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Say it again: repetition and the illusory truth effect
Hearing a claim again makes it feel truer, even when you know better. From Hasher's 1977 experiment to a headline copied on 362 sites in six hours, how repetition, slogans and repeated phrases work, and how to resist.
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Counting voices, not trusting labels: how LSN News measures it
One headline ran on 362 sites of one radio company: 384 outlets, 5 independent voices. How LSN News counts voices and finds outlet networks (194 networks, 1,597 sites), why I count instead of labelling sources, and what counting cannot do.
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Leaded petrol: one man's fight against an industry's science
In 1925 leaded petrol was called "a gift of God". For forty years its safety was judged by an industry-funded lab, until Clair Patterson's clean measurements broke the story. How the burden of proof was flipped.
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Urgency, authority, scarcity: the six levers in every scam
Americans reported losing $20.9 billion to online crime in 2025. Most of it was handed over, not hacked. Cialdini's six levers mapped onto real scams, what phishing research found, and why a pause beats them all.
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What propaganda cannot do: the limits of persuasion
49 field experiments put the average effect of campaign contact on votes at zero, and the 2016 troll tweets show no measurable effect. Yet radio helped drive genocide in Rwanda. What propaganda can and cannot do, and why fearing it too much is a trap.
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Information hygiene: a daily routine that takes 15 minutes
In one day, 191 big stories in my news engine averaged 43 outlets but only 17 independent voices. A 15-minute daily routine against the drip: notifications off, slow news, count voices not outlets, three sources, and one question before you share.
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How to talk to someone who believes something you don't
A 10-minute conversation with 501 voters shifted attitudes more than 14 years of social change, and it lasted three months. What deep canvassing, motivational interviewing and street epistemology show about talking across a disagreement.
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Outrage pays: what recommendation systems do to attention
Facebook once weighted an 'angry' reaction at five likes. Studies show moral outrage and attacks on the other side spread further. But the evidence on filter bubbles is mixed, and a big 2020 experiment found chronological feeds did not reduce polarisation.
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The gatekeepers you don't see: search ranking and autocomplete
Ranking decides what you see first. A 2015 study said biased search results can shift undecided voters by 20%; later vote-count claims are contested. Real users' clicks matter more than the algorithm. And on LSN News one story ranked 1st in Italian and 70th in Hindi.
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"Completely harmless": thalidomide, and the official who said no
Thalidomide was sold as completely safe, even in pregnancy, without tests to back it. Over 10,000 babies were harmed in 46 countries; in the US, 17. The difference was Frances Kelsey, who kept asking for evidence.
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Words that do the work: euphemism and engineered language
Euphemism persuades without arguing: it removes the picture. From Orwell's "pacification" to "special military operation", "enhanced interrogation" and the "year of efficiency", how engineered words work on every side, and how to translate them back.
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Governments asking platforms: Murthy v. Missouri and the Twitter Files
Three courts read the same emails between US officials and platforms and reached three different answers. What the rulings found, what the Twitter Files showed and did not show, what Zuckerberg admitted, and what is still disputed.