This is staggering the UK doesn't know if Russia interfered in the Brexit vote because it never sought to ask!

For years ministers have consistently batted off questions about whether Vladimir Putin's regime attempted to meddle in the EU referendum, saying that there was no evidence of "successful interference".

We now know why.

They had never specifically instructed MI5, MI6 and GCHQ - the intelligence and security agencies tasked with protecting the UK - with looking at precisely this issue.

It is a damning finding from a report by the powerful Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) that Boris Johnson ensured did not see the light of day until long after the last election in December.

Kevan Jones, a Labour member of the intelligence watchdog, who also sat on the previous ISC that compiled the report, called it a "scandal".

It is hard not to disagree, especially as it is not as though there were no warning bells for the previous Theresa May and David Cameron governments.

The report noted there was ample publicly available evidence of Russian attempts to use disinformation, fake news and social media bots to amplify the messages of pro-Scottish independent voices during the independence referendum in 2014.

Splitting off Scotland from the rest of the UK is exactly the kind of action President Putin's regime is alleged to seek in its efforts to weaken Western unities and democratic alliances.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Britain tearing itself apart over whether or not to leave the European Union would also be supported by Moscow, regardless of the result - it left the UK significantly distracted for the past four years. Job done.

MPs say blame lies at the foot of ministers, but questions might also be raised about why MI5, MI6 and GCHQ did not try harder to grip what the report describes as the "hot potato" that is defending the UK's democratic processes.

Read more:

'Staggering' Russia report reveals why government batted off Brexit interference claims - Sky News

WASHINGTON On Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump will resume those daily coronavirus press briefings he held in March and April.

The decision to fire up those briefings again comes after slipping poll numbers for the president, after more than 140,000 Americans have died from the virus (including some 80,000 since Trumps last briefing in April), and after Sundays 5,000-word New York Times look into how Trump gave up his leadership role on the issue.

But its one thing to restart the briefings. Its another to regain the publics trust on the coronavirus.

According to the online NBC News|SurveyMonkey weekly tracking poll on social, health and economic matters, 68 percent of adults say they trust their governor more than Trump when it comes to reopening businesses in their area.

That includes 92 percent of Democrats, 78 percent and even 42 percent of Republicans.

By comparison, just 26 percent say they trust Trump more than their governor.

And that trust deficit comes as:

And Trumps trust deficit comes as hes fired off seven tweets this morning (as of publication time), and only two of them having anything to do with the coronavirus.

They include:

"Thank you for the good reviews and comments on my interview with Chris Wallace of @FoxNews. We may have set a record for doing such an interview in the heat. It was 100 degrees, making things very interesting!"

"Looking forward to live sports, but any time I witness a player kneeling during the National Anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our Country and our Flag, the game is over for me!"

"You will never hear this on the Fake News concerning the China Virus, but by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well - and we have done things that few other countries could have done!"

And we have more poll numbers for you this morning on the issue of race in America.

Among the findings from our new batch of numbers in the latest NBC News/WSJ poll:

Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.

3,855,155: The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, per the most recent data from NBC News and health officials. (Thats 61,711 more cases than yesterday morning.)

141,966: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far. (Thats 546 more than yesterday morning.)

46.47 million: The number of coronavirus tests that have been administered in the United States so far, according to researchers at The COVID Tracking Project.

$2.1 trillion: The price tag on a deal clinched by the European Union for a budget and coronavirus recovery.

Just 23 percent: The share of Americans in a new NBC|SurveyMonkey poll who called the current state of the U.S. economy good or excellent.

52 percent: The share of voters who now say it is appropriate for an athlete to kneel during the national anthem to protest racial inequality, per a new NBC News/WSJ poll.

51 percent: The share of voters who say that Confederate monuments should be removed from public spaces. Ten percent say they should be removed and destroyed, while 41 percent want them confined to museums.

Appearing on Joy Reids new MSNBC show, The ReidOut, Joe Biden said that he has four African-American women on his VP short list, but didnt commit to picking one as his running mate.

I am not committed to naming anybody but the people I have named and among them are four black women. So, that decision is under way right now, he said.

A campaign official stressed to NBCs Mike Memoli and Marianna Sotomayor that there are CURRENTLY four Black women on the shortlist, pointing out that Biden went on to say the process continues, so that wasnt definitive.

The Trump campaign is doubling (tripling? quadrupling?) down on its tough-on-crime strategy with a new ad that envisions an elderly woman being attacked by a home invader. As the masked person breaks in, the womans television plays news about proposals to cut police budgets and a misleading Fox News clip claiming Biden supports defunding police.

The spot is striking, and it plays right into the Trump campaigns attempts to argue that the country would descend into chaos under Biden. But recent polling shows that its Biden with a 9-point lead on the question of who American adults trust more to handle crime and safety.

Despite a promise that the GOPs Senate coronavirus relief package is coming soon, negotiations between the White House and Senate Republicans are stuck as the president is demanding a payroll tax cut is included in the bill, and that funding for testing is reduced or zeroed out, NBCs Hill team reports.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune said a payroll tax cut isnt something that changes anyones behavior and said that hes not a fan of that. But the White House might think that some of these negotiations are already done. The presidents chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said the payroll tax cut is part of the proposal, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said its in the bill.

And when it comes to testing, high ranking senators are publicly pushing back against the presidents wishes. Senate Health Committee Chair Sen. Lamar Alexander said we should fund testing as generously as it needs to be funded. And Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt said I just think thats wrong when it comes to cutting testing funds.

Dont miss the pod from yesterday, when we did a deep dive into voter enthusiasm for the fall.

Trump is threatening to send federal troops to major American cities, prompting outcry and accusations of authoritarianism.

Georgia Democrats have picked the leader of the state party to replace Rep. John Lewis on the ballot in November.

The sheriff of Jacksonville, Fla., says he cant provide security for the Republican National Convention because the planning is so unclear.

Centrist Democrats are giving Biden a lot of running room on spending and the national debt, should he be elected.

Michael Cohens book manuscript reportedly contains first-hand accounts of racist comments President Trump made about Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.

A group of more than 250 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have endorsed Joe Biden.

Go here to read the rest:

Trump's coronavirus briefings are back, but the trust isn't - NBC News

From its ostensible origins in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, COVID-19 has spread across the globe. There are now a staggering 11.5 million cases worldwide, resulting in over half a million deaths. March saw the pandemics beginnings in Canada and the United States, followed by widespread lockdowns meant to slow the progression of the virus.

While the number of new daily cases in Canada is declining, U.S. cases have reached record highs. The U.S. represents four per cent of the worlds population, but accounts for one-quarter of COVID-19 cases and deaths. As of July 8, 2020, there were 9,051 cases per million people in the U.S. compared to 2,812 cases per million in Canada. These statistics point to a substantial difference in community spread in the two countries.

Twitter provides an online record of political leaders policies and personal sentiments. Both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump often tweet to large numbers of followers. The @realDonaldTrump Twitter account has 82.7 million followers with more than 20,000 tweets during Trumps presidency. The account @JustinTrudeau has five million followers and has tweeted 18,000 times since Trudeau became prime minister.

Theres a significant difference in how the two leaders have talked about this virus on Twitter. One has focused more on politics, while the other has focused on policy and public health.

We conducted a quantitative analysis of themes emerging in Trudeaus and Trumps tweets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study used network science, which considers systems and their interactions. We formed what are called co-occurrence networks based on keywords taken from tweets, with two keywords linked if they appear in the same tweet. For example, if the keywords covid19 and pandemic appear in the same tweet, then they were linked. The monthly top 100 keywords from @JustinTrudeau and @realDonaldTrump were extracted based on their frequency.

To simplify the networks, we removed retweets and common stop words such as the and at. We created visualizations of the networks to group the keywords into thematically related clusters or communities. We find a higher proportion of links inside communities and a sparser set of links between them.

The algorithm extracted the communities in the keywords. Keywords and links were scaled up or down in size depending on their frequency. Communities of keywords were assigned colours such as blue, green and orange, and more correlated keywords were located closer together in the network.

Looking back at the first two months of 2020, Trudeaus and Trumps tweets were unrelated to COVID-19. Trudeau focused on the shooting down of the passenger plane in Iran that had 57 Canadian citizens on board, followed by protests for the Wetsuweten First Nation. Trump focused on his impeachment trial and endorsing candidates in Republican congressional primaries.

In March, the federal governments response to COVID-19 dominated Trudeaus Twitter keywords. In contrast, other topics competed for prevalence in Trumps tweets. These included tweets about fake news (closely situated to coronavirus in the keyword network) and perceived unfairness from the Democrats.

Claims of fake news coverage of the severity of the pandemic dominated Trumps April tweets. Trudeaus tweets centred on topics such as wage subsidies and appreciation for front-line workers.

In May and June, keywords from Trumps tweets revolved around Obamagate, Republican endorsements and transit funding.

Trudeaus keyword networks for both months were in stark contrast to Trumps, with keywords related to the virus remaining prevalent.

The keyword networks from March to June point to divergent messaging on the pandemic by the two leaders, as reflected in their tweets. While both leaders focused on COVID-19 in their March tweets, Trump did increasingly less so over the coming months. His reference to the virus was often through a political lens, with keywords related to the media or Democratic rivals.

For each month we considered, the keywords fell into a small collection of communities, ranging from three to five. These observations are consistent with an earlier analysis of Trumps tweets around his election.

Trump famously made comments downplaying the pandemic in its early days, and made subsequent statements referencing progress controlling the pandemic, despite a record number of new cases. The early reopening of U.S. states may have been a possible cause for increased cases.

In contrast, Trudeau has stayed consistent in his daily briefings and tweets since lockdowns began in March, highlighting economic recovery programs and providing public health-care information.

Interestingly, Trudeaus minority government has been enjoying a surge in popularity, while polls suggest rising disapproval of the Trump administrations handling of the pandemic.

As the COVID-19 becomes part of the new normal, there is greater public awareness of the effectiveness of lockdowns and actions needed to curb the spread of the virus such as social distancing, hand-washing, and wearing masks. However, not everyone is willing to comply.

Our network analysis suggests that consistent social media messaging by federal leadership may play a role in influencing views of the pandemic and efforts to contain it. We hope that political leaders with large platforms will use them to amplify the advice of medical professionals and help slow the spread of the virus.

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Facts or fake news: Revealing patterns in the COVID-19 tweets of Trudeau and Trump - The Conversation CA

Covid-19 has taken over our lives, but it hasn't been around for very long. Scientists have been studying it in real-time as the world collectively goes through a traumatic, world-changing event. It's killed more than half a million peopleand we don't even know exactly where it came from.

Which, on the face of it, isn't very reassuring. As a result, conspiracy theories have spread alongside the virus. And for companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, longstanding questions about how they should handle misinformation on their platforms have never been more relevant.

Especially because social media seems to be actively making things worse. "The more you rely on social media for your news, the more likely you are to be prone to this dynamic where you're not only failing to identify fake news as fake, but factual information as true," explained Cornell professor government Sarah Kreps.

How to best fight misinformation is complicated, messy, and deeply intertwined with politics and cultural values.

In April, 47% of Republicans believed that the coronavirus has been made a bigger deal than it really is. By June that had grown to 63%. Among Democrats, it went from 14 to 18%.

In a recent Cornell study co-authored by Sarah Kreps and now in preprint, Democrats were consistently more likely to correctly identify a Covid-related headline as true or false than were independents or Republicans. But on average, Republicans and Democrats hold similar levels of science knowledge.

So why is this happening? Watch the video to find out moreand what companies are doing about it.

The rest is here:

Covid-19 misinformation is everywhere, but it could have been much worse - CNBC

"Fake news" is defined as fabricated information that mimics news media content in form but not in journalistic organizational process or intent. (Wokandapix/Pixabay)

SANTA FE -- With the presidential election approaching, there's renewed concern that consumers again will fall prey to "fake news" on social media. But one expert on the topic says there's a way to arm yourself against the onslaught.

Nolan Higdon is a professor of history and communication at California State University and a contributor to Project Censored. He said the role of news media in a free society is to investigate, inform and provide a crucial check on political power.

He noted the coronavirus pandemic has been the subject of a great deal of "fake news" that often exploits people's fears and moral outrage.

"Generally, it preys on real anxieties - that's really the most successful fake news," Higdon said. "And who doesn't have anxiety during a pandemic, especially one where you see unemployment hitting 30%."

Higdon said he believes President Donald Trump's repeated claims of "fake news" and framing of the media as the "enemy of the people" have made a bad scenario worse.

Some communication watchdogs have called on tech giants to crack down on fake news and institute a code to address misinformation. Higdon said he believes, however, that consumers need to be more savvy.

"We really need to focus on giving the individual media literacy skills - that is, how can they sift through information and figure out what's true and what's false instead of the approach where I think we're going, which is we're creating lists and we're having corporations and governments determine what is true and what's false," he said.

Higdon said he also worries that media giants such as Facebook, Google and other large corporations have significantly increased their presence in public schools in the past 20 years as a way to get their content into the classroom.

"If we can give a bunch of slick textbooks and MacBooks and things like that to a school, it will look like charity to the public," he said. "But really, it's getting access to all the data for all the children who are enrolled in public schooling in a particular state, nation or region."

According to new research published in the journal Psychological Science, consumers are not incapable of distinguishing between what is true and what is false, but often share misinformation because accuracy is not a benchmark used when deciding what to share.

Read this article:

Afraid Outraged Fake News Could Be the Culprit / Public News - Public News Service

An international coalition of news and tech companies, including the AP, The Washington Post, Facebook and others, is partnering with a different coalition led by the BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, Microsoft and The New York Times called Project Origin to fight fake news during the U.S. election.

How it works: The project aims to place digital watermarks on media originating from authentic content creators. The watermark will degrade when content has been manipulated. The verification system will be deployed in the month leading up to the U.S. election.

The big picture: There are several initiatives that have simultaneously launched in the past two years that aim to place digital watermarks or labels on news stories to verify their authenticity. To name a few:

Our thought bubble: With separate groups trying simultaneously to solve the same problem using similar labeling and watermarking tactics, it's hard to keep track of what's working and what various news partners should be implementing.

Read the rest here:

Project Origin is watermarking media to fight fake news ahead of the election - Axios

Khabib Nurmagomedov will return to the Octagon and face Justin Gaethje before the end of the year, according to his manager Ali Abdelaziz.

Abdelaziz last week refuted reports UFC lightweight champion Khabib was going to retire following the death of his father and coach Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov.

The undefeated Russian was due to defend his belt against Tony Ferguson at UFC 249, but travel restrictions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic meant the fight was scratched.

The event was rescheduled and Gaethje, who stepped in for Khabib, defeated Ferguson for the interim title, but he is yet to have his bout with the championconfirmed as a September date becomes increasingly unlikely.

Asked about the rumours surrounding Khabib's future, Abdelaziz told TMZ Sports: "Khabib is not retiring. He has some goals to accomplish. You will see him before the end of the year.

"Him, Dana [White, UFC president] and I are talking to the match-makers and we're trying to set a date. I'm sure Dana's gonna let everyone know when Khabib's going to fight.

"We have a blockbuster main event, him versus Justin Gaethje. Two of the best lightweights in the world in the recent era.

"We've seen what Khabib does to all his opponents, we've seen what Justin Gaethje did to his last opponent. He dismantled Tony Ferguson, he made him look an absolute amateur. They're the best two guys in the world and they're gonna fight.

"There's a lot of fake news that comes out of Russia. Like Donald Trump says, fake news. If you don't hear it from me, Khabib or from Dana, it's fake news."

He added: "Khabib is a different breed. Of course, he's heartbroken. It's his father, his mentor, his best friend. But at the end of the day, Khabib's father has a legacy he wanted Khabib to accomplish.

"And Khabib is a living legend. And that's what legend comes from. Legend comes from adversity, from death, from a lot of things, and that's what Khabib does. He's come back from a back surgery, from ACL surgery, from the death of his father, and he's gonna fight Justin Gaethje. They're gonna put on a great display of martial arts."

View original post here:

Khabib has not retired, will face Gaethje 'before the end of the year' - Yahoo Sports

A young man from Karnataka Prathap NM was hailed in Kannada media as drone Prathap for claiming to have extraordinary achievements. A few English websites like Deccan Herald and India Times have also penned articles on Prathap which are essentially a list of his achievements. Among the never heard of awards and accolades that feature in these reports is another accomplishment 600 drones built at the age of 22. However, quite ironically, there are no videos or pictures of Prathap actually building any such drones.

In a recent article, Alt News had debunked rumours claiming that Prime Minister Modi inducted the young man into the Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

After doubts were raised over his achievements, Prathap provided proof in a recent interview with Kannada channel Btv News Kannada. Upon being questioned by the anchor that he does not have pictures of self-made drones, Prathap took out his phone and showed a photograph to viewers where he is posing with a drone. This can be watched at around 33 minutes in the broadcast.

Bill Gutbier, owner of Germany-based BillzEye, issued a statement on his companys website that the drone flashed by Prathap was built by BillzEye and exhibited at CEBIT 2018, Hanover Exhibition Center.

The statement said that Prathap was curious about the drone and asked questions which Gutbier happily answered. Subsequently, Prathap requested if he could click a photograph of the drone BETH-01. All drones that were exhibited on the pedestals of my booth, especially the BETH-01 with Mr Prathap shown in the picture, are the property of BillzEye Multicoptersysteme. Mr Prathap has nothing to do with the design, development, manufacture or distribution of this drone. He is not an employee, cooperation partner or shareholder of BillzEye Multicoptersysteme. This drone, which is the focus of his photo, was specially designed, constructed and manufactured by Bill Gutbier. All of this can be demonstrated using many documents, CAD files and photos, wrote Gutbier.

CEBIT 2018 held in Germany is the same drone expo where Prathap claimed that he was awarded the Albert Einstein Innovation Gold Medal. But his picture with the drone he claims to have built was constructed by BillzEye. Furthermore, multiple Google search attempts with different keywords do not throw up any Albert Einstein award or gold medal. The results ironically only show reports of Prathap receiving the award. The Better India had published an article on Prathap earlier in January where the award was mentioned. The website has now taken down its report clarifying, among other things, After the publication of the article, the organisers of the events in Germany responded to our second round of queries stating they did not host any such awards.

This wasnt the only time Prathap posed with a drone that he portrayed was his innovation. Another photograph was widespread on the internet and also shared by Prathap on his Instagram account. The same image was carried by The New Indian Expresss Edexlive.

If one notices carefully, the drone carries the logo of Japan-based ACSL.

Earlier in February, a Reddit user claimed that he wrote to the COO of ACSL to inquire about Prathap and the company said that they do not recognise anybody by that name. The user attached a screenshot of ACSL COO Satoshi Washiyas response according to which the drone in the image is ACSL PF-1 and it was completely built in-house.

Prathap NM, therefore, claims to have built 600 drones but has not been able to produce any visuals of his creations. In fact, he has misrepresented drones of other companies as his own. Alt News tried contacting Prathap for a comment but he is yet to respond. This whole episode of a Karnataka resident portraying himself as one of the youngest drone scientists India has ever produced also points to the gullibility of the media. Based on just his word, he was made out to be a prodigy who is making the country proud across the world.

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Prathap NM, hailed as 'drone scientist', passes off German and Japanese drones as his own - Alt News

Astrologys claims that the position of the sun, moon and planets at our birth informs our character and future are without evidence, and yet horoscopes continue to be published in national newspapers.

More often than not they appear without any disclaimer. Its the only section of a newspaper knowingly printed without facts supporting the claims made on the page.

As the war on disinformation has stepped up during the coronavirus pandemic, with fake news now potentially risking lives, professional journalisms basis in evidence is its key weapon in the fight against the tech giants. Horoscopes would seem to undermine this.

But for many horoscopes are seen as part of the fun of the popular press, fulfilling the brief that newspapers should both inform and entertain.

NASA described astrology in a recent blog postas something else. Its not science. No one has shown that astrology can be used to predict the future or describe what people are like based only on their birth date.

Still, it went on, like reading fantasy stories, many people enjoy reading their astrological forecast or horoscope in the newspaper every day.

Press Gazette polled readers from Monday to Wednesday this week asking them: Should news publications carry horoscopes/astrology?

Of the 428 respondents, the majority (50%) said yes, I dont believe in them but theyre harmless while nearly as many (45%) said no, theyre fake news. A further 5% said yes, I believe in them.

For those wondering, your Zodiac sign is the constellation the sun appeared to be in, relative to the Earth, when you were born. It was the Babylonians who first divided the stars along the ecliptic the path the sun appears to take in the sky as Earth orbits around it into 12 sections.

Victor Olliver, astrologer for the The Lady magazine and spokesperson for the Association of Professional Astrologers International, said: Astrology is not a science. Therefore it cannot be a pseudo-science.

Its more useful to think of it as a symbolic system rooted in ancient ideas and practices. Many, many people relate to astrology through their star sign but theres a lot more to astrology than just star signs.

Media horoscopes offer an opportunity to readers to reflect briefly on their lives to view situations and events as part of something spiritually bigger.

This offers a valuable contrast to the world of hard fact that drives a newspaper or magazine its worth remembering that a publication serves many different purposes, as information provider, entertainment and as a thoughtful prompt. Not all life can be driven by literal fact. Sometimes, truths of another kind help to inspire, guide and comfort readers.

Olliver said media horoscopes have been going since the 1930s, with roots in the 19th Century, and are part of the success story of popular print media.

In the UK, the Sun, Mirror, Express, Star, and Mail titles continue to run horoscopes in print and online. They were prevalent across nearly all newspapers at one stage, but seemed to fall out of favour in the 2000s.

The Guardian seemingly stopped running horoscopes in 2009 and the Telegraph in 2016. A number of magazine titles, such as Hello!, and some regional newspapers also continue to publish them.

But the Sunday Times Style magazine fired its resident astrologer Shelley von Strunckel this month after 28 years. Von Strunckel told Press Gazette that Style editor Lorraine Candy said she no longer wanted the column.

Ive worked with editors whove ranged from being huge fans to literally being uncomfortable with me in the room but they got that readers liked it and in this case the story is they were cutting back content but its just not [Candys] thing, said Strunckel.

Newspapers are also fond of writing about astrology, often with a critical eye but sometimes without any caveats to its unfounded claims.

An article dated 6 July this year on thesun.co.uk stated: Horoscopes are a prediction of events, offering a fascinating insight into a persons future, from possible romantic relationships to finance and work issues.

Neither Reach, publisher of the Mirror, Express and Star titles, the Sun or the Mail provided a comment for this article.

Astrology has long had a role in entertainment the Suns Mystic Meg and Mirrors Russell Grant were household names in the 1980s and 1990s, with Grant appearing as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing in 2011.

The practice has had something of a rebirth in recent years, which some tie to millennial meme culture. In fact it was in the news again just this week, with discussions about the so-called 13th sign of the Zodiac.

While horoscopes are still seen as harmless fun by some, a media landscape in which trust is falling and disinformation can reach us all has forced newspapers to restate their value as purveyors of quality information.

Michael Marshall, project director at the Good Thinking Society, said: It isnt hyperbole to suggest theres a crisis in confidence in the media right now, with low public trust in the accuracy and objectivity of journalism.

It is hard for the industry to argue on the one hand that the public should have confidence in the factual content of their newspapers, while on the other hand knowingly publishing anti-scientific nonsense.

As someone who has spent over a decade investigating the impact of unscientific beliefs, I would argue that there are no harmless pseudosciences accepting one bad idea softens the ground for other unproven beliefs to take root.

The UK news media should be aiming to leave their readers more informed; they should not be party to leaving their readers more inclined to believe untrue things.

Well give the last word to Shelley von Strunckel: Newspapers are relentlessly depressing, even womens features are cautiously factual; the stars (in the right hands) are often the only reflective words in print, so serve that purpose.

Picture: Pixabay

Our free daily round-up of the biggest news about the world of news

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Future of astrology: Is there a place for pseudoscience in newspapers? - Press Gazette

Jammu And Kashmir Lockdown Extension News: After news reports surfaced that a total lockdown has been imposed in active red zones of Jammu region to contain the spread of coronavirus, the Jammu and Kashmir administration on Sunday issued a clarification saying the report is just a rumour and there is no truth in it. Also Read - Lockdown Extension News: This State to go Under Complete Lockdown After July 21

No lockdown will be imposed in Jammu from tomorrow. The news regarding this is baseless and just a rumour, the Divisional Commissioner of Jammu region said in a statement. Also Read - Community Spread of COVID-19 Has Started in India, Cases Penetrating Down Into Towns

Issuing another statement, the Srinagar District Administration said that the Containment Zones are declared wherever cluster of COVID-19 cases emerge. Subsequent perimeter restrictions adopted as per notified Health guidelines. The red zones will see a 100% lockdown and shall be sealed for any movement, Srinagar District Magistrate Shahid Choudhary said. Also Read - Nine Bangladesh Cricketers to Resume Individual Training From Sunday

The development comes as reports surfaced that strict lockdown restrictions were imposed on Saturday in parts of Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district following a spike in coronavirus cases, officials said.

The entire Rajouri city and adjoining areas were sealed and people were asked to stay indoors as part of the efforts to slow the spread of the infection, reports said.

A partial lockdown was imposed in Srinagar by designating over 60 containment zones amid a surge in coronavirus cases over the past week. The lockdown will be imposed in 68 containment zones of the city from Monday and no movement would be allowed in these areas without permission.

The decision to reimpose the lockdown in these areas of city was taken at a meeting late Saturday evening, the officials said.

While the union territory administration had first announced a lockdown across Jammu and Kashmir on March 22 as part of its efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus, restrictions were imposed in many parts of the valley, including in the city, on March 19 after the UT saw its first positive case from Srinagar.

Originally posted here:

Fake News Alert: No Lockdown Will be Imposed in Jammu From Tomorrow | Heres The Truth - India.com

By Express News Service

BARIPADA: Baripada town police on Friday arrested a person on charges of spreading fake news against the royal family of Mayurbhanj on social media.

In a Facebook post, Manoj Kumar Deo, a computer programmer at the office of Project Director, Watershed, had accused the royal family of flouting Covid-19 norms and claimed that many including BJP leader Prabind Chandra Bhanjdeo visited Belgadia palace on July 13 to pay their last respects to Rajmata Bharati Rajyalaxmi Bhanjdeo.

He made the accusation against the backdrop of one Chhotelal Mohanta who tested positive for coronavirus and is currently in Bankisole Covid Care hospital.Manoj claimed that Mohanta had visited the palace and must have come in contact with all the big shots, and added that former MLA of Moroda Assembly segment had returned from Kolkata after a long stay but was roaming freely.

Accusing the police and administration for not taking any action, he had appealed to quarantine all those who had visited the palace.A palace staff Anup Kumar Pattanayak filed a police case against him.

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Man arrested for fake post on Mayurbhanj royal family in Odisha's Baripada - The New Indian Express

We were shouted at for wearing masks when we turned up outside Houston City Hall.

We had just arrived to interview a very small group protesting about the Texan governor's decision to make the wearing of masks mandatory to halt the spread of coronavirus.

As others nodded in agreement, protester Oralia Acosta called us "stupid" for wearing facial coverings.

She said we were "pushing the fake news agenda", consequently perpetuating the "feeling of terror" about a disease which they believe is an exaggerated hoax - a view already espoused by Donald Trump.

"Why are you wearing a mask in this heat?" she shouted. "When you pass out, don't ask me for help cos I'm not going to help you.

"It's my right to decide whether I wear a mask or not!"

It is a view which appears to be gaining traction.

This is what public health officials in the US are up against. This is why the future predictions of COVID-19 infection are so dire.

America's Fourth of July birthday bash was a very different affair this year and nowhere more so than in Texas.

Most of the fireworks shows were cancelled and turned into virtual displays. Parades were called off and street parties abandoned.

But despite still recording daily highs in infections, some Texans refused to be cowed by the deadliest virus sweeping the planet today.

We watched as hundreds in Giddings, in Lee County, crowded into an arena to take part in the local holiday weekend bull-riding competition.

Few were wearing masks, despite an order from the governor making it compulsory. Even fewer expressed concern about the virus that has killed tens of thousands of their countrymen and women.

"I'm not worried. What'll happen will happen," said one young woman. "If I'm meant to go, the good Lord will take me."

The Independence Day celebrations are traditionally a time for unity, but the collision of coronavirus and the ensuing unemployment, and the scourge of racism raised by the killing of George Floyd, has put paid to that.

The imploring by public health officials to wear masks, keep socially distanced and preferably stay at home was basically ignored at the bull-riding show.

Dozens of cowboys vied to demonstrate their masculinity and prowess on a bucking bronco to cheers and jeers from the crowd.

The temperatures were well over 30C (86F). Being ordered to wear a mask is uncomfortable in these steamy conditions and viewed by most as, at best, unnecessary, and by some as an affront to their freedom, which this holiday weekend has been all about.

"I'm an American and I feel like I should do what I want to do," one cowboy told us. "I pay my taxes, I live free, I wanna be free."

But in an interview with Sky News, Dr Peter Hotez, who is respected internationally as an expert on infectious diseases, warned that the stubbornness of some Americans to adhere to health advice would only prolong the devastation of the disease.

"We are in one of the worst parts of the epidemic," he said. "The numbers are increasing dramatically.

"This is just the beginning they will double in the next two weeks and then double again the week after that."

He insisted that even the most dire forecast by Dr Anthony Fauci - one of the lead members of Mr Trump's coronavirus task force, who has warned the number of daily infections nationwide could reach 100,000 - could be dwarfed in the coming weeks.

Testing sites appear to be overwhelmed.

At one site in Houston run by a charity, vehicles snaked around several blocks to receive a free test.

Dr Joseph Gathe of the Cure COVID Consortium, one of the lead doctors running the site, says the virus is rampaging out of control in the state.

"And our response is not in an organised fashion," he said. "We can't get the toothpaste back in the tube but we can stop squeezing... and do what we can with those that have not been able to get things done."

The pandemic has wrenched livelihoods from millions across the country and in Texas, everyone we spoke to queuing up for food parcels in downtown Houston told us they were doing so for the first time.

Proud men and women who have worked all their lives and provided for their families throughout their lives, now stung by the humiliation of relying on others to ensure they are fed.

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For Charles Moore, who has a Black Lives Matter mask across his face and is wearing plastic gloves, it is difficult to put into words.

"All my life I've been the one to go and get everything on my own and provide for my family and now I have to depend on someone else to feed me," he said.

"So we doing whatever we have to do just to get by another day."

For people like Mr Moore, it is obviously necessary to take extreme precautions for protection, but also to prevent yourself spreading the disease.

But that's not how some see it.

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We were shouted at for wearing masks. This is why the situation in the US is so dire - Sky News

FLORENCE, Italy, July 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --With the pandemic caused by COVID-19, the continuous need to obtain information has pushed people to rely on unreliable sources, thus fomenting the spread of fakenews.

For this reason Gilda D'Incerti, CEO and founder of PQE Group, quality service provider for Life Sciences, decided last month to create a task force of employees to perform research on one of the most discussed side effects of COVID-19: the Infodemic.

During one of the monthly video messages to the staff that D'Incerti sent during the lockdown to the over 700 resources divided into the various subsidiaries of the group, she asked to send personal applications to create a team of researchers. The aim was to investigate, in a methodical and systematic way, the most salient aspects of five main areas of information - such as science, ecology, big data, social economy and legal - which in the last months since the start of the pandemic have largely contributed to shape the public debate.

The team, consisting of 24 expert consultants from PQE Group, graduated in various disciplines ranging from Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology to Social and Economic Sciences, is working to provide information as much as possible via the corporate communication channels scientifically correct and updated on these topics, reporting the results obtained in a clear and simple manner.

In order to guarantee data security, two internationally renowned pharmaceutical auditors have been selected to support the team: Claudio Puglisi, Vice President of PQE Group and Executive Committee for external relations of the Parental Drug Association (PDA), and Paolo Baroldi, who before becoming a consultant for PQE Group in the US served as Vice President of Development and R&D Chairman at Chiesi Farmaceutici SPA.

One of the main benefitof this research is also the cultural diversity of the task force, as the people chosenfor this project are from the main countries affected by COVID-19 such as Italy, Spain, Japan, India, USA, Mexico and Brazil. In this way, in addition to deepening different points of view, the various teams will have access to cross-cutting information, capable of making the news more reliable.

Articles are available at this page.

Moreover, video pills will be posted on the YouTube Channel of the company, aiming to disseminate easy-to-understand scientific-cultural information.

"The idea of the Infodemic Task Force project stems from the fact that in recent months we have been bombarded with a lot of conflicting information, some, perhaps the most interesting, were largely incomprehensible to those who did not have a scientific background. Therefore, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to have many colleagues who instead had this background, to launch a dissemination initiative, trying to create clarity and a common vocabulary in terms of scientific terminology for the general public and for the community of PQE Group." Gilda D'Incerti, CEO and founder - PQE Group

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1213004/PQE_Group_Logo.jpg

SOURCE PQE Group

https://www.pqegroup.com

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PQE Group Creates an Internal Research Task Force to Fight Fake News in Relation to COVID-19 - PRNewswire

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday said a report that said she had requested time beyond August 1 to vacate her government bungalow in Delhi was fake news.

This is FAKE NEWS, Gandhi tweeted. I have not made any such request to the government. As per the eviction letter handed to me on the 1st of July, I will be vacating the government accommodation at 35 Lodhi Estate by the 1st of August.

Gandhi was reacting to an IANS report that claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had allowed her request to keep her government bungalow for some time.

In a remarkably statesman like move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has agreed to a request to allow Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to retain the 35, Lodhi Estate Bungalow for some time, the report claimed. Just when people thought there is witch hunt against the erstwhile first family of Indian politics, the PMs move once again validated his large heartedness. The news agency cited sources for its information.

A letter issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on July 1 had said Gandhi is no longer entitled to government accommodation after she lost her Special Protection Group security cover. If she stays beyond August 1, she will have to pay a penalty as per the rules, the letter added.

Robert Vadra, Priyanka Gandhis husband, also denied any plans to stay on at the government bungalow after August 1. This is completely incorrect!! We have not asked for any extension of stay, he said in a Facebook post. We were sent a notice on the 1st of July to leave in 30 days. We at a time of Covid have packed our entire household, and will leave a week before time.

In November, the Union government had decided to withdraw the Special Protection Group cover for Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her children Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and replace it with Z-plus security cover of the Central Reserve Police Force. The SPG, an elite force comprising 3,000 personnel, provides security only to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Priyanka Gandhi says report that she wants more time to vacate government bungalow is fake news - Scroll.in

The UAE is engaged in an information-war against Turkey as it seeks to draw the country in a mess that it has no one to blame for but itself.

Monitoring several UAE-funded Arabic and English media platforms in the last few months, one would notice an increasing barrage of fake news and reports that are specifically dedicated to insert Turkeys name into the Yemeni crisis by promoting a non-existent Turkish security role in Yemen.

This 'news', statements, reports and analysis indicate that they are a part of a carefully crafted disinformation campaign that targets Turkeys so-called role in Yemen.

The Arab Weekly in particular, a London based news outlet, has been noticeably very active in this domain. Unsurprisingly, it is funded by the UAE and has an Arabic version Al Arab that has been even more gung ho in this matter.

Interestingly, both the entities are working under the UAE funded umbrella of the "Al-Arab media organization which also funds sister platforms such as the Middle East Onlineand the Turkey-focused website Ahval.

The main theme of coverage surrounding Turkeys role in Yemen revolves around resurrecting the boogeyman of a Turkey-Qatar-Muslim Brotherhood (MB) axis and selling it to audiences through baseless allegations.

These allegations focus on three main claims.

First, Turkey is building up its security presence in Yemen with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated party Al Islah.

Second, the 'Turkey-Qatar-MB axis' is executing a coordinated plot in Yemen to create its own armed militias and sabotage the Saudi-UAE efforts there especially the Riyadh Agreement.

Third, the Turkey-led axis is cooperating with Iran and the Houthis in Yemen to target Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and that the growing activity of Turkey in three southern coastal regions is a cause of regional concern especially for Egypt.

The sister platforms of The Arab Weekly are used to amplify these messages by re-publishing the same news and articles in more than one language, exposing them to different audiences and boosting their circulation.

The next stage includes what one could call news laundering where some of these materials and claims find their way back to foreign platforms in Israel, France, US, Russia among others, just to be used again by the same original UAE-funded platforms as 'foreign sources'.

Parallel to the defeat of Abu Dhabis man in Libya, the warlord Khalifa Haftar, at the hands of the Turkey-backed UN-recognised GNA, the Emirati false narratives on Ankaras role in Yemen intensified. It peaked with the UAE taking over Yemen's strategic Socotra archipelago with the help of its local separatist militia of the Southern Transitional Council (STC).

During June, UAE-linked platforms warned of a Libya-like military operation by Turkey in Yemen. Pro-UAE Yemeni figures started to publish articles and give statements on the Turkish threat in Yemen.

Some of them even claimed that pro-MB Turkish military personnel were caught in Socotra after allegations on the presence of Turkish security members in Yemen. These lies triggered wide reaction inside and outside Yemen.

Commenting on them, Gerald M. Feierstein, former US ambassador to Yemen tweeted: Fabricating a 'Turkish threat' is a dangerous ploy. He questioned whether Saudi Arabia was complicit in this and accused the UAE of using what he called agit-prop to justify seizing and undermining Yemens sovereignty on the island.

Feierstein is right.

Yet, this is obviously not the sole goal of the UAE disinformation campaign already in place for months. The UAE move should be understood as an attempt to shape regional and global opinion, incite it against Turkeys increasing role and influence, and shift the attention away from its malicious and dark role in the region.

Fantastical narratives

By forcibly inserting Turkey into the Yemeni crisis and linking its role there with Yemens MBs, Abu Dhabi aims to first hinder Turkeys growing humanitarian role in Yemen as it is granting Ankara more Yemeni hearts and minds at a time when the image of the two opposing sides (UAE and Saudi Arabia vs Iran and Houthis) involved in the destruction of Yemen is sinking deeper.

Indeed, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and pro-Iran Houthi all hindered Turkish aid to Yemenis several times over the course of the conflict.

Second, the UAE wants to proactively block any possible Turkish role in Yemen in the future especially with the fact that most of Yemenis are already fed up with the UAE, Iran, Houthis, and Saudi Arabia.

For some time now, the Yemeni President in-exile has been sounding an alarm over the UAEs separatist agenda in Yemen. He and his government are fed up with the Saudis doing nothing to stop their Emirati allies.

Many of them are even convinced that Riyadh might be complicit or completely under the influence of Abu Dhabi, and have started to seek alternatives.

Third, the UAE wants to bridge the growing gap between its agenda and the Saudi agenda in Yemen by shifting the focus of the Saudis towards a so-called Turkey, Qatar, Muslim brotherhood scheme in Yemen with the hope that both Riyadh and Ankara engage in some kind of conflict that can put the UAE in a favourable position.

Fourth, Abu Dhabi hopes that its false narrative on Turkeys role in Yemen would make enough noise that it will serve as a smokescreen to divert attention away from its own agenda in Yemen. This was obvious in the recent Socotra case.

The Arab Weekly, for instance, labelled the staged coup of Abu Dhabis separatist militia (STC) against the forces of Hadis government there as an operation that thwarts Muslim Brotherhoods plans in Socotra.

Fifth, aware of its limited capacity, the UAE wants to bring in other countries in its effort to counter Turkey regionally, and such a narrative that involves Qatar and the MB, would perfectly serve its goal.

To perform this task, it has been working lately on several fronts through an array of actors: The Gulf axis (Saudi Arabia and Bahrain), the Arab axis (Egypt, Assad, Haftar), the EU axis (France, Greece, Cyprus), and of course the US.

A recently leaked email for Yousef al Otaiba, UAEs Ambassador to Washington, shows Abu Dhabis efforts to incite US officials against Ankara especially in Libya. This is not new behaviour considering similar cases that go back as far as 2017.

In one of his leaked e-mails at the time, al Otaiba reportedly told a New York Times columnist "We don't want Turkey or Qatar to be able to shape a dinner menu much less a country."

He even alleged that "the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatari and Turkish triangle" is preventing Gulf countries from bringing their relations with Israel out from under the table.

Additionally, the UAE has been constantly instigating Egypt against Turkey. This is quite obvious in the Libya case. In Yemen, Abu Dhabi has been focusing on promoting the claim that Turkeys presence in Yemen is a threat to Egypt.

To boost the Turkish threat narrative in Yemen, Abu Dhabi is trying to portray the struggle in Yemen as us vs all. That is why according to its false narrative, Turkey is not only coordinating with Qatar and the MB in Yemen, but also with Iran and the Houthis there. Abu Dhabi even inserted Somalia and Oman to this imaginary coalition.

Ironically, during the last year, Abu Dhabi has sent several security delegations to Iran and coordinated with Tehran on different levels including the Gulf security and Yemen.

Iranian officials admitted recently that the UAE changed its behaviour and policies towards Tehran and that both are cooperating on several levels. These Iranian statements might explain why the Houthis continue to hit Saudi Arabia and Riyadh with missiles and drones while sparing Abu Dhabi.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT World.

We welcome all pitches and submissions to TRT World Opinion please send them via email, to opinion.editorial@trtworld.com

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How the UAE is using fake news to manufacture a Turkish role in Yemen - TRT World

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Google to boost fake news, illegal content monitoring on YouTube.

Google's video-sharing platform YouTube will cooperate with South Korea to closely monitor and prevent the spread of fake news and illegal content. Google's Senior Vice President Neal Mohan made the comments during a videoconference with Han Sang-hyuk, chairman of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC).

The remarks came after Han requested such cooperation, considering fake news surrounding Covid-19 and a recent high-profile digital sexual abuse case in South Korea, in which such illegal materials were distributed across social media platforms.

The regulator has kept a close watch over the tech giant this year. Last month, Google voluntarily corrected subscription practices on its YouTube Premium service in the country, after the KCC found they were unfair for users.

The regulator also imposed a fine of $720,000 on Google for violating local telecom laws, as it did not properly notify users of YouTube Premium's charged service.

In March this year, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company has taken down thousands of videos on YouTube related to dangerous or misleading coronavirus information using its Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technology.

In a blog post, Pichai said that since January, Google has blocked hundreds of thousands of ads attempting to capitalize on the coronavirus pandemic.

Latest Technology News

Fight against Coronavirus: Full coverage

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Google to boost fake news, illegal content monitoring on YouTube - India TV News

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a crisis among asylum seekers and refugees in the Netherlands. According to our research, the start of the pandemic saw an information vacuum within this community, leading to a general atmosphere of confusion and anxiety and the spread of fake news.

When our fieldwork with asylum seekers, refugees and unauthorised migrants in Amsterdam was interrupted due to the lockdown we decided to speak to the people who work with these groups every day to get a wider understanding of how the COVID-19 crisis was affecting these communities. We conducted interviews with NGO workers, migration officers and volunteers. Our interview subjects were working with people staying in reception centres (where asylum seekers await the outcome of their legal case) and detention centres (where migrants whose claims have been rejected wait to be returned to their home country), as well as other accommodation like houses and shelters.

Almost everyone we interviewed told us that many of the people they were helping had experienced stress or some sort of personal crisis due to the lack of access to reliable information.

Research shows that long asylum procedures cause psychological damage. Our interviews illustrated that on top of this stress the pandemic was bringing back traumatic memories of war in those from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. While some African refugees were worried the Ebola crisis might be triggered again and many others feared for the family they had left behind.

In addition to these usual stresses, asylum seekers were having to wait even longer for a decision on their legal status (and, consequently, to be reunited with their families). We found that pandemic-related stress factors added to the growing list of worries influencing the mental state of refugees.

Some of the issues we identified included, the lack of shelter during the day, the postponement of legal procedures and a general feeling of insecurity about the future. This particular feeling was fed by misinformation. During the initial phase of the crisis, official communications from the government and relevant authorities were only in Dutch, English and sign language. These are languages that many refugees and asylum seekers dont speak or understand.

This confusion led to the spread of fake news. Examples of inaccurate stories included: how taking vitamin C could stop you getting COVID-19 and how holding your breath was a good way to test whether you were infected.

Read more: Coronavirus: it's time to debunk claims that vitamin C could cure it

But the misinformation also related to rumours and hearsay. In one particular centre, it led to some fearing that contaminated asylum seekers would be transferred to a large container that was placed in front of their building the container was actually intended for the separation of waste.

The use of interpreters to provide newcomers with correct information and to help facilitate their access to healthcare became vital and was taken up by several NGOs.

We discovered that some informal initiatives became very important in filling the information vacuum. For example, information cafes organised by NGOs to inform asylum seekers and refugees about the crisis and to give them the opportunity to ask questions worked really well.

About two weeks after the lockdown, Pharos (an expert centre for healthcare) translated and circulated government information about the virus, precautions and government policies into among others Arabic, Tigrinya and Farsi. Since then, translating centre, Global Talk, has translated the government press conferences into eight languages so that refugees are directly informed on the developments.

Several other grassroots organisations also established the Corona Action Committee for Refugees (CAS) which started a helpdesk where people can ask all types of questions in Tigrinya and Arabic. But volunteers experience several problems. One told us:

Normally refugees have someone literally standing next to their computer and helping them, but that is not possible now. And it is very difficult for us to remotely apply for social or unemployment benefits. That is a hell of a job. And it is not that you can say: Just turn on Zoom or just turn on Skype because they dont have that either.

Many newcomers are stuck in the Dutch bureaucracy and it is very complicated to remotely support them. How do you explain by telephone how someone with an outdated computer system can fill in complicated official forms? How do you help with homeschooling if the facilities just arent there?

Helpdesk volunteers are not receiving formal support from the government yet. The volunteers we spoke to say this needs to happen soon so refugees can understand vital information about how Dutch society works. Refugees need to be given the tools to help themselves, otherwise they face being caught in a permanent cycle of anxiety, bureaucracy and fear.

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Coronavirus: misinformation is leading to 'fake news' anxieties in Dutch refugee communities - The Conversation UK

The University of Exeter Business School is developing an AI-powered tool for detecting fake news and other online harms, called LOLA

LOLA can be used to fight misinformation relating to Covid-19, as well as cyber bullying.

Developed by a team led by Dr David Lopez, from the Initiative for Digital Economy Exeter (INDEX), the tool has been able to spot fake news regarding Covid-19 by detecting emotional undertones, such as fear and anger.

Named after childrens TV series Charlie and Lola, it uses natural language processing and behavioural theory to analyse 25,000 texts per minute, and has been found to have 98% accuracy in detecting islamophobia, and other hateful online language.

What is AI? Information Age has created a simple guide to AI, machine learning, neural networks, deep learning and random forests. Read here

Additionally, LOLA ranks tweets using a severity scale, from most likely to cause harm, to least likely.

Having recently been used in an experiment to pinpoint cyberbullying towards activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter, the tool could be used to bolster cyber security, as social media platforms focus on eradicating online harms.

Progress in the battle against misinformation could also be aided by confirmed collaborations with Google and the Spanish government.

In the online world the sheer volume of information makes it harder to police and enforce abusive behaviour, said Dr Lopez.

We believe solutions to address online harms will combine human agency with AI-powered technologies that would greatly expand the ability to monitor and police the digital world.

Our solution relies on the combination of recent advances in natural language processing to train an engine capable of extracting a set of emotions from human conversations (tweets) and behavioural theory to infer online harms arising from these conversations.

The ability to compute negative emotions, such as toxicity, insults, obscenity, threat and identity hatred, in near real-time at scale enables digital companies to profile online harm and act pre-emptively before it spreads and causes further damage.

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Fake news detection tool being developed at University of Exeter - Information Age

By Dolar Popat and Rupa Ganatra-Popat

Until recent years, there had long been a stance by Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey that Facebook and Twitter were platforms rather than publishers and therefore are not responsible for the content that is published on their platforms.

In the current climate where pandemic conspiracy theories are on the rise and racial injustice is being played out on the world stage, Facebook and Twitters billionaire founders have an increasing responsibility to moderate such content. Both Twitter and Facebook have been removing posts that promote violence, suspending accounts for repetitive hate content like that of Katie Hopkins last week and highlighting manipulated photographs and videos. However even by the time of their action, much of the damage is usually done as was illustrated recently by the racist baby video that President Donald Trump had posted, which had already been viewed over 20 million times on Twitter and over 4 million times on Facebook by the time it was removed.

Since the democratisation of content creation following the launch of social media platforms, each one of us have become content creators creating and publishing our own content, which in turn has created a system where the quality of published content can no longer be controlled. The impact of the last two decades technology revolution is now impacting businesses, political systems, family lives, society and individuals.

The problem has been exasperated and amplified in recent months, perhaps as people have spent an increasing time online during lockdown. From the well-known to the unknown, fake news, misinformation and hate rhetoric are causing harm to many individuals.

Hate speech, disinformation and rumours in India have been responsible for acts of violence and deaths in India for some time. On April 16 this year two sadhus and their driver were lynched in Gadchinchale village in Palghar, Maharashtra. The incident was fuelled by WhatsApp rumours about thieves operating in the area and the group of villagers had mistaken the three passengers as thieves and killed them. Several policemen who intervened were also attacked and injured.

A 2019 Microsoft study found that over 64% of Indians encounter fake news online, the highest reported amongst the 22 countries surveyed. There are a staggering number of edited images, manipulated videos and fake text messages spreading through social media platforms and messaging services like WhatsApp making it harder to distinguish between misinformation and credible facts.

A 2020 University of Michigan study found that Indias misinformation issue has now entered a new troubling era, where misinformation has moved from fake facts that can quickly be disproved to cultural content that play on emotion and identity, which are harder to verify and therefore make it even more likely that people will believe them or act on them.

Fake news on WhatsApp is perhaps the bigger problem to solve given that the app has over 400 million users in India alone and messages are encrypted making it challenging to identify, report and remove content in the same way as it can on other platforms. In 2019, WhatsApp reported that it was deleting 2 million accounts per month as part of an effort to reduce the use of the app to spread fake news and misinformation. In addition to other initiatives that Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have employed, it is still not enough and there is still much to be done.

The challenge of fake news and hate speech requires careful consideration and collaboration between government, academia, publishers, social media platforms and civil rights groups. In the meantime, we must all contribute to tackling the issue. As individuals, we must ask ourselves whether something we read is true. We must question the articles and videos we are sent. If we see hate posts about violence, we should report it. If we receive forwarded posts on WhatsApp, we must think twice before forwarding these on.

Whilst a long term solution is developed for the problem that has been created as a byproduct of the past decades technology revolution, each one of us has the responsibility to question what we read, post and share. Each one of us should take responsibility for the content we create, the content we consume and the content we forward to others.

Dolar Popat is a UK Member of Parliament. Rupa Ganatra-Popat is an entrepreneur, investor and board adviser

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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There is a pandemic of fake news and hate on social media. You can help fight it - The Times of India Blog

Dimo Ringov is an Associate Professor atEsades Department of Strategy and General Management.

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We live in an era of fake news, all-you-can-eat distraction, and vanity. Disinformation and hoaxes popularly referred to as fake news are accelerating and affecting the way individuals learn and interpret information. A recent Ipsos Public Affairs survey found that fake news headlines fool American adults about 75% of the time. Only 24% of respondents believe social media sites do a good job separating fact from fiction according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

What is more, human average attention spans have declined precipitously in the last thirteen years and are now shorter than that of a goldfish. The average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but according to a new study from Microsoft Corporation, people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds. Finally, diagnoses of narcissistic personality disorder have risen sharply over the last decade and research suggests social media use may be a contributing factor. The average British user nowadays spends more than two hours a day on various social media and checks their smartphone every twelve minutes.

How should educators approach these substantial changes in our learning environment and the context within which learning takes place? As a professor at a leading European business school, I often ask myself this question. How do we help students cut through the noise, develop the acumen and judgment to identify fake news, and maintain a perspective grounded in reality? While these are complex, far-reaching questions deserving of equally deep and comprehensive answers, I would like to briefly highlight three points:

First, we should ask ourselves (and encourage others to ask themselves) about the underlying motivations for upholding or promoting specific positions, information, or beliefs. For instance, what is the background, financing, or objective of a given news source? Who is considered a credible expert in a given field by his or her respective community of scholars or practitioners? Moreover, is one pursuing further education out of love for knowledge, learning, excellence, contribution, and personal growth or primarily out of fear of otherwise being perceived as not-good-enough, disrespected, outcompeted?

Second, educational institutions have (or can promote) practices that help address the above challenges. The effect of fake news can be mitigated by promoting lifelong learning and discussion communities, rigorous training in the scientific method, diversity in the classroom, and broad cross-disciplinary education. The effect of distractions can be mitigated by implementing practices that encourage technology detox such as no laptop/electronic device use in the classroom unless specifically authorized rules. Judgment and perspective can be cultivated by helping internalize universal human values alongside the development of professional and executive skills, and by supporting open, collaborative, welcoming learning environments as well as by forming inclusive learning communities that incorporate and engage underprivileged groups/individuals.

Last, but not least, research-focused educational institutions are well-positioned to make a difference through focused efforts to promote further research on the above challenges facing education in the twenty-first century as they apply to specific educational and research settings. Business schools, in particular, can serve as true catalysts for research-driven debate on how to transform education and research organizations to better serve our changing learning and research environments through rigorous research programs, innovative educational practices, and active presence in the social debate. Thought leadership and entrepreneurial action are needed to envision and enable systemic change. Will we answer the call?

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Education In The Age Of Fake News, Distraction, And Vanity - Forbes