My Yahoo news page came up with the following headline, recently: “Bernie Sanders followers are among the smartest… They don’t believe anything. The post must have proof…” I didn’t read further. I’m not a Bernie Sanders fan, though some of my Facebook friends hav
I saw several references to PewDiePie on Facebook, recently, and also in the gossip area of my Yahoo page. Whether the name belonged to a person or a dessert, I didn’t know and didn’t much care. But the buzz grew until it piqued my curiosity. For my readers, many of whom are
J. K. Rowling’s criticism of Donald Trump is raising hackles on the internet. His loyal fans, once her loyal fans, are behaving like jilted lovers and threatening to burn their Harry Potter books in retaliation. Rowling says, “Go ahead. I’ve still got your money.” (Click) Pr
Donald Trump’s truth varies minute by minute. It’s like listening to Variations of a Theme of Paganini but less pleasant. Trump doesn’t seem to worry about these variations, which his critics call lies. Rather, he twists the truth, I suspect, to convince his subjects that one
Recently, a woman on Facebook admitted she received most of her news from social media. If true, she is making a couple of mistakes. First, she is foreclosing on ideas outside her narrow group of like-minded friends. Second, she’s vulnerable to fake news, much of it propagan
A firehose isn’t the province of firefighters anymore. A firehose is the gush of information people provide via the internet, particularly on social media like Twitter and Facebook. Twitter makes a bonanza by selling access to its firehose to interested companies. Recent repor
The morning after the 2016 Presidential election, I shared a link on Facebook but failed to vet it. Loss of sleep and disappointment over the outcome led me to be careless. But that’s no excuse and I apologized to my friends on the social media site. Due diligence is the watch
When Prerna Gupta decided to take a year off to write fiction with her husband, the couple experimented by crafting stories for cell phone apps. Though the pieces were short, no more than a 5 minute read, only 15% of viewers finished them. That’s when the pair decided to experimen
Like many people, this election year has left me confused. Strong man Donald Trump changes his mind the way the rest of us change our socks, but he has been consistent in his view that America is weak. (“The Strongman Trump Wanted,” Excerpted from The Washington Post, July 20, 2
On Facebook recently, I ran across an entry that accused Hillary Clinton of being evil, a crime boss and a killer. As a Hillary supporter, I stopped to ask the writer for corroboration of his charges and reminded him that even in a free society, slander is a crime. Getting f