Daily Archives: July 13, 2022

Unlike other political and ideological currents, the extreme right and the so-called libertarians have been better able to read the changes in societies, take advantage of the weaknesses and cracks in liberal democracies and understand the advantages offered by new technologies, and they demonstrate this, above all, in their campaigns not only of fakenews, but also of shitnews.

By Aram Aharonian

The far right has understood that fragilities and vulnerabilities can be exploited and that deconstructing shared reality and sowing confusion can further polarise society and remove them in the imposition of collective imaginaries and at the electoral level. Hence their interest and efforts to generate and disseminate fake news. In Europe, the United States, Asia, Oceania and Latin America.

The growth of extreme right-wing parties throughout the world, especially in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Brazil and the United States, has put every democrat and anti-fascist on alert, and from this concern arises debates on how to combat their racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic or aporophobic hate messages, i.e., those who reject, dislike, fear and despise the poor, the underprivileged.

And then thinkers ask themselves old questions such as whether intolerance should be tolerated, or whether any idea, even if it is discriminatory, is respectable for the sake of the sacrosanct freedom of expression.

But the real concern is how to counter them and how the media and social organisations, trade unions, democratic political parties should deal with the extreme right. And we are back to the eternal dilemma of whether the media should ideally ignore the far right or whether it is better to counter-argue their discourses. The issue is once again on the agenda of academics and communicators.

From March 2020 to October 2021, more than 400 politicians, civil and religious leaders, and some 200 civil, religious and political organisations have been counted in Latin America pushing messages and lobbies against a rights agenda: they do not believe in a gender focus in education, nor in LGBTI rights, nor in equal marriage, nor in sexual and reproductive rights. And they question the UNs efforts to push for gender equality, the globalist agenda.

The far right 2.0 has been able to read the changes in society better than others, to take advantage of the weaknesses and cracks in liberal democracies and to understand the possibilities offered by new technologies, unlike other political and ideological currents. It has understood that existing weaknesses and vulnerabilities can be exploited.

Hence its interest in and efforts to generate and disseminate fake news. In the 2016 US election campaign, the vast majority of fake news were pro-Trump messages, while in Poland, twice as many fake news pages were classified as conservative as progressive ones.

The far-rights medium-term goals are to undermine the quality of public debate, promote misperceptions, foster greater hostility and erode trust in democracy, journalism and institutions.

Up to 22 new websites that function as opinion generators and content creation by influencers, to fabricators of hoaxes or fake news or the whitewashing and naturalisation of the far right were identified in Europe by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, in a report that states that the genesis of the new right lies precisely in the internet and in these types of portals.

The viralisation of messages, videos or memes on social networks is the most widely used tactic through a complex network where so-called far-right influencers are aided by an endless number of fake or automated profiles -bots and sockpuppets- and activists who engage in trolling and shitposting. Techniques that border on illegality or are punishable as a crime are becoming increasingly common.

These include doxing the disclosure of a persons personal details in order to intimidate, silence and publicly discredit critical voices and political opponents or coordinated attacks known as shitstorming.

Often these practices are supported by what have been called troll factories or troll farms, companies dedicated to creating automated accounts, spreading fake news and harassing journalists or users on social media. These companies can be funded or created by governments, but also set up by individuals apparently not linked to political formations or governments. But generally, the financiers are the same.

In the far-rights strategy, fake news is a central element, and there is a distinction between short- and medium-term objectives. Among the former, as the case of Cambridge Analytica shows, is that of winning elections or increasing electoral consensus.

The ability of fake news to modify voting intentions seems to be much more effective than traditional electoral advertisements. The slogans used Take Back Control, Make America Great Again, Italians First have sold their political products, have managed to connect with the sentiments of the citizenry and have displaced rational reflection on technical issues.

This connects with social media studies, which allow us to analyse peoples feelings, opinions, prejudices and fears, and thus personalise propaganda and push certain messages over others. Content that provokes highly stimulating emotions is more likely to be shared. That is, a Facebook post or tweet that provokes astonishment, anxiety or anger is positively linked to virality.

Already Cambridge Analytica (CA)-a private British company that combined data mining and data analysis with strategic communication for the electoral process-which came to fame in 2018 for the so-called Facebook-CA scandal-had shown that provoking anger and outrage reduced the need for rational explanations and predisposed voters to a more indiscriminately punitive mood.

In his study of the far-right US Alt-Right, The New Yorkers Andrew Marantz showed how memes that is, an image, video or text, usually distorted for caricatural purposes are key to this strategy. The algorithms used by the major social platforms were not designed to assess whether an idea was true or false, prosocial or antisocial, but to measure whether a meme triggered a surge of activating emotions in a large number of people.

Memes are associated with the tactic of shitposting, i.e., trolling and attacking political opponents and filling social networks with low-quality content to divert discussions and render what is posted on a site useless or, at the very least, worthless. Shitposting also has the function of desensitising listeners over time.

It is therefore evident that the publication of fake news and conspiracy theories favours both the viralisation of news and the emotional and visceral reactions of a significant percentage of users. And the viralisation, moreover, does not remain only in social networks, but also reaches the traditional media and even parliaments.

The phenomenon of feedback between social networks, traditional media and places of public debate such as parliaments demonstrates the existence of global networks for the dissemination of far-right discourse, such as Steve Bannons Movement, one of the promoters of far-right libertarianism, but also important lobbies such as arms or Christian fundamentalism that promote a common agenda and finance far-right parties.

This is what explains the spread of truly incredible plot theories such as Pizzagate, according to which the main leaders of the Democratic Party in the US, starting with Hillary Clinton, had created a human trafficking network and organised child sex abuse sessions in restaurants such as the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington.

Or that of Qanon which interprets the world as a struggle between Good and Evil, represented by Trump and a supposed System, respectively or that according to which Bill Gates is the creator of the coronavirus. In a bewildering and ambiguous reality, conspiracy theories offer a mould of order, whose attractive simplicity eclipses their absurdities, Forti points out.

Spains far-right Vox party studies the formations website and profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Flickr, Youtube, Instagram, TikTok and Gab. The use of these channels differs in their format and style, as they target different audience profiles.

An analysis by Andrea Castro and Pablo Daz points out that all the content generated by Vox for the digital sphere responds to the same discursive patterns: simplification and the use of direct and clear language, with belligerent expressions and calls to action, which it exploits to disqualify and ridicule its political opponents and praise its leaders. His use of networks focused on young users, such as Youtube, Instagram or TikTok, where he adapts his stylistic resources, stands out.

Also relevant is its presence on Gab, a social network characterised by not limiting any content and whose users are associated with extreme right-wing political positions.

In Germany, the AfD, the new German far right, did not become the countrys social media party by chance. They knew that the mainstream media would not let their racist and disrespectful messages get across so easily. And so, they started to sell themselves as victims who build their own rebel loudspeaker and begin to generate distrust of the mainstream media.

No other political party in Germany has more followers than Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) on Facebook. It has 4.5 million users in Germany. The more emotion a post conveys, the more reactions it provokes. This is how the algorithms score. More user interaction with a post means more visibility and more attention.

While the AfDs official pages contain posts on topics such as terrorism and immigration, the far right is at home in private Facebook groups. The modern discourse of the new far right changes and users go straight to sharing quotes from Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitlers book, or links to scientific publications on white supremacy and so on.

As a closed group, this generates a much stronger sense of community or bond, where the constant reaffirmation of the same identity that feels defrauded and deceived by the media and institutions is strengthened. Only three percent of Germans have a twitter account, but almost every journalist in Germany has one. Their tweets are aggressive and direct in order to get their issues on the media agenda and get the other parties to make statements about them.

Conspiracy theories can also be transmitted as a subtly progressive process. They call this redpilling, in reference to the movie Matrix, where the ideological component is added step by step. Personal fear is associated with a picture of the culprit. In most cases these are fears related to migration, sexual violence, social decline or terrorist attacks. Conspiracy theory provides an easy explanation and a simple picture of the enemy.

In the US it was noticed that the focus and resources afterwards were too much on Islamist terrorism. The far-right internet networks were hardly observed. There was a failure to better understand this whole subculture, in order to finally be able to classify it properly.

What is potentially threatening to democracy? What can turn into violence? What is really just trolling? Today, the authorities do not have the full picture, in terms of far-right online groups. On the Islamist side they believe they are much better protected, or at least they do not have accomplices in the upper echelons of power.

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Shitnews and fakenews, tools of the far right - PRESSENZA International News Agency

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No, I still havent got over the report in The New York Times this spring, wherein we learned of a joint AmericanUkrainian campaign to inundate Russians with propaganda intended to demoralize the public as Russian forces advanced in eastern Ukraine. Using a mix of high-tech and Cold War tactics, the government-supervised Times reported, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is circulating information about the Ukraine war among Russian citizens to sow doubt about the Kremlins accounts in an effort to undermine faith in the Kremlin.

Now is this great, disinterested journalism or what?

And here is the passage in the Times report you just have to dig: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.funded but independent news organization founded decades ago, is trying to push its broadcasts deeper into Russia.

U.S.funded but independent? How does this work? RFE/RL is a news organization now? Foundednote the passive voice herein some distant decades ago?

This piece is the work of Julian Barnes and Edward Wong, and let the bylines of these two perfectly ordinary reporters be noted for the record. Lets clean up their quite disgraceful act very briefly.

Radio Free Europe was founded in mid1949, about two years after the onset of the Cold War, by the National Committee for a Free Europe, an antiCommunist cabal of spooks, pols, and publishers Allen Dulles set in motion as one of his numerous front organizations while he was director of the CIA. It was a big deal in the Eisenhower administrations Crusade for Freedomdont you love the names they give these things?during the 1950s. The CIA funded RFE, directly but covertly, until 1972.

At that point, the policy cliques decided it was poor PR for the agency to write the checks. RFE, which merged with Radio Liberty in 1976, has since been funded by Congress via the Agency for Global Media. Its all above board now, nice and clean.

This is RFE/RL as it is. It is neither independent nor a news organization and has never been either. What Barnes and Wong did get right was their reference to Cold War tactics: What RFE/RL is up to in Russia today is a subversion campaign of exactly the kind they were founded to conduct at the Cold Wars outset.

I was put in mind of this nonsense when I read the latest last week about Rappler, the Filipino news site whose founder, Maria Ressa, won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year. Rappler has been in a running battle with the government that dates to 2017, when President Rodrigo Duterte first charged the site with breaching laws prohibiting foreign ownership of Filipino media.

The Times chimes in once again. It describes Rappler as an independent news organization and quotes Ressa asserting, This is harassment and intimidation. If this were Latin America we would describe Duterte as a good, old-fashioned caudillo, and I have a good idea we may indeed be watching as he harasses and intimidates Rappler.

But what about these charges of foreign ownership? A journalist cant go home with a Nobel for her fight for freedom of expression and be other than independent. Are Ressa and Rappler indeed independent?

Not by a long way is my short answer.

The Duterte government first went after Rappler in consequence of an investment Ressa had accepted from the Omidyar Network. Immediately a problem. Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder of Ebay, is in the democracy promotion game in George Soros fashion: He uses the civil society dodge to subvert governments on Washingtons running list of adversaries.

Ressas defense, resting as it does on a legal technicality that may or may not hold up, gives off a bad odor. Omidyar did not actually acquire shares in Rappler when it invested in it, she maintains.

For the recordremember the record?Omidyar and some kind of investment vehicle called North Base Media own nonvoting shares in Rappler. North Base bills itself as a pioneer in global digital-media investing and is a partner in another something called the Media Development Investment Fund, which does what it sounds like and lists none other than George Soros among its founders.

See what I mean about odors?

Taking Omidyars dough was Ressas first big mistake. It has since been deeper into the morass for our Maria.

In 2020, Ressa accepted a grant of $180,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy, a known CIA front that long ago inherited the agencys coup function and is the ne plus ultra in civil society subterfuge. I would greatly like to lead readers to the NED page describing this grant, which I cited in a column elsewhere earlier this year, but when I attempted to open the link I discovered, Page not found. Where on earth could they have mislaid it?

Yes, the NED Supporting freedom around the world, as its logo boasts.

How Ressa could have taken NED money is simply beyond me. I would sooner give up the craft and bag groceries.

The NEDs latest escapade involves the Kyiv Independent, a year-old online newspaper, quotation marks required, that is financed by the NED and the Canadian and European equivalents of same. The title tells you much of this operations preposterous pose. These people are given to publishing wildly propagandistic junk and quoting the Azov Battalion, the infamously neoNazi militia whose influence suffuses Ukraines public space.

CNN and Fox News, it is worth noting, quote the Kyiv Independent in turn. Three days before brutal Russians began their brutal intervention in democratic Ukraine, The Times ran an opinion essay by Olga Rudenko, a longtime resident of Sorosland and the Kyiv Independents editor-in-chief. And why not? The Kyiv Independent is the voice of democratic Ukraine against the brutal Russian Federation. And dont forget your democratic and your brutals.

Full credit here: This account of the NEDs Kyiv Independent handiwork comes from Covert Action Magazine, a grand presence in (truly) independent journalism whose distinguished list of cofounders includes Philip Agee and William Kunstler. Wonderfully enough, it is now edited by Philips son, Chris.

Independent: It is independent, she is independent, we are independent. Being independent, or claiming to be, is de rigueur, it seems. Those of us working in the independent press cannot be other than flattered. As I have argued severally, it is among independent publications that the dynamism of our otherwise decaying profession resides. If journalism is to find its way out of its current mess, it will be by way of those publishing or broadcasting independently of powerpolitical power, corporate power, bureaucratic power.

The Times is on the ball in these matters, of course. The good people of Eighth Avenue told us so a few months back, when they launched a new advertising campaign to establish their bona fides. Independent journalism for independent lives is the tagline.

They were at least honest enough to identify this as a new brand marketing campaign, so we know straightaway The Times is not the slightest bit serious about the question of the presss independence. After that, I even liked the pablum: spotlighting how Times journalism is inspiration for the unique lives of our readers. We are shining a light on the power independent journalism has to make readers lives more fulfilling.

What would we do without the light The Times shines on us, we independents? How unfulfilled would be our lives.

In the course of this presentation, text and video, The Timess copywriters rang every identity politics bell I could think of and some I couldnt. Let them fritter away what remains of the papers reputation on such juvenile rubbishthis is their choice. The important point here is the profligate misuse of the worthy idea of journalism as an independent pole of power.

The Times has submitted to government supervision, usually but not always informally, at least since the Cold Wars onset in 1947 and arguably for decades prior to that. This, too, is a matter of record. It is a publicly listed company that, just as the ad campaign indicates, views the enterprise of journalism as, at bottom, a good brand and a profit center. Like the rest of the corporate-owned media and broadcasters, the unique responsibilities media bear in a (nominally) democratic society are at this point the subservient priority.

Radio Free Europe is independent. Maria Ressa and Rappler are independent. Government funding doesnt matter: When The New York Times tells you it is independent, whatever silliness is to come may amuse, but it will no longer surprise. As I have written elsewhere, the colonization of independent media has begun.

Driven out of a nearby village, Natalia Holovenko, 59, was in a line to register for aid when she began sobbing. We dont have any Nazis here! she said, a reference to Russian President Vladimir V. Putins false justification of the war as needed to de-Nazify Ukraine. He just wants to kill us.

That is Roger Cohen, the Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, reporting in midJune from Mykolaiv, a port city lying midway along the Black Sea between Odessa and the Crimean coast. Here we have a near-perfect example of how falsehoods, repeated often enough, can be transformed into accepted truths.

Roger Cohen is a distinguished correspondent, columnist, and once long ago The Timess foreign editor. He has some brilliant bylines in his clipping binder: He once ventured through Chongqing, ate a dinner of dog (more than I could do right there), and wrote an excellent piece of cultural crit about it. To me, Cohen proved on several occasions a supportive friend and colleague during my later Herald Tribune days.

But Roger, Roger, what is this? You now lead readers into The Timess vast hall of mirrors, wherein what is false is true and what is true is false justification? Say it aint so, Joe. There is no such thing as a Nazi problem in Ukraine, you tell us, and in the same piece you quote an official reciting neoNazi ideology, which you reproduce without, apparently, recognizing it for what it is? Alas, man.

The presence of neoNazis in Ukraine has been a touchy topic since the U.S. cultivated the antidemocratic coup that brought the current regime to power in 2014. Yes, antidemocratic: It brought down a legitimately elected president and reflected the sentiments of a very small fraction of the Ukrainian population.

While the putschists gathered momentum and in the years following the coup, the presence of neoNazis, and I sometimes wondered if we needed the neo, was downplayed in the major dailies but never much in dispute. There were mentions of their presence here and there if you read the coverage carefully. I often had the impression correspondents wanted to say more than their foreign editors would allow. Reflecting the new regimes dependence on the Azov Battalion, whose tentacles run through many of Ukraines public institutions, the group was incorporated into the nations National Guard a few months after the coup.

Nothing I write here is in dispute, or shouldnt be. It is all documented. The BBC, The Guardian, The New York Timesthey all reported at length on this. In 2018, none other than the Atlantic Council, the think tank funded by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, published Ukraines Got a Real Problem with Far-Right Violence (And No, RT Didnt Write This Headline). In it, Josh Cohen laid out the whole neoNazi nine. So, a matter of record even among those cheerleading the regime in Kiev.

But since brutal Russia began its brutal military operation against democratic Ukraine in February, airbrushing the neoNazi presence out of the Ukrainian picture has become an imperative. There simply cannot be any neoNazis in Ukraine.

Graphic case in point: In early March PBS did an interview with a small town mayor named Artem Semenikhin, who was praising the heroic efforts of democratic Ukrainian forces for beating back brutal Russians. Behind Semenikhin was a photograph of Stepan Bandera, the fanatically Russophobic, Jew-hating leader of Ukrainian Nazis during World War II. Bandera is not a hero of present-day neoNazis: He is the hero.

PBS made my point better than I can: It blurred the photograph and ran the interview without commenting on it.

On the kooky side, we have the remarks of Andrey Melnik, Kievs stunningly coarse ambassador to Berlin. In an interview with a German journalist last week, the repeatedly offensive envoy defended Bandera as a freedom fighter. What about Bandera and his followers who, with the Nazis, killed 800,000 Jews in Ukraine along with massacres of 40,000 or so Poles residing in Ukraine? There are no laws for those who fight for freedom, saith Melnik, who likened Bandera to Robin Hood as someone who didnt act according to the law.

In effect, what we witness now with Ukraines neoNazis and its broader extreme-right scene is what the policy cliques and their clerks in the press have long done elsewhere. When alQaeda activated in Syria, they were rebranded as alNusra, which, when exposed, was renamed something else, and then something elseall along referenced in the media as moderate rebels. Those right-wing fanatics the Reagan administration financed to bring down the Sandinistas in Nicaragua 40 years ago were, of course, freedom fighters.

This is all we witness in Ukraine, a rebranding exercise. Not too complicated.

Roger Cohens piece from Mykoliav, a piece very unworthy of his gifts and intellect, is precisely in this line. I single it out because of Cohens stature and because it is wrong three times.

First of all, I wish I could have a quick word with Natalia Holovenko. I would like to know what she meant by here when she told Cohen, We dont have any Nazis here. I cannot know, of course. But I am just short of convinced she meant not here in Mykolaiv, which would turn her exclamation upside down, making it an implicit acknowledgement that there are indeed Nazis elsewhere in Ukraine.

Cohen had no business reifying this statement and implying it meant anywhere in Ukraine when it is at a minimum unclear what Natalia Holovenko meant. He should have stated the case one way or the other. Finally, it beggars belief that a correspondent of his caliber would gratuitously characterize Moscows stated intent to deNazify Ukraine as false justification given the weight of evidence that this is a very good thing to do.

I was especially interested in an interview Cohen had with Oleksandr Senkevych, Mykolaivs mayor, who exudes confidence, a man in perpetual motion in green camouflage cargo pants, with a Glock pistol at his hip and an almost manic gleam in his blue eyes.

It is a little over the top as these things go, but I believe him now about the manic gleam.

Here is the quotation that caught my eye: He sees this as a war between culturesin Russia, the leader says something and the sheep follow, he said, but in Ukraine, democracy has taken hold. In Mr. Putins Russia, everything said means the opposite: protect means invade and military targets means civilians. In Ukraine, Mr. Senkevych said, we live in reality.

There are many good accounts of the etymology of Ukraines Nazistheir history, their various splits, their ideological nuances one group to the next. What looks to me a good one came out three days after Cohens piece. It was written by Dmitry Plotnikov, a Russian journalist who covers events in the former Soviet republics, an interesting line of inquiry. Plotnikovs work appears in various publications; I read this one on RT. I do not know either his byline or his reputation, but he seems here to have a good command of his material.

Plotnikovs topic in Ukraines neoNazi Azov Battalion has built a state within a state, and it despises both Russia and the West is the prevalent ideology among the whole collection of extreme-right fanatics active in Ukraine. The subhead on this piece is an informative start. The Ukrainian regiment adheres loosely to its own brand of National Idea, loosely modeled on Mussolinis Italy.

It is a lengthy piece. What captivated me, having read the Cohen item, was this passage. Plotniov is citing Dmitry Dontsov, an influential far-right ideologist in the 1920s:

Dontsov equated the concepts of nation and race. The latter he divided into master and slave races. According to Dontsov, Ukrainians are a race of masters, while Russians are a race of slaves seeking to enslave Ukrainians. The clash between Ukrainians and Russians is of an absolute, existential nature and can only end with the destruction of one of the parties, Dontsov believed.

I didnt like Oleksandr Senkevych much after reading this passage, with his gleam and his Glock and his cargo pants. I read his remarks to Cohen again, and it is clear to me that Roger had encountered a good specimen of the Ukrainian right-wing ideologue, 2022 version. This is a war of cultures, they are sheep, we are democrats: It seems to me Roger Cohen just demonstrated plainly the presence in Ukraine of exactly what he intended to tell us was not there.

Editors Note: This is the third installment of Patrick Lawrences weekly media critic column. See his previous columns below:

Patrick Lawrence: The Power of Images

Foreign Policy: The Warmongers Game

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Patrick Lawrence: This Week in Fake News / Blurred Truths - Scheerpost.com

Among the 27 European Union countries, Bulgarians have the highest percentage who say that they had often been exposed to disinformation and fake news in the past seven days, according to the results of a poll by Eurobarometer.

The Eurobarometer poll found that 55 per cent of Bulgarians said that they had been very often or often exposed to disinformation and fake news in the preceding seven days.

The poll, done in all EU countries between April 26 and May 11 2022, found the average across the bloc for those who said that they had been exposed to disinformation and fake news in the past seven days very often was 10 per cent, and often, 10 per cent.

Asked if they felt confident that they could recognise disinformation when they encountered it, 18 per cent of Bulgarians said that they were very confident and 49 per cent somewhat confident.

Asked which news sources they trusted the most, and allowed a maximum of three answers, 44 per cent of Bulgarians said that their most trusted news source was public television and radio stations, compared with an EU average of 49 per cent.

This was followed by people, groups or friends I follow on social media or messaging platforms 25 per cent, and other online news platforms including blogs and podcasts 23 per cent.

Twenty-one per cent said private television and radio stations, 19 per cent YouTube or other video platforms and 18 per cent the print press and its websites.

Again with multiple answers allowed, 86 per cent said that the media that they had most used to access news in the past seven days was television, followed by 60 per cent online news platforms, 47 per cent social media and blogs, 34 per cent radio and 13 per cent print media.

Asked what made it most likely that they would read an online news article, 60 per cent said that they would do so if the headline seemed relevant to their interests, 43 per cent because they trusted the news website, 35 per cent because the headline was catchy while trailing in fourth place, at 19 per cent, it shows an interesting photo or video.

(Photo: Andr Rainaud/freeimages.com)

The Sofia Globe doesnt do disinformation or fake news. Please help keep our independent journalism alive by clicking on the orange button below and signing up to become a supporter on patreon.com. Becoming a patron of The Sofia Globe costs as little as three euro a month or the equivalent in other currencies.

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Poll: Bulgarians top in EU in saying they are exposed to disinformation, fake news - The Sofia Globe

Tamil star Vikram has showered praise on the Mozart of Madras, A.R. Rahman, calling the ace music director who has scored music for his upcoming film 'Cobra', a living legend.Participating in the audio launch event of the film in Chennai, Vikram jokingly said, "I shouldn't place my hand on my chest for there is a good possibility that people might say that I have suffered a heart attack."

Referring to a section of the media that had wrongly reported that he had suffered a heart attack, Vikram said, "I saw lots of wrong information out there. Some said I had suffered a heart attack and that I was lying at a hospital. There were some who photoshopped my face onto some poor patient."

To the delight of his cheering fans in the audience, he added: "I feel that I have seen lots and that this is nothing. When my family, my fans, my friends and people like you support me, nothing can happen to me.

"That is because you all know that I suffered an accident when I was 20 years old and that I faced a situation where my leg had to be amputated. When I have recovered from such a situation and come back, all this is nothing."

Vikram went on to clarify, "I only had a small chest discomfort and that was blown out of proportion. Thank you."

Stating that he had always lived for cinema, Vikram said: "A long time ago, I did an advertisement when I hadn't come to cinema. I played a Chola king in an ad for a tea brand. A cameraman called Chang, a technician called Subramani and a musician named Dilip worked on it as well. Today, I have played the role of the Chola king Aditya Karikalan, that too in an epic film like 'Ponniyin Selvan' under the direction of my dream director Mani Ratnam.

"The man who was Dilip then, has won two Oscars and is known the world over and is present before us today as A.R. Rahman sir. What this shows is that if you have a dream for yourselves, if you have a goal and if you work for it, whoever you are, you can reach heights that you never imagined. Rahman sir is a big example of that. I have to thank you sir for giving such a great honour to our country," Vikram said.

He went on to add, "Rahman sir is a living legend. Be it 'Ponniyin Selvan' or 'I' or 'Ravanan', I get a fresh burst of energy when I act in his songs because I have loved his music and I am such a great fan of him."

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Vikram jokes about fake news of his heart attack, recalls time when his leg had to be amputated - India TV News

Stocks fell this morning on a very strong June jobs report before trading flat through noon. The latest batch of jobs data, released before the market opened, showed a huge payrolls beat (+372k jobs reported vs. +268k expected) alongside climbing hourly wages, which jumped 0.3% month-over-month (MoM), matching expectations. Unemployment remained unchanged at 3.6%.

The surprisingly large beat flew in the face of recent economic data that suggested the US has already entered a recession. But perhaps the most stunning disconnect was found in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) very own June household survey. The household survey is designed to measure the size of the labor force in the US with demographic detail. This survey is where the BLS derives the unemployment rate from.

And over the last three months, the household surveys findings have not aligned with the headline jobs numbers (aka the establishment survey). Junes household survey actually reported a 315,000 decline in jobs. Aprils household survey showed a similarly striking drop of 353,000 jobs opposite a headline April jobs report gain of 428,000 payrolls.

Mays household survey matched the establishment survey, but April and June did not in the slightest.

Thats probably what caused the recent dip in the labor force participation rate, which now sits flat since the start of the year after rising in Q1.

Cumulative discrepancies between the household and establishment surveys have created a major gap that began forming in March, too.

Thats abundantly clear when you plot both surveys on a chart. The household survey peaked back in March while the establishment survey just kept on rising. Over the last three months, the establishment survey shows a gain of 1.124 million jobs vs. the household, which shows a net employment loss of 347,000. Thats a total difference of about 1.5 million jobs.

How is this possible, you may ask? It all has to do with the demographics of the household survey, which divides workers into three categories:

Full-time, part-time, and multiple jobholders.

Full-time employees declined by 70,000 since March while part-time workers fell by 326,000. Multiple jobholders, on the other hand, have surged to a post-Covid high of 7.541 million. Multiple jobholders swelled by 239,000 in June alone opposite full-time and part-time workers, who fell by 152,000 and 326,000 last month, respectively.

But it gets even worse.

Multiple jobholders whose primary and secondary jobs are both full-time just hit a record high as well.

In short, there are far fewer people working than the last handful of jobs reports would suggest. There has, however, been a sharp increase in the number of people working multiple jobs. This is reflected in the recent jobs beats, which count the number of totalpayrolls, not workers.

Does that sound like the kind of thing that happens when the economy is strong? Not at all. Usually, folks are happy to have only one employer during times of economic prosperity.

The reality here is that US labor is not in a healthy place. Whats more, the US is experiencing a labor shortage during what seems to be the early stages of a recession.

And it should only get worse as high-quality jobs fall opposite ones that are taken by workers already employed elsewhere. Investors saw this mornings jobs beat as a potentially bearish impulse, as it suggested that the economy was strong enough to handle an aggressive rate hike schedule from the Fed.

The truth is that its a bearish impulse for an entirely different reason. US labor is in shambles, hidden by headline jobs gains that the BLS uses as a smokescreen. Its another sign that this recession is going to be far more intense than most expect, and when the market realizes that, share prices should react very negatively in turn.

Read the original here:

The June Jobs Report Is "Fake News," Here's Why - Unseen Opportunity

The Actors Guild of Nigeria, AGN, has warned those responsible for spreading fake death news and threatening star actors on social media platforms.

The President of the AGN, Emeka Rollas, in a statement signed by his SSA on Media and Publicity, Kemi Adekomi, warned that the Guild was working with relevant law enforcement agents and will arrest culprits.

He described such action as callous, adding that the AGN had set up machinery, in collaboration with relevant law enforcement agents, to track down and apprehend heartless culprits behind those evil acts.

Part of the statement read: There have been a series of fake reports of death of major star actors like Olu Jacobs, Kanayo O. Kanayo, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, John Okafor (Mr Ibu), Genevieve Nnaji, Pete Edochie and many others on social media just to generate followers on their blogs and pages.

We cant fold our arms and watch this misdemeanour continue unabated.

The AGN President decried that it was inhuman to write obituary of anyone alive or peddle fake news, advising those behind this incessant mischief to desist henceforth, before they are caught by the long arms of the law.

Read the rest here:

AGN warns those threatening Nollywood actors, initiators of fake news - Daily Post Nigeria

In 2018, the Oxford English Dictionary named toxic its word of the year. Unsurprising given the political climate at the time: Trump was President, Britain was Brexiting, and tech companies were under intense scrutiny for their role in enabling toxic environments online.

Among the runners-up, though, was another word describing a specific form of toxicity: gaslighting. I remember hearing it for the first time and being slightly confused about where the word came frombut I very much recognized the dynamic.Gaslighting is a form of emotional manipulation, in which the gaslighter questions or denies the validity of their targets emotions and perceptions. Psychologists most often cite it as a form of abuse in relationships, but it extends well beyond that. Nowadays, gaslighting is used to describe many more ways of questioning peoples experiences, whether its a U.S. president railing about fake news or someone at work telling you youre taking a racist or sexist comment too seriously.

The verb to gaslight originally comes from a play called . . . wait for it . . . Gas Light. This 1938 thriller, set in Victorian London, follows a well-to-do husband as he attempts to convince his wife shes going insane (in part by telling her shes imagining a dimming gas light in their home). The play became an Oscar-winning film and helped catalyze the public understanding and academic study of this form of abuse.

The Victorian setting of the play is significant: This was an early era for psychology, when scientists began studying mental illness empirically and methodically. It was also the culmination of a much longer history of a (now-defunct) condition called hysteria, which classified abnormal behavior in women as a physical affliction of the uterus. From Ancient Greece to 19th-century London, countless doctors in the West claimed that women who deviated from normal female behaviori.e., being modest, sexually inhibited, submissive, subdued, unquestioning, religious, etc.were in fact physically unwell.

Some of this non-normative behavior may well have been forms of mental illness that earlier eras didnt have a vocabulary for. Much of it, though, was undoubtedly just women being normal human beings, with a full range of emotions and personalities. Because of this long history of menand specifically men with power, such as doctors or religious leadersdoubting womens mental faculties, women have been subjected to the generational trauma of these behavioral stereotypes. Even today, despite so many advancements in modern medicine, those preconceived notions about how women should be or behave remain deeply embedded in our culture.

That history is one of the reasons women are more associated with gaslighting, particularly in relationships. Its still commonplace in our society to stereotype female assertiveness as unnatural or attempt to diminish it. The familiar stereotypes around women being more sensitive, emotional, or less rational than men are weapons in every gaslighters arsenal.

In the workplace, this has often showed up in cases of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. A boss who doubts the seriousness of an employees complaint about her co-workers inappropriate comments is gaslighting her. That kind of invalidation of womens experiences traces a direct line to humanitys long history of misogyny, patriarchy, and sexism. Fortunately, now that more research has been done on this topic, there are many resources available to women who experience this form of abuse.

Whats important to glean from gaslighting as a psychological concept is that its all about the gaslighter maintaining control in difficult situations. And theyre able to maintain that control by virtue of their importance in someones life. The gaslighter has to be important enough to the victim(s) that they are willing to question their own emotions. So, its never really about victims being mentally weaker compared to their abusers. Its about the gaslighter abusing their power in a relationship, and that power can come from any number of things: love, loyalty, prestige, trust, admiration, and so on.

Gaslighting makes it easier for people whove done something wrong or hurtful to confront it. Its a maneuver that allows them to sidestep their own self-examination by denying the reality around them. It is not the same as disagreement, which is natural and normal in relationships of all kinds and scales. Its about negating someone elses (uncomfortable or inconvenient) truth.

It also doesnt just occur on individual levels or toward women. Racial gaslighting is a prevalent form of denial in this country that occurs at individual, group, and institutional levels.

For individuals from diverse ethnic or racial backgrounds, this can be particularly troubling in interpersonal situations. Journalist Siobhan Neela-Stock gives a few examples of her experiences with racial gaslighting that I immediately found familiar:

Whenever Ive pushed back [against] the racist question Where are you from?, argued against someone who says discussing race perpetuates racism or contradicted members of my white extended family who insist Eric Garners death was his fault, Im usually told Im wrong, its not that big of a deal, or Im imagining things. Siobhan Neela-Stock (Mashable, 2020)

This is an all-too familiar experience for many people of color in the United States. The key part of that quote is the last bit where the author specifies that its her version of reality thats called into question through denial, diminishment, or accusations of full-blown delusion. These conversations happen all the time in private, at work, and even on television.

The examples of this in the media in the past decade are numberless. When protesters were criminalized in the press after George Floyds murder, that was a form of gaslighting (often racially motivated) that denied the validity of their anger. When they were written up in headlines as targets of state-sanctioned violence, often in the passive voice and without the perpetrators (i.e., the police or military) being named, that was also gaslighting. These are subtle forms of linguistic manipulation that seek to deny or obscure the truths we observe in real life.

And of course, the most famous example, the reason that the Oxford English Dictionary chose gaslighting as a runner-up for word of the year, is Donald Trump. In 2018, President Trump was at the height of his manipulative powers, gaslighting the entire nation by constantly calling the trustworthiness of some of our most respected journalistic institutions into question. As one commentator remembers it, at various points Trump claimed:

. . . that he watched thousands of people cheering on 9/11 in Jersey City (police say theres no evidence of this), that the Mexican government forces immigrants into the U.S. (no evidence), that there are 30 or 34 million immigrants in this country (there are 10 or 11 million), that he never supported the Iraq War (he told Howard Stern he did), that the unemployment rate is as high as 42 percent (the highest reported rate is 16.4 percent), that the U.S. is the highest-taxed country in the world (not true based on any metric of consideration), that crime is on the rise (its falling and has been for decades), and too many other things to list here because the whole tactic is to clog the drain with an indecipherable mass of toxic waste. Lauren Duca, Teen Vogue (2016)

When, under closer scrutiny, Trump then claimed that he was the victim of fake news and other media conspiracies, he forced millions of Americans to question whether they could trust news outlets they previously respected for their journalistic integrity. Even for those who understood that he was lying, theres only so far you can go when the most powerful person in the country tells you its his word or yours.

Trump got to power and maintained it in large part by gaslighting Americans en masse. (And he certainly was not the first American in power to do so.) But there are even more insidious forms of gaslighting that affect millions of people without the boost of a presidents word. Institutions and businesses, employers and educatorstheyre all capable of gaslighting at scale. And the only thing that stopped Trump in the end was hard data: You cant keep believing in someones denials when you have fact-checkers on your side.

In the Gas Light play, a detective eventually shows up and assures the distressed wife that shes not imagining the dimming of the gas lights. Only then does she begin to believe her own perceptions again. In modern instances of gaslighting, be it racial or relational, victims need allies to help affirm that their experiences are valid.

Knowing how to recognize gaslighting is therefore key for all of us. The first step is to identify that theres a problem. For victims of gaslighting, this is often the hardest step, because it means that someone who plays an important role in their lives is hurting them.

Next, before asking whos right and whos wrong, acknowledge the validity of the targets feelings and experiences. Because thats often what the issue boils down to in most instances of interpersonal gaslighting: intention vs. impact. No matter how unaware or well-intentioned a comment may be, the impact it has can be very different. Acknowledging that words can hurt without people meaning to is critical for becoming more sensitive to gaslighting.

Ultimately, gaslighting thrives on discomfort with confrontation, both for the gaslighter and the target of their (intended or unintended) abuse. Getting more comfortable with your own discomfort around issues of race, gender, identity, or even just your own relationships will help you recognize and respond to gaslighting better.

And finally, remember that disagreement is not the same as denying someones experience. Disagreeing is an important, healthy way to enable debate and share diverse perspectives. But you can disagree with someone without shutting them down or invalidating their experience. If we can all at least agree on that, then it becomes much easier to recognize and disarm gaslighters wherever they operate.

More here:

What is gaslighting? - Fast Company

"We must all remember that until a British Prime minister talks to the Queen he will not resign without her majesty's consent. So, until then Johnson is very much the Prime minister. Not once in his speech did, he mention the word resign. Not even once did he refer to a meeting with the queen. So yes, he has not resigned yet," wrote Dr Masimba Mavaza, to reassure the nervous Zanu PF regime.

"When those who claim to be masters of democracy slip into democratic confusion it is those who follow them who get the sharp edge. It is true that sometimes democracy is costly. Britain has experienced four general elections in three years and is likely to have the fifth."There are many take home lessons to be learned from the Boris Johnson saga, one of which being that no individual, no matter how high up the grease-pole they happen to be, is untouchable. This is a very important point because it gives confidence to those below to hold the leaders to account.

Democratic account is a key tenet of a healthy a functioning democracy and one that has made the system champion in quickly, efficiently, and effectively handling mismanagement, corruption and stamping out tyranny.

In a dysfunctional autocratic political system such as that in Zimbabwe, the top dog is untouchable and hence the reason why not even one Zanu PF minister dared to even protest much less resign even at the height of such madness as the wholesale looting of Marange diamonds or the Gukurahundi massacre. Mugabe and now Mnangagwa has enjoyed absolute power and the protesting individual would not have stopped the madness but rather booted out of the party. And all who have been booted out of Zanu PF have found "it is cold out there!" as Professor Jonathan Moyo has testified.

"But as we've seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves," announced Prime Minister Boris Johnson outside the door of 10 Downing Street.

"And my friends in politics, no-one is remotely indispensable and our brilliant and Darwinian system will produce another leader, equally committed to taking this country forward through tough times.

"Not just helping families to get through it, but changing and improving the way we do things, cutting burdens on businesses and families and yes, cutting taxes, because that is the way to generate the growth and the income we need to pay for great public services.

"And to that new leader, I say whoever he or she may be, I say I will give you as much support as I can. And to you, the British public.

"I know that there will be many people who are relieved and perhaps quite a few who will also be disappointed. And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world."

Of course, Boris Johnson was disappointed to give up being Prime Minister "the best job in the world"; he would not be human if he otherwise. The point is he is giving it up because the Conservative MPs, in the first instance, and the voting public if they had failed to act, wanted him to go. And he is going; the starting gun for electing a new party leader who will then become Prime Minister has been fired.

The truth is the Zanu PF regime, like all other authoritarian and political despots the world over have been angling for Boris Johnson to defy the democratic wishes of his party and the voting public and refuse to leave office. It is not so much that Zanu PF wanted Boris to remain in office; they loath regime change because every time it happens, they fear the people of Zimbabwe might be inspired to seek regime change too.

When then President Donald Trump stormed Capital Hill on 6th January 2021, the date that has gone down in human history as the day American democracy was tested to destruction and passed; despots from Beijing, Moscow and most of Africa and South America were disappointed Trump failed. Nothing would have helped consolidate their own authoritarian dictatorship than Trump defying the democratic wishes of the American people! Nothing!

In an interview with Trevor Ncube, Professor Welshman Ncube revealed why the late dictator Robert Mugabe had stubbornly refused to appoint him Deputy Prime Minister in place of Arthur Mutambara he feared contingency. If the MDC-N herd can elect a new leader and have him replace their leader in the GNU, the Zanu PF herd would certainly want to do the same threatening Mugabe's own position!

So, Dr Masimba Mavaza's article in Zimeye "Boris Johnson, Zimbabwe View", no doubt reproduced in the Zanu PF control public media, is to reassure the Zanu PF leaders and supporters that reports of PM Johnson throwing in the towel, is all fake news. The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown and, needless to say, the people of Zimbabwe are desperate for regime change and view the coming elections as an opportunity to finally deliver that change.

Zanu PF is set to rig the 2023 elections thanks to MDC/CCC leaders' not only selling out on reforms but insisting on participating in these flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy. However Zanu PF knows it is not out of the woods yet because the possibility of street protest and/or another military coup to force regime change is a certainty.

The present economic chaos that has forced millions into abject poverty and despair cannot continue for much longer. Regime change in in the air, you take it with very breath, and no wonder the whole Zanu PF regime is a nervous wreck!

"Not once in his speech did, he mention the word resign!" proclaimed Dr Mavaza. Talk of fake news that takes the biscuit! The Conservative party machinery is expected to produce a new party leader by November and Boris will walk the plunk, jarring the regime change sensitive nerves of the Zanu PF regime leaders and cronies alike!

All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.

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Boris is still PM, he never 'mentioned resign' - fake news to sooth jarred regime change sensitive nerves - Bulawayo24 News