts at creating planned societies ex nihilo do not work. But in the short and near term we must create alternatives. These alternatives can over time help us make older systems better. And, quite frankly, building robust alternatives may provide legacy institutions with the incentive to either rise to their obligations or be rendered irrelevant.

Waiting for them to get better on their own or hoping they will change without being prodded is like waiting for the authorities to tell you the right time to stock up on quarantine supplies. Don’t bet your life on it.

[berniesrevolution]

The media dedicated much time and energy to covering online abuse, towards women in particular, during the Democratic Primary. The vitriol was, and remains, disturbing. Posting a photo of a female campaign surrogate on Facebook, a man wrote, “Every time i see this… creature on CNN, I want to reach through the tv screen and choke her… (I don’t believe in hurting women… but i’m not sure if this is one).” Another surrogate, a black woman, has been called everything from a “bitch” to a slave to a “hood rat.” One man tweeted, “I hope you and your family die,” and another person told her to “just end her misery. A pill cocktail will do the trick…” There has even been actual physical violence against women: Two women were hit because of their allegiance to a candidate, one of them, a young woman of color, was struck by an older white man with his hand and cane.

Readers may be familiar with the term “Bernie Bro,” but they might be surprised to learn that every attack cited above was made by Clinton supporters against Sanders supporters. Though the abuse of Sanders supporters has been ignored, the Bernie Bro trope is as strong as ever.

The term has been employed by Hillary Clinton in her new book, What Happened, (and in follow up interviews) to explain her loss: “Some of his supporters, the so-called Bernie Bros, took to harassing my supporters online.” The tale is even serving as evidence of a Russian propaganda effort to inflate Sanders support online, which was discussed in a closed door Senate Intelligence Committee meeting with Twitter representatives earlier this month. A Politico piece framed the bots as part of the “toxic” online environment attributed to Bernie Bros: “Clinton supporters say they sensed early on that Twitter would be surprisingly toxic terrain.”

And the term is popping up in the current backlash to Bernie Sanders’ participation in the Women’s Convention slated to take place in Detroit at the end of the month. The event is organized by women—many of whom are of color—who planned last March’s Women’s March, which brought out an estimated 5.25 million people in one of the largest (if not the largest ever) single-day protests in U.S. history. It will be keynoted by Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-D), the most senior of the 12 black women in Congress. The 40-plus speakers announced include black, Latino, queer, Asian-American, Arab-American, Native American, Muslim, and/ or queer women. All but two speakers are women. One of those other two is Bernie Sanders—currently the most popular politician in the United States.

The responses to this news have included a change.org petition to “Remove Bernie Sanders from opening the Women’s Convention,” a #BoycottWomensConvention hashtag, condemnation from several writers, criticism from Emily’s List, condemnation from Joy Reid and Neera Tanden, who unfollowed the Women’s March account, a Twitter poll from The New York Times, and clarification from organizers. Writer Lauren Duca sarcastically asked, “Why not just have the #WomensConvention open with a choir of Bernie Bros harmonizing the word “actually”?” An ElleOpEd, “Some Advice for Bernie on Speaking at the Women’s Convention,” which laments that the “convention’s headline speaker is Bernie Sanders, who, it so happens, identifies as a cisgender man,” invokes the “Bernie Bro” term twice. (Sanders is not, in fact, the opening speaker.) The term has been revisited in “reported” pieces, not merely tweets and opeds.

Of course, individual Sanders supporters hurled vitriol at Hillary Clinton and her fans. But there is no empirical evidence that it was worse than the abuse in the opposite direction. In fact, independent observers have shown the difference between the two camps to be negligible or, in the case of one study, demonstrated that Clinton backers were actually more aggressive.

The Genealogy of a Pejorative

From the beginning, the Bernie Bro narrative used a striking double standard: the most vocal and abusive Sanders supporter was framed as yet another example of a systemic problem. Abuse from Clinton supporters was either ignored or dismissed as isolated incidents.

The actual “Bernie Bro” term first appeared in a light-hearted piece which was quick to point out that “Berniebro is not every Bernie Sanders supporter. Sanders’s support skews young, but not particularly male.” By early 2016, however, through repetition and a feedback loop of articles which cited each other and repeated random anecdotes, a handful of screenshots, misinformation, and comments by Clinton partisans and surrogates, the Bernie Bro—to mean a serious sexist assault by Sanders supporters on Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and American politics—was born.

A BBC piece titled, “Bernie Sanders supporters get a bad reputation online,” published on January 28th 2016, opened with a tweet in which New Yorker critic Emily Nussbaum described harassment from an account she thought belonged to a Sanders supporter. The harasser, however, was actually a right winger posing as a GOP congressman who doesn’t actually exist, and Nussbaum corrected the error. The BBC never did. The piece distorted the considerate response from the Sanders campaign’s Mike Casca (“If you support @berniesanders, please follow the senator’s lead and be respectful when people disagree with you”) as an admission of guilt, claiming “even representatives for the Sanders campaign felt compelled to address what was happening online.”

This flawed and evidence-free article was immediately parroted by a Mashable piece (headlined “The bros who love Bernie Sanders have become a sexist mob” ), which corroborated the phenomenon by citing two Clinton supporters and one unnamed chief of staff for an unnamed Clinton-endorsing member of Congress, all of whom agreed Bernie Bros were a problem. The article also entered into evidence two screenshots of Bernie Bro Facebook comments, though one of the alleged bros was actually a woman.

(Continue Reading)

[fandomfluffandfuck]

I hope people stop yelling at you for being a person and trying to discuss your side of things soon, S /gen

The fact that you said anything is already a lot.

Have a nice day and I hope there’s something that’ll help you smile :)

related to the end of this ask answer

Thanks, but it's fine, I'm less worried about people yelling at me and more offended that people think they can use my ask box to yell at other anons and think that I would post it, like, no, buddy. I don't want to be the source of that, I'm just not gonna post it.

I hope you have a good day as well!

[2whatcom-blog]

Liberals and Conservatives Are Each Vulnerable to Pretend Information, however for Completely different Causes

People are motivated reasoners. After we see a information article that confirms one thing we expect to be true or we wish to be true, we shortly "like" it after which share it vehemently on Fb. Take this information story, as an example, which declares that "Cheese protects you from all causes of dying, says science."* Most cheese lovers most likely did not look too deeply into the scientific literature earlier than they shared it amongst their associates. This is applicable not simply to scientific information tales, but in addition to politically-based "pretend information." Because the 2016 presidency, the usage of the phrase exploded, with a greater than 350% enhance in widespread utilization. Collins Dictionary even named it phrase of the yr in 2017. Surprisingly, nonetheless, the idea of faux information has obtained little consideration throughout the social psychological literature. Is everybody prone to believing pretend information, or is it principally simply Republicans (as anecdotes counsel)? In a current preprint, Craig Harper and Thom Baguley introduced the outcomes of three well-powered research utilizing American and British samples to analyze whether or not liberals and conservatives are equally motivated to consider pretend information. The researchers introduced each optimistic and unfavourable pretend information tales written for the needs of the research. For every story, a 'TV breaking information' picture was proven, together with a brief written information story to complement the picture. As an example, within the first research tales have been both favorable or unfavorable about both former President Barack Obama or present President Donald Trump. Favorable tales reported that the goal had donated $50 million of their private fortune to chose charities, whereas the unfavorable tales reported that the goal was dealing with prison fees associated to voter fraud within the 2016 Presidential election. Individuals then made "legitimacy judgments" of every story, ranking how a lot they believed the story to be true, dependable, and reliable. That is what they discovered. Are Liberals and Conservatives Equally Vulnerable to Pretend Information? The reply is sure. The researchers discovered that individuals on each side of the standard left-right divide are equally prone to consider political information that's according to their ideology, and to disbelieve information that's inconsistent with their facet. As an example, liberals judged the anti-Trump story as being way more authentic than the pro-Trump story, with conservatives exhibiting the other judgment. Apparently, these results have been much more pronounced once they changed binary celebration preferences with celebration heat judgments. In different phrases, if you're manner left or manner proper you might be much more prone to cognitively distort your self in all types of how to both consider the information (if it helps your celebration) or bend over backwards to disconfirm it (if it disconfirms your celebration's line). The researchers conclude that "folks infer information legitimacy in a manner that seems motivated by their very own ideological positioning." These findings are very a lot in keeping with Jonathan Haidt's account of motivated reasoning being a giant supply of divisions in politics and faith. This discovering can be according to different analysis suggesting that there are symmetries amongst each liberals and conservatives in terms of motivated reasoning. As an example, liberals and conservatives are equally motivated to keep away from publicity to 1 one other's opinions, and are equally motivated to disclaim scientific findings which can be inconsistent with their ideology. On the marginally extra hopeful facet, the typical scores of legitimacy of faux information for each teams was under the midpoint of the size. This means that most individuals do have no less than some capability to discern true tales from these which can be false. The truth is, the researchers discovered it was vital to contemplate three explicit variables to find out whether or not somebody inside their celebration can be notably prone to pretend information. Considering Types and Collective Narcissism We every differ in our most popular mode of pondering. Some folks are likely to suppose with their head and are motivated to hunt out and course of info, whereas others are likely to suppose with their intestine, motivated to motion by their instincts and intuitions. You might suppose that those that report that they're tremendous rational and logical can be much less prone to fall prey to motivated reasoning, proper? Nicely, the outcomes might shock you. The researchers measured particular person variations in pondering kinds and located that whatever the political celebration identification, when excessive want for cognition people have been introduced with pretend information tales that have been according to their ideology, they have been much more doubtless than everybody else to guage the story as authentic, and once they have been confronted with pretend information story that have been inconsistent with their ideology, they have been even much less prone to contemplate the information authentic than everybody else. One attainable clarification is that extremely logical and rational individuals are not solely extra prone to disbelieve politically-inconsistent information tales alongside tribal strains, however they're additionally extra prone to hunt down additional disconfirming info, thus exaggerating their disbelief of politically-inconsistent tales. That is according to analysis exhibiting that individuals who rating excessive in want for cognition have a tendency to construct info wealthy social networks, however after all this may be problematic when your wealthy social networks are nonetheless working in an echo chamber. The researchers discovered some asymmetries, nonetheless. Conservatives who scored excessive in religion instinct (i.e., those that are likely to suppose with their intestine instincts) had larger perceptions of the legitimacy amongst pretend information, though this variable had little impact on the judgments of liberals. The researchers counsel that conservatives could also be most prone on common to fall prey to pretend information tales, contemplating that they're the group more than likely to be uncovered to such materials on-line, and they're additionally the group with the best common ranges of religion in instinct. Nonetheless, liberals aren't off the hook, as they're statistically extra doubtless to make use of funding within the righteousness of their political viewpoints to consider politically-consistent information tales, and their larger degree of want for cognition to delegitimize politically-inconsistent information tales. The researchers discovered that liberals who scored larger in a measure of "collective narcissism"-- which measures a bent to spend money on, and understand superiority of, your political views--showed exaggerated legitimacy judgments for the politically-consistent (e.g., anti-Trump) pretend information tales. This information is fascinating as a result of it means that collective narcissism isn't solely a right-wing populist phenomenon. Taken collectively, all of those findings are according to an identity-based strategy to the understanding of politically and ideologically motivated engagement with "pretend information." It is clear that we should view pretend information engagement via a motivated reasoning lens, and that each conservatives and liberals can fall prey to pretend information, despite the fact that the underlying motives might differ inside every group. These findings additional emphasize the significance of actually pondering via how the unfold of political misinformation at a societal degree can influence the political panorama. Because the researchers observe, "it won't be sufficient to ask folks to suppose extra critically about political beliefs. As a substitute, we'd look to cut back the results of on-line echo chambers and facilitate better ranges of communication between these with opposing political outlooks." Whereas social media has the potential to divide, we should not overlook that it additionally has the potential to reveal folks to ideologically numerous viewpoints. -- * I at all times marvel who that "science" individual is who retains saying cool stuff I wish to hear. Read the full article

[day0one]

Trump threatens to 'strongly regulate' or 'close down' social media platforms after Twitter fact check 55 mins ago

Donald Trump is threatening to "strongly regulate" or "close down" social media platforms a day after Twitter added a "fact check" label to two of his tweets about mail-in ballots.

After tweeting Tuesday that "Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election" and "stifling FREE SPEECH," Trump initially tweeted again Wednesday about social media platforms without specifically naming Twitter, which has been his favorite platform to post unfiltered views to his millions of followers.

Asserting that "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices," Trump tweeted, "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."

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Hours later he called out Twitter in a tweet and wrote: "Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!"

He also repeated his claims Wednesday morning about mail-in ballots, tweeting that expanding mail-in voting "would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots."

A fact check label had not been added to the new tweet about mail-in ballots as of Wednesday morning.

Twitter adds fact check to Trump tweets: 'Contain potentially misleading information'

Twitter labels: Social media giant says it will label disputed coronavirus tweets

About two hours after Trump first tweeted Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted about joining the Freedom Online Coalition’s call to promote and protect internet freedom "at all times."

"The U.S. stands against, and will not tolerate, government-imposed Internet shutdowns and other forms of censorship during or after this pandemic," Pompeo tweeted Wednesday.

a man wearing a suit and tie talking on a cell phone: US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on protecting seniors with diabetes during a event in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC.© BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, AFP via Getty Images US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on protecting seniors with diabetes during a event in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC. Robert A. Destro, assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor, also tweeted about joining with the coalition and calling on governments to ensure that human rights are protected online in response to the COVID19 pandemic.

The president can't unilaterally regulate or close the companies, which would require action by Congress or the Federal Communications Commission. But that didn't stop Trump from issuing a strong warning Wednesday.

This is not the first time Trump said he was looking at new regulations for tech giants.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, conservatives accused Facebook of censoring right-leaning voices.

Trump also accused Twitter of silencing conservative voices in July 2018. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said at the time that his company’s employees are “left-leaning” but said political ideology does not determine what appears on Twitter.

Back in August 2018, his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said Trump was considering new regulations on Google's search engine to address his concern that it turns up too many stories that are critical of him. Trump said then that Google was "taking advantage" of people and also attacked Twitter and Facebook as unfair.

Google, Facebook and Twitter have long cast themselves as neutral purveyors of information, attempting to strike a balance between users freely expressing themselves and keeping hate, abuse and misinformation off their platforms.

Trump and his campaign lashed out Tuesday after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots "fraudulent" and predicted that "mail boxes will be robbed," among other things.

The warning phrase reads, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots.” When clicked on, that opens a Twitter “moments” page that includes news stories and fact checks about Trump’s claims.

Twitter has said it would start using "labels and warning messages to provide additional explanations or clarifications in situations where the risks of harm associated with a Tweet are less severe but where people may still be confused or misled by the content."

Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough told USA TODAY on Tuesday that the two tweets "contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots. This decision is in line with the approach we shared earlier this month."

It was the first time Twitter labeled any of Trump's posts as misleading, Rosborough said.

Some Trump allies, who have alleged bias on the part of tech companies, have questioned whether platforms like Twitter and Facebook should continue to enjoy liability protections as "platforms" under federal law – or be treated more like publishers, which could face lawsuits over content.

The protections have been credited with allowing the unfettered growth of the internet for more than two decades, but now some are advocating that social media companies face more scrutiny.

"Big tech gets a huge handout from the federal government," Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told Fox News. "They get this special immunity, this special immunity from suits and from liability that's worth billions of dollars to them every year. Why are they getting subsidized by federal taxpayers to censor conservatives, to censor people critical of China."

[cacophonyofolives]

Wine And Politics: A Clarification

image: Facebook.com

My friend, fellow wine competition judge, and colleague (sorry, bro!) Michael Cervin recently asked me to offer up a comment or two (I agreed to do so on the record) for a piece he was writing for The Tasting Panel magazine, focusing on how (or if) political leanings impacted the wine business.

Michael published a screenshot of his interesting and well-written piece, which includes quotes from other people that I know and respect in the wine industry, and so I am also including it here (above) under the assumption that it’s okay to share.

I am quoted in the article as basically saying that I don’t think about anyone’s politics when it comes to wine, and that I happen to fine wine-industry-types among the more level-headed and reasonable folk when it comes to debating politics in a civil manner. Reflecting back on it, this isn’t entirely accurate, so I felt that I should include a clarification (or two, or three, knowing me), because, well, we live in some heated times when it comes to all of this political sh*t…

While I am quite vocal about being a non-affiliated, informed U.S. voter, with fiscally conservative and socially progressive leanings, I generally keep politics out of wine reviews. I mean, if you vote for fiscally irresponsible policies, for example, and your wine is great, I am going to ignore your (in my opinion misguided) political bent, and focus on the great juice being made.

I have my limits, however.

If someone is making great wine but happens to espouse unabashedly bigoted, racist, misogynistic, fascist, and/or Nazi-esque views, I’m going to ignore your wine. And that’s because there is simply too much excellent wine being made by respectful, hardworking, good people – conservative, liberal, centrist, what-have-you – who, while they have varying political leanings, don’t ever devolve their beliefs or stances into hate. Simply put, the world can get along just fine without wine being made by people who are acting like assholes, and I think that there are, in fact, clear lines that delineate acceptable from non-acceptable behavior in that regard.

As I’ve said here previously on similar matters:

The wine business is competitive enough that no one in their right mind would buy a wine, regardless of how good it is, if it comes with a large side order of douchebagery.

Now, there is no doubt that, as of the time of this writing, the USA is in the throes of one of its greatest ever political crisis, in the form of rampant partisan posturing that has become the very definition of harum-scarum, internecine infighting, to the point that the general populace have ceased to matter much to their elected officials. The sad fact is that not enough of us are voting to outweigh the influence of lobbyists, who, coupled with a vocal, misinformed minority of constituents, are effectively forcing minority viewpoints into law.

There is, of course, a quite simple and easy remedy to this, thanks to the forethought of some rather clever individuals a couple of hundred years ago.

In the USA, our political system was founded by a group of true geniuses, who understood that the mechanisms of checks/balances, compromise, and argument would move our country forward (albeit in a zigzag) if we maintain our respect, and our beliefs in the republic and in those systems.

I retain those beliefs, and so, I would argue, should you (voting not just in the traditional sense, but also with your dollars, in a tolerant, understanding, and respectful way). NO one is coming to rescue you – that’s your job; you need to vote as if your future depends on it, because it quite literally does.

Cheers!

Grab The 1WineDude.com Tasting Guide and start getting more out of every glass of wine today!

Shop Wine Products at Amazon.com

Copyright © 2016. Originally at Wine And Politics: A Clarification from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers! source http://www.1winedude.com/wine-and-politics-a-clarification/

[static-pouring]

Wine And Politics: A Clarification

image: Facebook.com

My friend, fellow wine competition judge, and colleague (sorry, bro!) Michael Cervin recently asked me to offer up a comment or two (I agreed to do so on the record) for a piece he was writing for The Tasting Panel magazine, focusing on how (or if) political leanings impacted the wine business.

Michael published a screenshot of his interesting and well-written piece, which includes quotes from other people that I know and respect in the wine industry, and so I am also including it here (above) under the assumption that it’s okay to share.

I am quoted in the article as basically saying that I don’t think about anyone’s politics when it comes to wine, and that I happen to fine wine-industry-types among the more level-headed and reasonable folk when it comes to debating politics in a civil manner. Reflecting back on it, this isn’t entirely accurate, so I felt that I should include a clarification (or two, or three, knowing me), because, well, we live in some heated times when it comes to all of this political sh*t…

While I am quite vocal about being a non-affiliated, informed U.S. voter, with fiscally conservative and socially progressive leanings, I generally keep politics out of wine reviews. I mean, if you vote for fiscally irresponsible policies, for example, and your wine is great, I am going to ignore your (in my opinion misguided) political bent, and focus on the great juice being made.

I have my limits, however.

If someone is making great wine but happens to espouse unabashedly bigoted, racist, misogynistic, fascist, and/or Nazi-esque views, I’m going to ignore your wine. And that’s because there is simply too much excellent wine being made by respectful, hardworking, good people – conservative, liberal, centrist, what-have-you – who, while they have varying political leanings, don’t ever devolve their beliefs or stances into hate. Simply put, the world can get along just fine without wine being made by people who are acting like assholes, and I think that there are, in fact, clear lines that delineate acceptable from non-acceptable behavior in that regard.

As I’ve said here previously on similar matters:

The wine business is competitive enough that no one in their right mind would buy a wine, regardless of how good it is, if it comes with a large side order of douchebagery.

Now, there is no doubt that, as of the time of this writing, the USA is in the throes of one of its greatest ever political crisis, in the form of rampant partisan posturing that has become the very definition of harum-scarum, internecine infighting, to the point that the general populace have ceased to matter much to their elected officials. The sad fact is that not enough of us are voting to outweigh the influence of lobbyists, who, coupled with a vocal, misinformed minority of constituents, are effectively forcing minority viewpoints into law.

There is, of course, a quite simple and easy remedy to this, thanks to the forethought of some rather clever individuals a couple of hundred years ago.

In the USA, our political system was founded by a group of true geniuses, who understood that the mechanisms of checks/balances, compromise, and argument would move our country forward (albeit in a zigzag) if we maintain our respect, and our beliefs in the republic and in those systems.

I retain those beliefs, and so, I would argue, should you (voting not just in the traditional sense, but also with your dollars, in a tolerant, understanding, and respectful way). NO one is coming to rescue you – that’s your job; you need to vote as if your future depends on it, because it quite literally does.

Cheers!

Grab The 1WineDude.com Tasting Guide and start getting more out of every glass of wine today!

Shop Wine Products at Amazon.com

Copyright © 2016. Originally at Wine And Politics: A Clarification from 1WineDude.com - for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers! Source: http://www.1winedude.com/wine-and-politics-a-clarification/

[canvasclothiers]

Wine And Politics: A Clarification

image: Facebook.com

My friend, fellow wine competition judge, and colleague (sorry, bro!) Michael Cervin recently asked me to offer up a comment or two (I agreed to do so on the record) for a piece he was writing for The Tasting Panel magazine, focusing on how (or if) political leanings impacted the wine business.

Michael published a screenshot of his interesting and well-written piece, which includes quotes from other people that I know and respect in the wine industry, and so I am also including it here (above) under the assumption that it’s okay to share.

I am quoted in the article as basically saying that I don’t think about anyone’s politics when it comes to wine, and that I happen to fine wine-industry-types among the more level-headed and reasonable folk when it comes to debating politics in a civil manner. Reflecting back on it, this isn’t entirely accurate, so I felt that I should include a clarification (or two, or three, knowing me), because, well, we live in some heated times when it comes to all of this political sh*t…

While I am quite vocal about being a non-affiliated, informed U.S. voter, with fiscally conservative and socially progressive leanings, I generally keep politics out of wine reviews. I mean, if you vote for fiscally irresponsible policies, for example, and your wine is great, I am going to ignore your (in my opinion misguided) political bent, and focus on the great juice being made.

I have my limits, however.

If someone is making great wine but happens to espouse unabashedly bigoted, racist, misogynistic, fascist, and/or Nazi-esque views, I’m going to ignore your wine. And that’s because there is simply too much excellent wine being made by respectful, hardworking, good people – conservative, liberal, centrist, what-have-you – who, while they have varying political leanings, don’t ever devolve their beliefs or stances into hate. Simply put, the world can get along just fine without wine being made by people who are acting like assholes, and I think that there are, in fact, clear lines that delineate acceptable from non-acceptable behavior in that regard.

As I’ve said here previously on similar matters:

The wine business is competitive enough that no one in their right mind would buy a wine, regardless of how good it is, if it comes with a large side order of douchebagery.

Now, there is no doubt that, as of the time of this writing, the USA is in the throes of one of its greatest ever political crisis, in the form of rampant partisan posturing that has become the very definition of harum-scarum, internecine infighting, to the point that the general populace have ceased to matter much to their elected officials. The sad fact is that not enough of us are voting to outweigh the influence of lobbyists, who, coupled with a vocal, misinformed minority of constituents, are effectively forcing minority viewpoints into law.

There is, of course, a quite simple and easy remedy to this, thanks to the forethought of some rather clever individuals a couple of hundred years ago.

In the USA, our political system was founded by a group of true geniuses, who understood that the mechanisms of checks/balances, compromise, and argument would move our country forward (albeit in a zigzag) if we maintain our respect, and our beliefs in the republic and in those systems.

I retain those beliefs, and so, I would argue, should you (voting not just in the traditional sense, but also with your dollars, in a tolerant, understanding, and respectful way). NO one is coming to rescue you – that’s your job; you need to vote as if your future depends on it, because it quite literally does.

Cheers!

Grab The 1WineDude.com Tasting Guide and start getting more out of every glass of wine today!

Shop Wine Products at Amazon.com

Copyright © 2016. Originally at Wine And Politics: A Clarification from 1WineDude.com – for personal, non-commercial use only. Cheers!

Source: http://www.1winedude.com/wine-and-politics-a-clarification/

[gta-5-cheats]

ShankhNaad – An Alt News exposé of the communal rabble rouser and leading peddler of fake news

New Post has been published on http://secondcovers.com/shankhnaad-an-alt-news-expose-of-the-communal-rabble-rouser-and-leading-peddler-of-fake-news/

ShankhNaad – An Alt News exposé of the communal rabble rouser and leading peddler of fake news

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Social media is replete with misinformation, rumours and fake news that is often disseminated with the motive of causing division among communities. This exercise is being conducted in an organised manner through various portals and twitter handles. One such portal, ShankhNaad.net is notorious for deliberately planting false information on the internet. ShankhNaad has been exposed on multiple occasions by fact checking websites including Alt News. That has however not deterred ShankhNaad from posting inflammatory content with alarming regularity. Let us take a look at the mischief it has resorted to since its inception in 2013.

1. Pakistan beat India in the Champions Trophy final on June 18, 2017. The very next day on June 19, ShankhNaad posted a video on twitter wherein it is seen that two youths on a bike are holding the Pakistan flag in their hands

This isn’t sportsmanship but radical islamic extremism which attaches them to islamic nation.

Why to tolerate this in d name of secularism? pic.twitter.com/oJ40G7NZHj

— ShankhNaad (@ShankhNaad) June 19, 2017

The story expectedly turned out to be false. This was a video of two youth from the Muslim community out on the occassion of Eid-E-Milad in Dec 2016 according to Vadodara Police. Alt News exposed the truth which can be read here.

2. Recently in October, ShankhNaad tweeted about the desecration of the statue of Swami Vivekananda at Bhadohi in UP as being the handiwork of muslims

The SP of Bhadohi, following these rumours issued a clarification stating that one Premchandra Gautam had been arrested. Clearly, an attempt was made to inflame passions between the members of the two communities. This lie too was debunked by Alt News.

3. In September 2017, ShankhNaad posted a video on twitter claiming that Muslims had set a Hindu temple on fire and indulged in rioting and arson in Hyderabad

Chilling video shows how #Hindu Temple, Vehicles & Cows in Goshala were set on fire by Muslim mobs in #Hyderabad, India. *Date Unknown* pic.twitter.com/gpA596BdN7

— ShankhNaad (@ShankhNaad) September 26, 2017

The video was promptly debunked by Hyderabad police which issued a statement that the video was fake and that no such violence had taken place anywhere in Hyderabad.

4. On July 30 2017, ShankhNaad posted a gruesome video of a man’s hands being chopped off. ShankhNaad claimed that the video was of Rajesh, an RSS worker who was killed in Thiruvananthapuram. The video was widely shared before it was revealed that it was actually a video from Brazil shot in 2014 when a suspected thief had been assaulted. ShankhNaad subsequently deleted the tweet.

5. In July 2017, another false piece of information was shared by ShankhNaad. It alleged that a Hindu female convict died after she had been brutalised by a Muslim jailor at the Byculla prison in Mumbai

Why no outrage over this?? Jailor Waseema Shaikh inserted lathi inside private parts of Hindu woman convict. Inpired by…

Posted by Shankh Naad on Tuesday, July 4, 2017

The truth of the matter was that the convict Manjula Shetye had been assaulted by five women constables including Waseema Sheikh. The other constables were Hindu. This was another deliberate attempt to rouse tension between Muslims and Hindus.

6. Again in July 2017, ShankhNaad posted a video of a police station being attacked, claiming that members of the Muslim community at Shamli in UP attacked the police station and indulged in rioting and arson

How Muslim mob had attacked police station, pelted stones, arson, riots. Routine for them.#NotInMyName gang keeps silence on it, always. pic.twitter.com/YPWGVq3aWh

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— ShankhNaad (@ShankhNaad) July 2, 2017

This is 2 year old video in which legal action has already been taken.

— shamli police (@shamlipolice) July 3, 2017

Shamli police immediately issued a clarification saying that said video was two years old and appropriate action had already been taken.

7. On June 30 2017, ShankhNaad posted on its twitter timeline a video wherein it claimed that Muslims were beating up Hindus who had gathered for the Ganesha Chaturthi festival in Maharashtra

Horrendous! #Jihadi attacks during #Ganesha festival are new normal in Maharashtra. Why is #NotInMyName gang of pseudo-liberals silent ? pic.twitter.com/pap4OJTyFT

— ShankhNaad (@ShankhNaad) June 30, 2017

The video in question was actually shot in 2009 at Miraj in Sangli when violence had broken out over an inflammatory poster that had been put up during the Ganesh Utsav.

8. ShankNaad did not even spare the father of the nation. In an article that it shared on its twitter timeline, it attributed a quote to Mahatma Gandhi wherein he asked Hindu and Sikh women to ‘cooperate with Muslim rapists’

RT if you think ideology of #Gandhi is a boost for #Rape Jihad and disgrace to humanity !! .#Islam #HinduDeniedEqualityhttps://t.co/SaC8TeQXrP pic.twitter.com/3SCSmVff6D

— ShankhNaad (@ShankhNaad) November 11, 2017

This outrageous claim was debunked by Alt News.

9. In October 2014, the Facebook page of ShankhNaad which was then named ‘Dr Subramanian Swamy’ passed off a photo of a girl who was grieving her father’s death as a Yazidi rape victim of ISIS.

10. In January 2014, ShankhNaad’s FB page ‘Dr Subramanian Swamy’ shared a picture of police lathicharging protesters. The post claimed that Hindus in Bangladesh were being beaten up by Muslims. However, the photo in question was that of violence that had broken out in Bangladesh during the elections and it had nothing to do with Muslims beating up Hindus.

11. On July 4 2017 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on a state visit to Israel, ShankhNaad posted a photo of a protest, claiming that it was organised by Indian Muslims against the PM’s visit. This lie was busted when it came to light that the photo in question was of a protest that took place in Sri Lanka in 2012.

If you like our stories, do follow Alt News on Facebook.

ShankhNaad’s website Shankhnaad.net was registered in October 2013. It is owned by Rahul Priyadarshi. Since its inception, it has been systematically posting malicious information with the intention of vitiating inter-community relations. The posts are such that the minority community is blamed for the provocations with the intention of sowing the seeds of hatred and division. It has more than 1.3 million followers on Facebook and 18000 followers on Twitter who are continuously fed untruth through provocative videos that are uploaded with misleading titles and captions, photos which are taken out of context and inflammatory messages that are circulated almost on a daily basis. Alt News has repeatedly busted ShankhNaad’s lies. The divisive agenda of this page is well-known. When will Facebook and Twitter act? Are authorities waiting for a communal flare up before action is taken against the person behind the page?

Donate to Alt News! Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.To make an instant donation, click on the “Donate Now” button above. For information regarding donation via Bank Transfer/Cheque/DD, click here.

Share this story with your friends, the truth needs to be told.

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[jacobgsmith89]

The Power of Listening

  If it matters to the customer, it should matter to the business.

  Organizations should listen carefully to what their customers say in order to better meet their needs; it’s a win-win.

  Listening is a simple concept… or is it? Actually, no matter how much businesses might recognize the importance of understanding their customers, many fail to listen to “us” (as consumers) directly. Sure, many companies will put together surveys to collect data and “listen” in that way. However, collecting feedback in that manner is not the only or the most important way to listen. By going beyond an obsession with surveying for feedback and instead listening actively and broadly, avoiding “leakage,” and implementing other tactics, companies can be more effective.

  Why customer surveys do & don’t work

  Having a systematized way to collect feedback may be one-size-fits-all and in a different category from listening during a conversation, but these responses do help businesses. Six reasons that companies should poll customers and listen to their feedback, according to Client Heartbeat, are:

  Useful in development of a product or service, shaping it to meet customer needs;

Helps you to know how satisfied your customers are;

Gives you guidance to craft a more powerful customer experience;

Helps create better retention (keeping rather than losing customers) through better information about their frustrations;

Offers insights so that the organization can ground its decision-making in data rather than guesswork; and

The business can find out who its “brand ambassadors” (customer advocates) really are.

  Now, those arguments for customer surveys seem compelling. But many point-of-sale surveys are poorly constructed, according to a study by Interaction Metrics (which notably, like Client Heartbeat, is a survey company). The 2016 analysis assessed the surveys used by 51 major US-based retail corporations, rating 15 different aspects of them. The average result out of 100 possible points was an abysmal 43! The most interesting specific finding, revealing a primary reason that companies are so bad at these surveys, was that they tend to be manipulative: “32% of all questions led customers to give answers that companies want to hear,” noted Interaction Metrics.

  Surveys are used to generate “customer-experience metrics.” Customers want to be heard of course, but the term customer-experience metrics should already raise eyebrows in terms of treating customers like they are numbers. Even if these metrics are not a replacement for strong individual listening, businesses can have difficulty with them. Many companies have a hard time determining how customer metrics relate to their activities. Plus, it can be difficult for businesses to get their staff excited about metrics since they are so impersonal and often fail to give insight into sudden shifts in customer sentiment.

  Businesses often cannot decide whether they should focus more on metrics that have to do with customer relationships or sales. (We choose the former.)

  These metrics can also be skewed because the people who complete it will not necessarily give a business a good sense of its average customer. In Forbes, Todd Hixon suggests that the subset of customers who answer surveys can be an issue, suggesting that respondents are:

  People who are not highly active;

Older customers; and

People who are irritated and want to vent.

  Hixon also says that key demographics including millennials and mobile users are probably not represented well.

  Beyond issues with the information collected, the process of applying feedback from customers is difficult for businesses too. According to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, one of the primary reasons that businesses fail with listening in this way is that they “don’t have the culture to loop customer feedback through the front line to improve behavior or connect it to innovation.”

  The importance of listening actively & broadly

  To explore the topic of active and broad listening, here is the reasoning behind each element of that effort:

  Why listen? You can find evidence of the sound value of listening within the business world in the classic organizational management text The One Minute Manager. This book, published in 1982 and authored by Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard, suggested that the #1 way to create engagement among personnel is to set aside time to listen to them. While this book is about employees rather than customers, its high valuation of listening is on-point as it notes that it’s a way for managers to relate with people individually and make sure that they know their work is appreciated.

Why listen actively? If surveying customers can be viewed as a rudimentary and flawed effort at listening, active listening is a way to refine this skill. This technique is helpful in therapy sessions, and it is helpful in business as well. When we listen actively, we do not focus on throwing in our own opinion or solutions (unless requested) but instead repeat back what we think we have heard. This practice is an effort at clarification; if what the listener repeats back is at all flawed, the speaker can correct the message.

Why listen broadly? It’s not just about how we listen, but who we listen to – and our attitudes impact the extent to which we are willing to hear someone’s point-of-view. Being open to people means that you can keep revising your understanding of the world, explains therapist Rena Pollak via healthy psychotherapy network org. Pollak notes that it is important to remain flexible because our ingrained perspectives are often based on biased perspectives, misinformation, and control, such as when our parents instill in us their own insecurities, telling us that all women are liars or that we will not achieve our dreams.

  Leakage: why listening cannot be faked

  If you are trying to put on the front that you are paying attention to what someone is saying, but you really aren’t, you may leak out indications that you do not care, says Jeff Thompson, PhD, in Psychology Today. Thompson writes that “leakage, or unintended non-verbal communication” cues that give away when we are not listening are self-touching, eye-rolling, fidgeting, failing to make eye contact, and paralanguage or back-channel communication – the last of which Thompson summarizes as “huffing or audible noises and that teeth-sucking noise.” Seriously.

  How companies & people can listen more effectively

  Beyond being open to various speakers and listening actively, here are three additional steps you can take to improve the way that you listen:

  Be prepared. If you are underprepared, you will be more focused on understanding the basics than on deep problem-solving.

Listen with both mind and body. Our bodies actually help to determine the way that we think, according to the notion of embodied cognition. Move your body so that it is positioned toward the speaker, nod, and look into their eyes.

Self-monitor. Pay attention to yourself and ask yourself if you are listening in the moment. Also pay attention to whether you are conveying to the other person that you are listening – since their perception is ultimately the deciding factor in your ability to make them feel heard.

  An honest boulder auto mechanic

  Are you interested in working with a car mechanic that values listening to you? At Independent Motors, we believe great service starts with open, honest communication, in what we say and how well we listen. See our beliefs.

from Car Care Tips https://independentmotors.net/the-power-of-listening/