freedom of thought

Perception control through subtle word choice – the 1974 Loftus and Palmer study

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This is one of the classic examples from persuasion research. The unreliability of eyewitness testimony, and the power of leading questions.

Participants were more likely to say the cars were going faster when asked “How fast were they going when the cars smashed into each other?” compared to “How fast were they going when the cars bumped into each other?”

By changing one simple word in the description of an event the participants had just witnessed, researchers could bias their answers and rewrite their memories without anybody knowing it had happened.

Psychology Study screenshot: Loftus and Palmer (1974) Study. Aim: To test their hypothesis that the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory. 7 films of traffic accidents, ranging in duration from 5 to 30 seconds, were presented in a random order to each group. After watching the film participants were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eye witnesses. They were then asked specific questions, including the question "About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed / collided / bumped hit / contacted) each other?" Findings: The estimated speed was affected by the verb used. The verb implied information about the speed, which systematically affected the participants' memory of the accident. Participants who were asked the "smashed" question thought the cars were going faster than those who were asked the "hit" question. The participants in the "smashed" condition reported the highest speed estimate (40.8 mph), followed by "collided" (39-3 mph), "bumped" (38.1 mph), "hit" (34 mph), and "contacted" (31.8 mph) in descending order. Conclusion: The results show that the verb conveyed an impression of the speed the car was traveling and this altered the participants' perceptions. In other words, eyewitness testimony might be biased by the way questions are asked after a crime is committed.

The media manipulation empire has been studying human psychology for generations. It knows precisely how to bias responses to certain events by controlling some of the simplest language patterns.

Apple rejected YouTube-competitor Odysee from the App Store because a video had pepe the frog as a thumbnail — and because Odysee refused to filter Covid videos out of search results

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The Apple censorship team once rejected the Odysee app from the Apple App Store because of videos containing images of Pepe the Frog. Apple made no such demands of Odysee’s competitor, Google’s YouTube.

Apple also demanded Covid-related terms be filtered out of Odysee search results.

Screenshot of a LBRY tweet, November 28th 2022: During Covid, Apple demanded our apps filter some search terms from being returned. If we did not filter the terms, our apps would not be allowed in the store. Apple may make good products, but they have been opposed to free speech for some time. Apple disallowed almost anything related to Covid, especially vaccines or human origins of the virus. We had to build a list of over 20 terms to not show results for, only on Apple devices. Apple also later rejected us because users included Pepe images in videos.

The email Apple sent Odysee rejecting their app because of a user’s frog image:

Email from Apple App Store to LBRY about banning the LBRY app: Regarding 1.1, we continue to find that your app or metadata includes content that some users may find upsetting, offensive, or otherwise objectionable. Specifically, Pepe the Frog. To resolve this issue, it would be appropriate to remove all potentially objectionable content from your app and metadata and submit your revised binary for review. We look forward to reviewing your resubmitted app. Best regards, App Store Review

These restrictionist media and surveillance firms like Apple and Google all work to protect each other, and to protect the corrupt establishment. They will do anything to prevent new competitors from expanding freedom of expression, outside of the control of the Big Tech oligarchs. They act exactly like a protectionist cartel; a criminal conspiracy.

Combined, Apple and Google control 98% of the mobile marketplace.

The Persuasive Power of Dissenting Comments

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This is why news sites deleted all their comment sections. This is why they censor you on social media. This is why companies and campaigns hire content farms to bury dissent beneath a flood of approval.

They know the research shows dissenting comments reduce the persuasiveness of their propaganda, while likes and approving comments have no such persuasive power.

  • Dissenting comments are more persuasive than high numbers of likes.
  • Dissenting comments reduce the persuasiveness of news article content.
  • Comments in agreement with article content have no such persuasive impact.

Psychology Study screenshot: "They Came, They Liked, They Commented: Social Influence on Facebook News Channels." by Stephan Winter, Caroline Brückner, and Nicole Kramer; published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Due to the increasing importance of social networking sites as sources of information, news media organizations have set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links to articles. This research investigated how journalistic texts are perceived in this new context and how reactions of other users change the influence of the main articles. In an online experiment (N=197), a Facebook posting of a reputable news site and the corresponding article were shown. The type of user comments and the number of likes were systematically varied. Negative comments diminished the persuasive influence of the article, while there were no strengthening effects of positive comments. When readers perceived the topic as personally relevant, comments including relevant arguments were more influential than comments with subjective opinions, which can be explained by higher levels of elaboration. However, against expectations of bandwagon perceptions, a high number of likes did not lead to conformity effects, which suggests that exemplifying comments are more influential than statistical user representations. Results are discussed with regard to effects of news media content and the mechanisms of social influence in Web 2.0.