Troy

Pioneer the article was written for other academics, but anyone with a college education should be able to follow it. But given the state of education in the U.S. I can understand that it would be over the heads of most Americans. Of course the study was picked up by the media and summarized, but I usually don't focus on these pieces as sometimes the conclusions they draw, or inferences they make, don't follow from what was actually published in the study. For example, I don't see why you say they "lumped" news conspiracy theories and rumors. Maybe that was mentioned in one of the articles, but that was not done in the study.

Cynique I can't think of a reason why Pioneer can post a photo and you can't. Which browser/version (look in the browser menu and select help or about) and what operating system are you using? If you are using Chrome maybe it would just be easier to remotely access your computer and show you what to do.

@Cynique, did you ever sort out the image posting problem?

Yes, Virginia, Black or white, we are all being manipulated. As with anything else, there is a broad range in the impact this manipulation has on individuals. The some of the most severely impacted people, as previously discussed, never change an opinion, rejecting any new information, no matter how factual, that conflicts with what they already believe, while embracing supporting information, no matter how outlandish. Of course social media, and the media in general, tends to exaggerate this; which has more profound implications on the broader society (example: Donald Trump). People are complex and wear masks. What we know about others is a combination what they choose to show us and and how we perceive it--which usually is very different than what the person is actually like. Some people don't even understand their own motivations; they just react and do what others say, with out taking a split second to reflect... In the case of the outwardly confident "ghetto sistas," unconcerned about their weight loud and flamboyant; I've know a few over the years. If you get to know one or two you might discover their outward appearance could be a shield, a facade to help protect them from the hurt our culture heaps on them relentlessly. They may actually care more about their weight that they would ever let on. I've driven at least 1/2 a million miles and have been pulled over more times than I can remember. Most recently, about 18 months ago, for two moving violations in Harlem. I went to court because the citations were bogus. The officer presented first, and blatantly LIED about what I did. indeed the circumstances of my situation would have made, what he described, impossible. A good attorney would have probably gotten me off based upon this, but I was unprepared for the officer to lie and offered a less than optimal defense. The judge threw out one of the offenses and reduced the other. I wanted to fight even reduced penalty, but it would have cost me more time and money so I paid the fine and took the 2 points against an otherwise clean license. I say this to say there are MANY Black men sitting in jail because of similar situations. You can get arrested just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can end up in jail waiting for a trial simply because you don't have any money for bail. You ultimately accept a plead deal, because you want to get out of jail, and don't have the resources to mount a real defense. So you take the charge to get out of jail, but now you have a record. You don't have to be a criminal to have a record, just Black and poor. Of course you'll now be perceived as a menace by the larger society, and your self esteem is shot because you've essential become unemployable unable to escape a life of poverty The real problem in our culture is that few of have any real sympathy for each other, because we can see beyond the sound byte or the meme. Personally this is one reason I don't watch a lot of TV and don't really do social media. Once piece of advice I got long before the rise of social media is, "If you don't have nine sources of information you are being lied to."

Well @Pioneer1, what is your verdict in this case? Are you suggesting that these folks are trying to mislead people with facts? The really fascinating thing about the arguments presented here is that they illustrate the very essence of the article.

Cynique, I did not come to learn about the so called Black elite until I was an adult. All of the groups you mentioned, "civic and political groups, Masons, Eastern Stars, an American Legion Post, social organizations and clubs," were completely beyond my world view. I remember the first time I learned about Black Greek letter organizations--I was a freshman in college... I did not learn about Jack and Jill, the Links, or Boule until I was out of college. I did not know a Black teacher, lawyer, doctor, or engineer growing up. I barely knew anyone with a car, and I did not know anyone who owned the place in which they lived. Sure we had the Black church growing up, and I went most Sundays growing up. But other than the singing I hated every minute of it. I could not wait to get outta there, change my clothes and go outside to play. So the church was not exactly and influence for me growing up, and my pastor was Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker Compared to the kids coming up after me I had it pretty good... ...it got worse, as as drugs were introduced into the community, which brought violence and crime. Then they started locking people up like there was no tomorrow. Some of the younger kids from my neighborhood gained some notoriety, like the Central Park Five. They were more the rule than the exceptions. Of course this helped destroy the nuclear family in communities like mine. By the time I went to college most of the youngsters I knew, grew up without their fathers--if they knew them at all. As far as hip-hop is concerned the art form itself is great, it was the commercialization of hip-hop if that destroyed it and, I firmly believe, helped weaken the black community as well. I say all this Cynique to say there are many people who see women like the character Leslie plays every day (and as Pioneer suggests Leslie may indeed be one of them). Sure they see the Michelle Obama's of the world, but they are on TV and may as well be on Mars for as much influence they'll exert on the lives of most folks. Saturday Night Live, Hip-hop music, and the culture as a whole reinforces the Leslie Jones archetype. Michelle is just an exception. It is probably a lot worse out here than you might think...

I just added the the event you attended to the site: https://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=California#SDSU+Writers%26rsquo%3B+Conference The personality of events are just like people. Some events I really like and others get on my nerves, because they constrain the growth and even hurt themselves because they alienate people. I think events reflect the sensibilities of their organizers. Book festivals and fairs are completely different animals than conferences. I think conferences, who usually charge, are more likely to generate a feeling of intimidation especially among newbies. The BWABC is taking place in Memphis next month. There are going to be 100 authors in attendance. These are the types of events I like to do, there are not too many events where you'll encounter 100 Black authors, actively promoting their books in one place ;-)

There was a problem with the discussion forum's database which caused pages on this forum not to display correctly or at all under certain conditions. I just now corrected the problem.

I hear you Cynqiue. As a Black person in America, I'd be the first person to admit, that it is really hard not to believe a lot of the craziness flying around the internet. So when people are convinced that vaccines cause Autism I get it-- we all know about the Tuskegee "experiments." As we watch wealth inequality grow and witness first hand Black people be shot for no good reason, who would not believe in the Illuminati or some other cabal of white folks trying to control the world and rid it of Black people? Our course I could go on an on from climate change denial, to your typical internet hoax, to George Bush blowing up the World Trade Center, all the Jews staying home, no airplane debris at the pentagon, and thousands of Muslims cheering while the towers fell... Why wouldn't people believe this?

I just upgraded this widget to include a full year of events. Many of the events have not updated their websites, but they usually take place during the same time of the year so I have updated our Events Calendar to reflect this. I also updated the widget to work on secure (https) websites. As I was updating the events calendar I noticed a couple of book fairs decided to call it quits. One, The Blue Ridge Bookfest, gave three primary reason for stopping, which I will share in a separate conversation.

While updating my Book Fair Events Calendar, I was surprised to discover several book festivals have ended The Blue Ridge Bookfest, called it quits after 8 years provided three main reasons for ceasing their book festival: Attendance has not lived up to expectations. The public seems less interested in meeting authors than in the early years. Internet, e-books and audio books have grown strong. Donor and sponsor funding have declined while the expense of bringing in authors has increased. The financial gap grew each year. The event did not charge admission. Volunteers have not come forward in sufficient numbers. The Buffalo Small Press Book Fair ran from 2007 to 2016, but it appeared to be successful and the organizer apparently just decided to "move on." These are two that have definitely ended but several others are likely to end, simply because they has already passed their anniversaries and they have not updated their websites, or their websites are down altogether. The First Read Expo is an event I participated in last year, and actually hoped to participate in this year, but their domain has expired, and I'm unable to reach the organizer. Maybe they will come back in 2017. Of course some of the remaining festivals are struggling. But fortunately, there are many fairs that are thriving. Do you go to book festivals? If so, which ones do you enjoy?

Of course you are right about the typos--thanks for pointing it out, again. Hrad as I mghti tyr ti si dfiflcut ot eidt my onw wirhtging, btu yod'u be rsupsrided how mcuh cna be cmomnucitade dseipet typos. But it is one of my weaknesses and while I'm not really sweating typos on the forum, it is an issue in general. Cynique, it is still not clear to me why you keep asserting that people are not being bamboozled when there is so much evidence to the contrary. We all agree that social media helps bad information circulate more quickly, but when consider the fact that today we have easier access to better information than ever before, but we are much less informed. Better access to more information and we we worse off...

Hi Anita, I just added this event to our events page. Does this event have a website?

Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but time will tell Bruh--and you heard it here first

@Cynique, lets just say that the article reminded me of our conversation, and forget any of the ideas I attributed to you. However, I'll address what you just wrote. I do not think Facebook reflects Black culture in the least. At best it is a caricature of it. I agree everyone "fronts" on Facebook--more so that they would in real life. In terms of faking opinions regarding the election, what do you think about the impact of trolls, which the research paper discussed? People consume information created by trolls in the same fashion that they consume real news. People use troll generated information to substantiate a beliefs--even if they are exposed to real information. In my mind, the question is not really about the opinions of folks, but how those opinions are arrived at and how Facebook serves to reinforces their opinion whether they are based in truth or not; or whether they are fronting or not. These articles explain this research more clearly, in layman's terms. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/q-a-walter-quattrociocchi-digital-wildfires/ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118093 @CD Burns, sure social Facebook helps spread false information more quickly, a propaganda is nothing new. But if I understand you correctly, it sounds like you are suggesting that someone, using the same data, could have easily written a paper with opposing information? It also sounds like you are dismissing the impact of social media, essentially saying that any impact is only marginally different than what we've experienced in the past. Am I reading you correctly?

"Digital misinformation has become so pervasive in online social media that it has been listed by the WEF (World Economic Forum) as one of the main threats to human society." You can read the research report here. Don't be put off by the formulas and graphs; you can get the gist by simply reading the opening paragraph and the conclusions. @Cynique, I just stumbled across this article looking for something else and it make me think out you regarding our conversation about using Facebook to assess public opinion. I cautioned you against doing this because of the echo chamber effect of the platform. This research speaks to this effect. It also talks about how difficult it is to change ones opinion as a result; whether it the belief in vaccines causing autism or denying the climate change. It is pretty interesting stuff.

...at least for now. About a month ago I reported that at the current rate, referral traffic from social media this year, was on track to exceed the referral traffic from all previous years combined. Since Facebook is such a substantial portion of all of my social media traffic can effectively use "Facebook" and "Social Media" interchangeably. Well traffic from Facebook for the first 8 months of 2016 has already exceeded traffic generated during all the previous years combined! I decided to stop using Facebook to promote AALBC.com, because my organic reach was declining despite a growing fan base and daily active engagement. Now in 2016, after I taking my Facebook usage to the bare minimum; my referral traffic hits record levels?! I believe the increase is traffic to AALBC.com from Facebook is the result of one or more algorithms changes designed to increasing social sharing on their platform. The benefit to AALBC.com while relatively substantial is almost certainly short lived and certainly nothing to bank on. The algorithm change may have also been designed to get me to engage more on their platform, in an attempt to increase the traffic. Well I can tell you right now, there is no incentive for me to got back to actively engaging on Facebook again. I learned my lesson. The free time I've gained by eliminating Facebook engagement, has allowed me to grow AALBC.com's traffic much more substantially than I ever could have through Facebook. This might sound extreme, but I believe Facebook has already peaked, and is on a decline. You traders out there, short FB.

Hi Pamela, The 2017 list is high on the list of priorities. I'm going to convert the list to a rolling 12 month list--hopefully before the end of the month.

Cynique I recently encouraged authors, who were interested in getting their book reviewed, to post information about their book on Thumpers Corner--instead of sending me an email. I get a lot of requests for book reviews, and I since I can not afford to accommodate the majority of these requests (no publisher can), I felt it would be a better use of the author's time to introduce themselves and their book on Thumper's Corner. This way I would still see the book info, but other potential readers would see information about the new book. I did not intend to these requests to be just straight up book review requests, because this does not interest readers. I'll have to update my instructions to make this clearer. Some authors have taken the suggestion as intended and I've even created free profiles for some and offer suggestions on improving their pitches. Hopefully this will evolve and improve overtime. As far as adding images to posts, simply click the link Drag files here to attach, or choose files.... at the bottom of the editing window from that point you will be promoted to select a location to upload an image (see image at the end of this post with the arrow). You will then need to click the image to add it to a post. I'm surprised you never asked this before. As far as the typos in my posts, sure the remote responding is an issue, but most of the time it is just me rushing. I do from time to time edit my posts, and am actually floor my how egregious the typos I've caught are sometimes. I'll try to do better. (ignore any typoes in this post ) Pioneer, get your mind out of the gutter.

Amaru, interestingly this page attracts a lot of visitors through search. Oh Clarence is Black, but as Cynique inferred above, he is chose a different path. If has worked out well for him, but has not served his people very well. But then again this is the American Way isn't it?

@Pioneer1 that was I inspired :-) @Cynique, please can walk in lockstep on the otherside of the political spectrum too. Which is my biggest complaint about black folks slavish devotion to the democratic party despite the all of the policies that gave hurt our community. But it looks like I'll have to break down and vote for Hillary just in case the no-shows tip the election in favor of that nut in the opposing party.

Cynique, one's own personal filter, though important, is a completely different issue that what I've described; read up on filter bubbles. Pioneer I agree with most of what you've written, but I do get the appeal of social media. While I no longer use social media for anything other than sharing links to AALBC.com, I definitely get the appeal. It can be a massive ego stroke. I stopped using it because I don't like being manipulated. The promoting to wish someone a happy birthday, the promoting to share old photos, and even the guilt of not doing it--everything is all designed to keep you engaged get you to use their system--and they do a brilliant job. Walk around any city and look at what people are doing...

"We" as in Americans. One of the problems with the current campaign indeed our entire political process is that if reinforces the "we" versus "they" mentality. Presumably we all want the same thing a prosperous nation. Sure we may disagree on how to get there, but the we" versus "they" mentality is self destructive, and nothing good ever comes from it. So while I, personally will not vote for Trump, I'm not about to disavow the Americans who do.

Yes Cynique, you hang around smart people... But look at it this way, the stuff you see posted on Facebook is, by its very nature, biased. The majority of people who have accounts don't post, and of those that post the information is filtered by the people doing the posting. Then Facebook's algorithm determines the content that you see. Are you beginning to see how these multiple funnels skew things? Despite the hype from Facebook the majority of Americans are not posting on Facebook, so how can it be representative of what the general population thinks? Now Facebook itself has a better indication because they know what you look at--even if you don't comment, they capture the text you type--even if you decide not to submit it, and they capture everything, so they have a better perspective of what people are like, but again the data is only a reflection of the people using the system...

You may notice that I've migrated the discussion forum to use SSL, basically make the site secure by encrypting the date better your computer and our web server. Historically this was typically done on eCommerce websites, but there is a growing movement to make the entire web secure. I think this is a good idea. So far everything looks pretty good, but as with any changes things can get wonky.