It is probably just a subversive marketing campaign that uses fear as a motivator but when this “news” hits my radar, it always hits in clusters. Like it did on May 17th when both KPLCTV in Lake Charles, Louisiana and WCSC in Charleston, South Carolina are running nearly identical stories.
June 9, 2010 UPDATE: Here is a word for word “reprint” courtesy to WMCTV in Memphis.
Here is the most recent example of the crap that some organizations pass off as news:
A new trend is emerging on the internet that has the attention of teens in various parts of the country, but it’s flying under the radars of most adults.
Teens are trying to get high using nothing but sound.
They don’t need a street dealer or to drive through dangerous neighborhoods; the new so-called drug can be procured with a computer, a credit card and a pair of headphones.
The first time I ran into the Digital Drug scam, it was just a few Russian “news outlets” trying to earn affiliate income selling binaural beats. Unfortunately, the scam lead to a bit of fear mongering in an article titled The Web Delivers New Worry For Parents: Digital Drugs written by “columnist” Kim Komando. (She took the Russian bait hook, line and sinker.) Techdirt weighed in on this scam when USA Today published the article:
When it comes to creating a technology moral panic, all you need is a bunch of scary sounding claims in a major newspaper… and then you just wait for politicians to take over. How long until someone somewhere proposes banning these dangerous sounds?
Binaural beats can be an amazing tool for self development. Binaural beats have been clinical proven to improve affirmations, enhance meditation and increase focus and concentration. Binaural beats have even been proven to help people with ADD and insomnia. Knowing all of this, it really sad to see the value of this technology be undermined by opportunistic fear mongers.
