Daily Archives: May 14, 2021

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This article was exclusively written forThe European Stingby Ms, Danielle Gonalves de Assis, a medical student from So Paulo, Brazil. She is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSAs view on the topic, nor The European Stings one.

Human beings crave for information, either to increase their social-cultural repertoire or, simply, out of pure curiosity. The problem with the information on the technological era is that even if the news is false, it still can circulate and reach people all over the world. In the coronavirus pandemic this situation can generate even more damage, any information that preaches disbelief in science in such a delicate moment has the power to become a dangerous weapon. In 2020, society and, especially, the scientific community were cover by a countless number of information, whether in scientific articles, reports or discoveries about the new coronavirus, despite this, fake news were also widely disseminated and often threatened the maintenance of disease prevention and containment in Brazil. Among some of most absurd and largely publicized in the country was that the vaccine against covid-19 would be able to alter human DNA- something that obviously has no scientific basis- or even that there would be a microchip that would be implanted in the vaccinees.

It is evident that headlines like this aim to discourage the mass vaccination of the population, however, any vaccination is a collective act aimed at protecting yourself, but mainly protecting others around you. Covid-19 still is in circulation, so, the more people are vaccinated, more lives will be spared, therefore, any fallacious news about the vaccine go beyond any political, religious or personal excuse and simply can be defined as pure ignorance. Although, for some it is easy to identify that these news are fake, it is necessary to know that 70% of Brazilians with internet have already believed in a fake news about coronavirus and that with the advent of social networks people hardly check the source of the news they just read, because they think that if it is on the internet, it must be true.

Often, these misleading headlines are disseminated in social media and Whatsapp is the leader when it comes to spreading fake news, in addition, it also is the second most used social network by Brazilians in 2020. Given this tragic scenario, it is clear that no country can afford to have misleading information going around to the population, thus, even the world health organization has already shown concern with this phenomenon and created the term infodemia to designate rumors, conspiracy theories and fake news disseminated in the pandemic and that have directly contributed to the increase in cases and deaths by covid-19, Brazil also created in 2021 a sort of channel, monitored by the Ministry of health, to report and investigate the veracity(or lack of veracity) of the facts. Some platforms such as Google and Facebook have also adopted measures to combat fake news, something very important, giving that digital platforms have a very wide reach and on them the untrue content can be disseminated quickly.

References

About the author

Danielle Gonalves de Assis, 18 years old, Brazilian, lives in Ferraz de Vasconcelos, in the state of So Paulo, where she is a first year medical student at the Mogi das Cruzes University(UMC), located in the city of Mogi das Cruzes, So Paulo, Brazil. Currently, she is a junior member of a few medical leagues in her college and she ambitious to become a permanent member in the future.

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How fake news still makes it difficult to cope with coronavirus - The European Sting

At the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, China'sglobal media influence was in full swing, using social media to discredit Western media outlets and spread propaganda, a new report finds.

As the pandemic started to spread in 2020, Beijing used its media infrastructure globally to seed positive narratives about China in national media, as well as mobilisingdisinformation, a report by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) found.

The report, based on an original survey that polled 54 journalist unions from 50 different countries and territories, foundthat China had been usingthe pandemic to boost its image in global media coverage.

"The types of things that [Beijing] ispushing, it's not just messages on China but exploiting messages on the west," one of the authors of the report, researcher Julia Berginsaid during a roundtable discussion.

She said China has used free social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter as a "reverse tactic" to discredit Western media, like the BBC when it reportson themistreatment of Uyghur peoplein theXinjiang region.

Reuters: Thomas Peter

Twitter is banned in Chinabut many Chinese nationalistsuse the platform to entice heated discussion in support of China's detention camps in Xinjiang or use propaganda videos to switch thenarrative.

China denies they are detention camps and describes them as boarding schools.

Data from the report shows growing concerns over the use of both disinformation and misinformation as tactics, not just in China but across South and North America,with an overall 82 per centrise indisinformation reported.

Fake news arrives even more rapidly than the virus itself,"Italian journalistLuca RIgion said to the discussion panel.

Michael Keane, an academic from the Queensland University of Technology, saidthere is a "negative light"in which Chinese media is often portrayed in Western democracies such as Australia.

"At least in [Australia] we have pluralistic media but in China you don't have a pluralistic media and that's a fact," he told thepanel.

Beijing hasstepped up its news offerings, providing domestic and international content tailored for each country in "non-Anglophone languages", the report found.

The China Cables leak of highly classified documents reveals the scale of Beijing's repressive control over Xinjiang, where more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups are detained.

"At the same time, Beijing has weaponised foreign journalist visas, forcing resident journalists out of China."

"The vacuum in coverage is increasingly being filled by state-approved content, which is sometimes offered for free, to these countries," the report read.

Many journalists and media companiesaround the world have been censored or arrested by China, including many of Hong Kong's pro-democracy activists and influencers.

Australian Cheng Lei,ahigh-profiletelevision anchor for the Chinese government's English news channel, CGTN, was detained in Beijing in 2020.

Ms Cheng was thesecond Australian to be detained in Beijing in recent years. Writer and former Chinese government employee Yang Hengjun was taken by authorities in January 2019.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersonHua Chunying responded to comments made in the report and defended China's media strategy, saying itdeserves a place in the international media landscape.

"In the face of lies and rumours to smear and attack China, it is only natural to make our own voices heard," Ms Hua said.

"China explained truth and facts on many important issues including COVID-19 to leave an objective and right collective narrative and memory for mankind. This is what we call a responsible attitude from a responsible country."

China's mass internment of its ethnic Uyghur population appears to be the largest imprisonment of people on the basis of religion since the Holocaust.

This report, whichbuilds on the IFJ's previous report The China Story: Reshaping the World's Media found that globally, 56 per cent of all countries surveyed reported that coverage of China in their country had become more positive overall since the COVID-19 outbreak, while only 24 per cent said coverage of China had become more negative.

China uses the lack of Western media coverage in the region to its advantage, pushing out digestible content that's available to major news organisations who don't have eyes in the region, the report suggests.

"China is using a multi-pronged approach to redraw the information landscape to benefit its own global image, " it read.

In a panicked phone call from China's far-western region of Xinjiang, this qualified nurse reveals how she has been arrested and forced to work in a factory.

In 2020, Beijing effectively shut down journalistic access to Chinathrough visa denials and freezes, partly driven by international border closures.

The shutdown createda vacuum in China coverage, where there was a high demand for stories from China, which China filled with state-sponsored content already available through content-sharing agreements, it found.

The research found that content offered to global journalists hasbecomemore tailoredwith efforts being made to translate Chinese propaganda into different languages, even those that are not widely spoken such as Italian and Serbian.

"The media is quite robust but we need to think about the vulnerability of Western media. [Their]vulnerability is economic," report researcherLouisa Lim said.

The IFJ recommends more engagement in the region, with a strategy to reach out to and create relationships with Chinese journalists inside and outside China.

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China used social media to spread misinformation to discredit Western media during pandemic, report finds - ABC News

Karl Marx is one of the most seminal thinkers of the modern age. His radical thoughts have influenced all spheres of human life in innumerable ways. The impact of his thoughts on modern epistemology and civilisation can be best gauged from the fact that, without reference to his writings, no thinker, in contemporary times, can profoundly think about society, economy, politics, or culture.

Indeed, Marx was not considered a philosopher by traditional philosophers as they did not find him philosophical enough! Similarly, he was not considered a sociologist by traditional sociologists, since, in their view, he was not a pure sociologist!

Nevertheless, over the decades, his writings have attracted the renewed interest of scholars of all hues and are now read and celebrated across the streams of social sciences. For instance, nowadays, in sociology, he is taught as one of the classical sociological thinkers, alongside pure sociologists like Emile Durkheim and Max Weber.

However, Marx is still not widely celebrated as a journalist by journalists and media scholars. This is perhaps because of the prevalence of a certain pronounced and bias and myopia in the mainstream corporate media, which is accustomed to deal with the superficial, and not with complex and meticulous research in subjects like history, political economy and sociology. It is presumed that Marx is too scholarly and political to be a journalist!

Indeed, the indifference meted out to Marx, the journalist, is best exemplified by the fact that his journalistic works and legacy per se are generally not taught in journalism schools and newsrooms in any part of the world. In some institutions of higher learning dealing with journalism and mass communication, it is almost blasphemous to introduce a Marxist critique, or rethink concepts such as media and society, media and conflict zones, or media and peoples movements, from within a radical framework. For instance, Marxs various important theories (including the labour theory of value) are deliberately avoided in graduate and post-graduate studies in several mass communication and journalism institutions, including in India.

Also read: Karl Marx: Of Obituaries, Epitaphs and Sundry Mix-Ups

It is true that journalism was not Marxs original calling. Marx was essentially a scholar. He was compelled to choose journalism as a profession out of sheer compulsion that of economic necessity for survival since he was socially ostracised by the mainstream German academic community of his time because of his progressive, radical and non-dogmatic stance.

Indeed, Marx, as a career journalist, doggedly practiced journalism during the prime of his life, from 1842 to 1865. During this period, he went on to edit two progressive and anti-establishment newspapers, namely Rheinische Zeitung and Neue Rheinische Zeitung, and served as the chief of bureau (of Europe) for The New York Tribune, one of the leading newspapers of the 19th century, widely respected for its analytical journalism and opposition to the then prevailing hegemony of the penny press.

Besides, Marx contributed hundreds of articles on wide-ranging political, social and economic subjects for several newspapers and magazines, including The Peoples Press, Die Revolution and Die Presse. Indeed, his politically-charged and historically-informed text, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte which chronicled the French coup of 1851 that was followed by the arrival of the dictatorship of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte remains one of the most profound journalistic works of all time.

The Marx memorial at Highgate Cemetery in north London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Similarly, Marx wrote several seminal, incisive articles on colonial India. Some of the well-known articles are: The British Rule in India, The British Cotton Trade and The Future Results of British in India.

The fact remains that Karl Marx, during his entire formative intellectual career, was largely targeted, hounded and punished by the power elite of his time due to his journalistic activism. Most notably, he was forced to flee multiple times and live in exile for many years.

Indeed, Marx, as a journalist, championed the cause of the free press. He not only unremittingly wrote radical articles on every pressing issue of his time, but also journalistically advocated for a free press. He, unfalteringly, believed that the existence of the press in society is sacrosanct and hence it must remain absolutely free.

In this context, it is important to note that at that juncture, his stance on free press was quite similar to the libertarian schools view of the free press. Surely, this stands in sharp contrast to the status of the press being totally subservient to the state in the communist countries of the 20th century. He advocated the cause of free press in the following words:

The free Press is the ubiquitous vigilant eye of a peoples soul, the embodiment of a peoples faith in itself, the eloquent link that connects the individual with the State and the world, the embodied culture that transforms material struggles into intellectual struggles and idealises their crude material form. It is a peoples frank confession to itself It is the spiritual mirror in which a people can see itself It is the spirit of the State, which can be delivered into every cottage, cheaper than coal gas. It is all-sided, ubiquitous, omniscient.

Also read: What Can Karl Marx Offer to the 21st Century?

Also, while being a journalist, Marx fervently campaigned for a press law. He unwaveringly believed that having a mechanism of press law is the best defence against the oppressive regime of censorship. He argued:

In the press law, freedom punishes. In the censorship law, freedom is punished. The censorship law is a law of suspicion against freedom. The press law is a vote of confidence which freedom gives itself. The press law punishes the abuse of freedom. The censorship law punishes freedom as an abuse. It treats freedom as a criminal, or is it not regarded in every sphere as a degrading punishment to be under police supervision? The censorship law has only the form of a law. The press law is a real law.

Indeed, the journalist in Marx, in myriad ways, shaped the political activist in him and vice-versa. For instance, during his editorship of the committed newspapers like Rheinische Zeitung and Neue Rheinische Zeitung, he untiringly strived to educate the working class in the run-up to the ensuing revolutions (the revolutions of 1848 also known as the Springtime of the Peoples).

In this sense, it can be argued that, through his journalistic activism, Marx, the philosopher, slogged hard to practice his eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.

Surely, in the contemporary times of churnalism wherein the majority of the corporate-run, mainstream news media perennially churn information (and disinformation) through round-the-clock, instant reporting (and misreporting), fake news and propaganda in support of the ruling establishment, as in India the journalistic legacy of Marx, that is, pursuing analytical journalism which goes beyond the immediate and superficial, and exposes the complex and transformative subtext of political, social and cultural events with painstaking and meticulous intellectual rigour and honesty holds great significance.

Indeed, it is high time when Karl Marx, the erudite, objective and analytical journalist is revived and celebrated, and his tradition of journalism is practiced in spirit far and wide.

Naren Singh Rao is a Delhi-based media educator and social commentator.

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In the Era of Fake News, We Must Celebrate the Journalist in Karl Marx - The Wire

On Tuesday The New York Times, The White House and other media sources claimed that there had been no gas shortages, no long lines at gas stations, no major hikes in gas prices since the shutdown of theColonial Pipeline and that the country was not in a shortage of fuel. Yet papers like the dailymail.com were stating the truth and now the hidden truths have come out.

President Biden stated that the government did not pay the $5 Million dollar ransom in untraceable cryptocurrency, yet today it has been confirmed the DarkSide did receive the $5 million ransom to regain control. The ransom was paid just hours after the attack last week, yet the pipeline remained offline for another six days, triggering severe gas shortages, panic buying and chaos across the South.

John Catsimatidis, told Fox Business Network that he heard Colonial paid a ransom of $4 million.

Analysts have stated paying off ransomware gangs will lead to more attacks on critical infrastructure.

Colonial began a system restart, on Thursday morning, with 71 percent of gas stations across North Carolina still without gas, and half of the stations in Florida, Washington DC, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia running dry, according to GasBuddy.

The outages spread from New Jersey to Mississippi with more than 10,000 gas stations offline, and the national average price of gas rising to $3.28, the highest level since 2014, according to the AAA Gas Price Index.

Expect gas prices to go through the roof now that we know they paid this ransom. As it is since Biden become President gas went from under $2 to $3.59.

See the article here:

Fake News The New York Times, Biden and More Times Square Chronicles - Times Square Chronicles

After the declaration of results of the state assembly election in West Bengal, news of violence from various parts of the state began to be reported.

The re-elected Trinamool Congress government acknowledged that 16 people had died in the post-poll violence. However, other parties, including the BJP, have alleged that the numbers are higher and that at least 20 people have died.

According to the families of the deceased, nine from BJP and eight from the TMC have claimed to have lost kin in the violence. A member of the CPI(M) and a supporter of the Indian Secular Front have also been reportedly dead.

As the violence erupted, images and videos began to be circulated on social media platforms, depicting the violence in West Bengal.Many of these visuals were shared by leaders of the BJP.

However, AltNews, an independent fact-checking website, has debunked several of these images and videos as fake.

In this interview with Himadri Ghosh, a journalist based in West Bengal, The Wires Seraj Ali discusses the repeated instances of post-poll violence in the state, the fake news ecosystem that surrounds such violence, among other issues.

See the rest here:

Watch | Post-Poll Violence in West Bengal and Fake News Ecosystem - The Wire

More than eight in ten people in Canada use online private messaging apps, like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp; and over half are receiving messages about the news or current events at least weekly. Without greater transparency from the private platforms themselves and investment in digital literacy efforts, this growing vector for online news will continue to spread disinformation and other online harms.

The Cybersecure Policy Exchange at Ryerson University analyzed the role of private messaging in Canada, including user exposure to disinformation, hate speech and spam, and recommended potential policy and technical approaches to mitigate harms.

Their new report, Private Messages, Public Harms, used results from a representative survey conducted in March 2021 of 2,500 people in Canada and found that:

The spread of disinformation and other online harms poses risks to social cohesion, public safety and democracy; and, as a result experts and policymakers have raised calls for technical and regulatory changes. At the same time, concerns have also been raised regarding over-censorship of content and that such regulatory changes may negatively impact freedoms and rights, particularly the right to free expression.

This paper analyzes steps that governments and platforms around the world have taken to mitigate online harms, including adding labels and limits on message forwarding to decrease 'viralality', limits on group size; mechanisms to enable users to report harmful content to moderators; and features to encourage users to verify information they receive.

"To date, Canadian regulatory proposals to regulate big tech have focused on social media content that remains publicly accessible, but disinformation spreading on private messaging apps is a growing threat to our democracy. The federal government should join other international jurisdictions in regulating greater transparency into how online private messaging apps can manifest in public harms," says Sam Andrey, Director of Policy and Research, Ryerson Leadership Lab.

To better understand and mitigate these complex challenges they offer three recommendations for the Government of Canada:

The full findings from Private Messages, Public Harms are available at: https://www.cybersecurepolicy.ca/

Abacus Data administered an online survey on behalf of the Cybersecure Policy Exchange to 2,500 residents of Canada over the age of 16 between March 17 and 22, 2021. The margin of error for a comparable probability-based sample of the same size would be 2%, 19 times out of 20.

The Cybersecure Policy Exchange is an initiative from Ryerson University, dedicated to advancing effective and innovative public policy in cybersecurity and digital privacy. The through Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst and the Ryerson Leadership Lab.

Ryerson University

https://www.ryerson.ca/

https://www.ryersonleadlab.com/

AB

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Half of Canadians regularly receive fake news through private messaging apps - The Suburban Newspaper

The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday called out fake news doing rounds on various platforms regarding examination guidelines.

In view of the news circulating in print and digital media, it is clarified that UGC has not yet issued any guidelines on examination recently and the news is incorrect, read the official announcement. The commission released an official notice regarding the clarification.

Read | UGC asks higher education institutes to create COVID task force and helplines

It has come to the commissions notice that incorrect news regarding UGC guidelines on examination has been published in some print and digital media. UGC had issued guidelines on examination and academic calendar from time to time during last year. Further, UGC notification issued on May 6 has requested the universities to keep the offline exams in abeyance during the month of May 2021, the official notice read.

The commission on Monday had advised all higher education institutes (HEIs) to constitute COVID task force and helplines to help students and teachers amid the ongoingpandemic. The varsities have been directed to promote COVID appropriate behaviour including sanitisation, wearing masks, washing hands with soap and maintainingsocial distancing.

The UGC had earlier asked all higher educational institutes (HEIs) to not conduct any offline exams in May 2021. The commission hadreleased a circular regarding the announcementon its official website. The HEIs are also advised to assess the local conditions for conducting online exams.

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UGC issues clarification against fake news on examination guidelines - The Indian Express

NEWLY single Alex Rodriguez initially didn't believe his ex, Jennifer Lopez, was back with her ex-fiance, Ben Affleck.

He allegedly deemed the reports as "fake news," but now he's apparently "heartbroken" by her quick rebound.

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Sources told In Touch Weekly Arod is really heartbroken" about JLo's reported reunion with Ben Affleck.

They went on: Theres a lot of excitement for the return of Bennifer but not everyones rejoicing about the rekindled romance.

Alex may not be in the best position to judge, but he doesnt think Jen is making a good decision. He thought the stories of Jen being back with Ben were fake news.

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The insider went on saying the news of the return of Bennifer came as a shock to ARod, sharing: Jen getting back with Ben, after all these years, and with all the heartache she went through, is the last thing Alex expected.

[Alex] was holding out hope that Jen would take him back.

But, according to some of Jens friends, that ship has sailed. She tried to reconcile with Alex, and she just couldnt make it work. Shes not looking back; Alex is definitely in her rearview mirror.

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The source explained the bond between Jen and Ben is "real," noting: Theres no doubt that Jen and Ben have something special between them.

She knows what this looks like, and that the whole world is watching, but she doesnt care, she wouldnt do it if it wasnt real.

"Jen is doing what she always does when it comes to relationships shes following her heart.

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Meanwhile, Ben wed actress Jennifer Garner, 49, in 2005, with whom he shares daughters Violet, 15, Seraphina, 12, and son Samuel, nine, although they separated in 2015.

Jennifer shares 13-year-old twins Emme and Max, with her ex-husband Marc Anthony.

Alex and his ex-wife, Cynthia Scurtis, share daughters, Natasha, 16, and Ella, 13.

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JLo, 51, enjoyed a week-long getaway to Montana with Ben, 48, less than a month after announcing the end of her two-year engagement to Alex.

In new photos, the pair could be seen together in a car near a resort in Big Sky last week, where Ben has a home, and were then seen arriving back in Los Angeles on a private jet over the weekend.

A source close toAlextoldE! Newsthat he's"shocked thatJLohas moved on"so quickly.

JLo has been spending time with her former partner since breaking up with ARod afterrumors she couldn't trust him.

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ARod first believed ex JLos romance with Ben Affleck was fake news but now is heartbroken by her quick... - The Sun

Facebook has agreed to meet with South Africas Parliament over concerns around disinformation before South Africas 2021 local elections, the Communications and Digital Technologies Committee has said.

The meeting which was requested by the Democratic Alliance is set to take place on 25 May 2021.

Facebooks agreement to the meeting is historic and a source of pride for South Africa as a first in Africa, and one of a few countries in the world to successfully secure a meeting with Facebook, said DA MP Phumzile van Damme, who had issued the invitation.

We commend Facebook for agreeing to the meeting which we hope will be constructive.

Van Damme said the reason for inviting Facebook was to establish what steps the tech giant would be taking to tackle harmful misinformation, particularly in light of the upcoming elections.

Facebook often tailors plans for countries ahead of elections to guard against harmful misinformation, Van Damme said. We would like to see the same done for South Africa.

In September 2020, the social media company implemented measuress which it said were intended to help secure the integrity of the US elections by encouraging voting, connecting people with authoritative information, and reducing the risks of post-election confusion.

These included updates related to misinformation, COVID-19 and voter suppression, and a ban on new electoral, political, or social issue ads.

Van Damme said the protection of private data of South African users on Facebook-owned platforms would also form part of the meeting.

The DA MP was likely referring to concerns around WhatsApps new privacy policy among South Africans.

The implementation of the policy was delayed following heavy backlash from users earlier in 2021.

The aim of discussions with Facebook will be to ensure that the interests of the people of South Africa are protected as well as upholding the constitutional right to freedom of speech, Van Damme said.

She added the meeting will also be the beginning of discussions regarding Facebook paying South African media houses for carrying their content as was recently successfully implemented in Australia.

The DA has sent similar invitations to other big tech giants Google and Twitter.

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Facebook to meet with South Africas Parliament over privacy and fake news - MyBroadband

Tejasvi Surya made the charges of corruption earlier this week. (File)

BJP MP Tejasvi Surya has denied reports that he apologised to those working at a municipal COVID-19 war room in Bengaluru, after his allegations of what he called a "bed-blocking scandal" at his own party-controlled civic body took a communal turn.

"When one has no news, they create fake news," his office posted on Twitter, responding to two news reports that said he apologised to the 200 employees at the facility during a visit on Thursday evening. His account was contradicted by those present at the war room at the time.

Mr Surya had visited the facility on Tuesday and broadcast the video live, reading out the names of 17 Muslim employees who he accused of corruption in the allocation of hospital beds as the city and Karnataka struggles with a massive spike in COVID-19 infections.

A video of the incident showed the Bangalore South MP in the municipal Covid war room with three BJP MLAs, grilling officials. One of the MLAs, his uncle Ravi Subramanya is heard shouting, "Have you appointed them for the madrassa or the Corporation?"

Later, there is more offensive profiling from an MLA who said to a woman official, "Who is this person, Madam? How can he appoint 17 members like a Haj committee?"

Mr Surya says, "How did you choose them?" Then he adds that he is questioning only the qualifications of the man who made the selection.

After Tuesday's incident, names, phone numbers and addresses of the workers were spread on WhatsApp and social media from BJP-linked accounts with the caption: "List of people working in the BBMP War Room killing thousands of Bengalurians".

The incident has led to scores of the people who work in the war room facing harassment, including sexual harassment, according to reports. Some have reportedly had people showing up at their homes asking for hospital beds.

On Wednesday, searches were carried out by the police at the city corporation's war rooms. The police said they are also investigating the hospitals where four people were arrested for allegedly blocking beds with fake names for COVID-19 patients paying bribes. Seven people have been arrested in the case so far.

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"Fake News": Tejasvi Surya On Reports He Apologised For Bengaluru Bed Row - NDTV