Anti-Vax Doctors & NFL Players Damage Brands

Episode 359 – August 15, 2021

Topics:

• TikTok In Real Life
• Yelp COVID Labels
• Instagram Blocking
• Brain/Computer Input
• Twitter Redesign
• Problems We Solve
• Snopes Retracts
• Kirk Cousins’ Anti-Vax Press Conference
• Twitter Cropping Bias
• Doctors Spreading Vaccine Disinformation
• Content Entrepreneurs

During episode 359, BL and David discuss doctors spreading vaccine misinformation to other doctors on Doximity; a TikTok campaign in real life; Yelp’s COVID labels; Instagram’s new blocking feature; a brain/computer interface that inputs full sentences from your thoughts; Twitter’s redesign; Twitter Spaces’ new multihosting feature; Snopes forced to retract plagiarized articles; Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins anti-vax PR fiasco; Twitter’s cropping bias; a survey of content entrepreneurs;…and much, much more.

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Best Practices

TikTok IRL

Marissa Meizz became a TikTok meme after her friends excluded her from a birthday party. She decided to do something about it.

• Now Going Viral: Meeting Online Friends in Real Life and No More Lonely Friends
• No More Lonely Friends

Yelp COVID Labels

Know ahead of time if a restaurant or store will require proof that you’ve received the COVID-19 vaccine.

• Yelp adds COVID vaccine requirements on business listings

Instagram Blocking

Instagram announced a series of features designed to protect users – particularly celebrities and high-profile creators – from hateful comments posted by users who are not among their regular followers.

• Instagram Adds New Features to Block Racist, Sexist, Homophobic and Other Abusive Comments From Randos

Brain To Computer Input

The BCI was implanted over his speech motor cortex.

• In scientific first, brain implant turns paralyzed man’s thoughts into ‘speech’

Twitter Redesign

Among the changes is the implementation of Twitter’s new font, “Chirp,” and changes to various elements that will make them more high-contrast, among other things.

• Twitter Redesigns Website and App

— Twitter Design (@TwitterDesign) August 11, 2021

Problems We Solve

Rather than describing your services and capabilities, address the pain you relieve.

• 17 Problems We Solve

Worst Practices

Snopes Retracts

The fact-checking site has banned David Mikkelson, who owns half the company, from writing articles after a BuzzFeed News investigation outed his plagiarism.

• Snopes Retracts 60 Articles Plagiarized by Co-Founder: ‘Our Staff Are Gutted’

Kirk Cousins’ Disastrous Anti-Vaxx Media Availability

Associated Press reports that the Minnesota Vikings are the least-vaccinated teams in the NFL and starting quarterback Kirk Cousins is one of the unvaccinated.

• Vikings owner on league-low vax rate: ‘We’re very concerned’
• Kirk Cousins: The key will be to avoid being a close contact
• Why won’t Kirk Cousins get vaccinated
• Hospital ends relationship with Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins over vaccine stance

— Resist Programming 🛰 (@RzstProgramming) September 2, 2020

Twitter’s Cropping Bias

Twitter Engineering held an algorithmic AI bias bounty challenge. The results are revealing – and helpful.

• Twitter’s photo-cropping algorithm prefers young, beautiful, and light-skinned faces

— Twitter Engineering (@TwitterEng) August 9, 2021

Anti-Vax Doctors On Doximity

Doctors on the industry networking site are finding their news feed inundated with anti-vaccine comments from fellow physicians.

• The social network for doctors is full of vaccine disinformation

Smiles

Subway Melodies

Another fabulous multi-media piece in the NY Times on the melody of subway sounds as doors close around the world.

• The Hidden Melodies of Subways Around the World

Shiny New Stuff

David’s Finds

• A New Tool Shows How Google Results Vary Around the World
• Search Atlas

Projects

B.L.’s Project

• Love, Dog Magazine – B.L. will be curating content for new publication that comes from dogs’ point of view. Launching September.

David’s Project

The Reputation Algorithm LinkedIn Live stream every Tuesday at 7 PM CST on David’s LinkedIn profile. He discusses how algorithms use the signals generated by online activity to interpret and represent our reputation.

• David Erickson on LinkedIn

Pro Tips

YouTube Auto Chapters

Chapters are now enabled by default for new uploads. If you add manual chapters, those will replace any automatic chapters.

• YouTube can now add automatic video chapters to your video

Google Page Experience Report

These new reports give us more information to prepare for the new timeline for the page experience update rollout.

• Google Search Console adds Page Experience report and filters for Search Performance report
• Tested tactics for growing newsletters

Weekly Numbers

• Content Entrepreneurs Survey