Denialism

Author: Chris

  • The Web of Web Lobbying

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    The Wall Street Journal reported on a battle developing between privacy advocates and internet companies concerning AB 1291, a transparency measure that is in part based upon some of my privacy research: The industry backlash is against the “Right to Know Act,” a bill introduced in February by Bonnie Lowenthal, a Democratic assemblywoman from Long…

  • Lead Industry & the Deck of Cards

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    Helen Epstein has an interesting review of Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, in the current New York Review of Books. The review is worth reading to better understand the public policy problem of lead in products and the environment. But I cannot…

  • The Good, Not So Good, and Long View on Bmail

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    Denialism blog readers, especially those at academic institutions that have/are considering outsourcing email, may be interested in my essay on UC Berkeley’s migration to Gmail.  This is cross-posted from the Berkeley Blog. Many campuses have decided to outsource email and other services to “cloud” providers.  Berkeley has joined in by migrating student and faculty to…

  • Planned Parenthood: Trying to Addict Your Kids to Sex

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    How’s this for a tinfoil hat conspiracy, brought to you by the American Life League– Planned Parenthood’s strategy in this great world is to: Phase one: Get kids addicted to sex. Phase two: profit! Through selling birth control, STD testing, and abortion.

  • "Incentives" for 5 Star Reviews on Ecommerce Sites

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    In case you missed it, here’s a pointer to a recent Times story concerning baked reviews on Amazon and the like. In it, David Streitfeld describes how one company gave rebates to customers in exchange for five star reviews. They even seem to have a claque to address detractors– Even a few grouches could not…

  • Should Search Engines Warn of Denialism?

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    Evgeny Morozov argued in Slate last week that search engines could do more to warn readers about kooks online. Among other things, he cites to a recent article in Vaccine that details the tactics of anti-vaccine denialists. Morozov points to Google’s special treatment of certain searches, such as “ways to die.” Perhaps an alert can…

  • The Teenage Mutant Turtle Threat to Our Morality!

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    Via Everything is Terrible.

  • Everything is Terrible

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    Denialism fans, you might enjoy the archive of informercials at my favorite website, Everything is Terrible. It’s so much fun to watch all those lame infomercials from the 80s and 90s and realize how little has changed in the marketing world. Okay, back to Chair Dancing.

  • Is this Product Placement in the Wall Street Journal?

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    Writing in the Saturday (how to make it look like you’re rich edition) of the Wall Street Journal, Marisa Acocella Marchetto mentions an expensive, branded drug–Nexium–eight times. She even mentions its slogan (“the purple pill”)! As Mark has written elsewhere, it’s moronic to take Nexium because there are cheaper, efficacious alternatives, such as Prilosec, which…

  • Calling Facebook on its Empty PR

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    Those of you who read Mark Zuckerberg’s oped in today’s Washington Post might appreciate my take on how Facebook talks about privacy in tomorrow’s San Francisco Chronicle: The Privacy Machiavellis.