Happy 50 Million Downloads to WOT

Web of Trust, or WOT, recently celebrated their 50 million-th download.

WOT is a browser plug-in that you install, where you can see what other users say about this website you will be visiting, and the links. You don't want to visit any of the "red" ones, for example.

Actually, that happened back on October 29th, 2012, but I just found out, okay?

Previously, WOT was mentioned here as a way for you to cut through the **** that was all over the Internet, and basically has four grades: red, yellow, green, unknown.

As you can imagine, there are plenty of MLMers out to abuse this system.

The "legitimacy through association" fallacy

One way a suspect opportunity can appear to be more legit is by plastering name brands all over itself.

Recently, a suspect opportunity called Wazzub launched a "portal" called PerfectInternet. I and others has long suspected the legitimacy of Wazzub, and I have written a long analysis about it.

On May 31st, I found one Wazzub defender's 'fervor' to be rather surprising, as he thought every brand name on this Perfect Internet is some sort of a legitimate "partnership". Before we go on, I'll show you a screenshot of the Perfect Internet with a few bits highlighted.

Analysis of Wazzub June 1st Webinar Transcript

NOTE to readers: a different reader pointed me to this "transcript" at webinarrecap.blogspot.com that supposedly is the recap of the June 1st 2012 Wazzub webinar. While I have not yet confirmed the accuracy of this transcript, I don't doubt its authenticity. Thus, I will analyze it as if it is real.

For the following, all of "their" text will be in blue, while my comments will be in red. Format will be changed to divide up the statements, opinions, and so on, but no content will be affected.

From here, I will refer to Wazzub / Perfect Internet just as "Wazzub".

Analysis of Wazzub May Announcement: fallacies and propaganda

Previously a post here in "A MLM Skeptic" highlighted Wazzub's "May 2012 announcement" as a prime example of "bandwagon fallacy" as it was used no less than FOUR TIMES in that single announcement.  It is also full of other logical fallacies, omission of truth, and other problem as well. We will go through the announcement with a fine-toothed comb and see how much real info is there and how much propaganda, by applying a little skepticism.

Full screenshots will be taken to prove that the words were not taken out of context.

There are no less than EIGHT problems in their announcement, IN ADDITION to the four bandwagon fallacies we've identified earlier.

Cognitive bias: the bandwagon fallacy

When MLMers try to "defend" their pet scheme against critics, another technique they often use is called the 'bandwagon fallacy'.

Bandwagon fallacy plays upon your "envy" and "desire to conform". Its argument is very simple:

"it is popular, therefore it must be good / true".

In some variants, the "therefore" portion is not stated, but merely implied.

Any time you see statement like "10000 members can't be wrong", you should beware that bandwagon fallacy is being used on you. Today, we'll study one prime example of bandwagon fallacy being used: Wazzub, the so-called "profit success sharing phenomenon".

On an update they posted in May (which is completely unlinked except through an obscure free blog), they used the following FOUR bandwagon fallacies (not to mention a slew of others, such as conspiracy theory, strawman argument, bad analogy, and much more) to "prove" their legitimacy. All captures are done on date this blog post is written.

Cognitive Bias: Confirmation Bias

Today's Dilbert is a humorous look at confirmation bias:

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-04-30/

Transcript:

Boss: I read a book about how to be a great leader, and realized I don't do any of those things.
Boss: I am surprised that a book with so many errors could get published.
Boss: It must have been written by a disgruntled underling
Wally: Do those exist?

The boss comes in with a preconceived notion that he's a great leader. When he reads a book about leadership that he doesn't agree with, his confirmation bias lead him to conclude that the book must be wrong instead of himself.

Then he immediately reasons that it must be written by someone opposed to him, such as "disgruntled underling".

Then someone immediately agrees with the boss, "yeah, you must be right".

Sounds like a lot of MLMers I've observed.