Category Archives: Fake News

The City of Welland says it appears the record has been set straight over a fake news release that circulated on social media over the weekend.

The fictitious post said the former John Deere lands in Dain City, as well as east of the property, were to be used to backfill a section of the old Welland Canal for residential and commercial development.

On Thursday, the citys corporate communications manager, Marc MacDonald, said the phony post no longer seems to be generating calls from the public.

The confusion seems to have been cleared after staff and council responded to residents and an official city statement went out, said MacDonald.

MacDonald said the person (or persons) responsible for the false claims has not yet been identified.

Niagara Regional Police were never asked to probe the matter, he said.

We will continue to monitor social media for this type of misinformation and correct when possible, he said.

In addition to using a template that made the communique look official, city logos were added along with a map and two photos.

The area, used by South Niagara Rowing Club, is still a navigable waterway because its connected to the working Welland Canal.

Empire Communities is poised to construct as many as 2,000 homes in the area, including more than 1,400 slated for the Dain East subdivision, north of Forks Road and east of the former John Deere lands.

The rest are for the Dain West subdivision, fronting Canal Bank Street on the property of the factory that closed in 2009.

In the Dain East subdivision, the first to be built, three parks will be constructed including one overlooking the working Welland Canal along with 2.5 kilometres of trails.

The Dain West subdivision will feature two parks, four kilometres of trails and land for possibly a Catholic elementary school.

Empire Communities has committed $10 million toward replacement of the Forks Road bridge, which was 88 years old when it was decommissioned in 2018 and demolished the following year.

The city will contribute $5 million, with more than $4.1 million coming the federal and provincial governments.

The developer is also paying for most of a multi-use sports park behind Welland International Flatwater Centre, covering $2.75 million of its $3-million price tag, along with $300,000 from Canadian Tire Jumpstart.

The developers investment into the city is estimated to be up to $21 million.

With files from Dave Johnson

Read more from the original source:

'Confusion seems to have cleared' over fake 'news release' about Welland Canal being filled in - Welland Tribune

New information about the case of Madeleine McCann, the child who went missing from a Portuguese hotel room in Praia da Luz 15 years ago while her parents notoriously were eating tapas about 50 metres away, brings fresh reminders of a certain kind of human malignance.

Actual evidence has been unearthed, apparently, linking the missing child to the camper van where the sole suspect and convicted rapist, Christian Brckner was living at the time. German prosecutors are "sure" he is the murderer and will soon decide whether he should stand trial for other child-related incidents in Portugal, 10 years apart.

The words "human malignance" go nowhere near describing Brckner's trail of grief and destruction. They describe instead the everyday conspiracy theorists, the ordinary ghouls, the bright-eyed "true crime" enthusiasts who for 15 years have hung Madeleine's disappearance squarely on the girl's grieving parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

Fifteen years of a relentless search for a child by her parents, by three police forces and a slew of private investigators. Fifteen years of tabloid splashes, books, documentaries, podcasts, libel cases, vile slander and blame games.

Few issues flush out more self-righteous bile than other peoples parenting. From the early days, one element remained constant: the public vilification and online persecution of the missing childs parents.

Kate McCanns stoicism, her grimly maintained jogging routine, her t-shirt selection, her refusal to claw the earth in remorse for her parenting mistakes, were deemed proof that she was not a natural mother.

Gerry McCann tried explained that he and his wife had been advised that self-control might have most impact on a putative kidnapper tuning into their many television appeals. She continued to give tearless, self-flagellating interviews, admitting their mistakes and revealing that their three, much-wanted babies were the result of IVF treatment.

It made no difference.

Five years ago, on the 10th anniversary of the childs disappearance, tweets with the hastag #McCann, eviscerating the couple as cold-hearted liars, were averaging 100 an hour.

It doesnt ever stop. Somewhere in the world, someone is doing this . . . and youre either with them or against them, said Dr John Synnott, a senior lecturer in investigative psychology who led the study at the University of Huddersfield.

The group, operating in what he called an anti-social network, had a strong female presence and for many, it had clearly become a badge of identity, their first thought of the day in a witch-hunt that took up vast proportions of their lives. Some are still out there. To what purpose ?

They like the self-image of righteous campaigners, seekers of justice, proprietors of morality. And the McCanns were easy meat.

The goal was not merely to punish them for child neglect but to prove they had actually killed their daughter and buried her body. Anyone who argued otherwise was a shill, ie in the paid employ of the McCanns and/or engaged in a criminal cover-up with a sinister media/ government/justice complex to protect paedophiles, or just too stupid to accept the social sleuths sophisticated grasp of the facts.

Their pin-up was Gonalo Amaral, the Portuguese lead investigator who was swiftly removed from the case. His 2008 book, Maddie: The Truth about the Lie, which earned him about 400,000, drew a civil lawsuit for damages from the McCanns who were awarded 430,000 plus damages. This was overturned on appeal, and the Portuguese supreme court went on to uphold Amarals right to freedom of expression.

Media commentators whose own papers were profiteering mightily on the back of unverified reports from dodgy Portuguese sources dismissed that sort of thing as a fight to control the narrative.

The suggestion that the McCanns were complicit in their daughters disappearance was bounced around with such casual glee that the couple finally sued the Daily Express for libel and won 550,000 (plus 375, 000 for the so-called Tapas Seven, their holiday companions).

But the word was out there. People chatting in Irish homes, shops, hairdressers and pubs tapped their noses, sage-like just read that paper, watch this doc, see for yourself and casually destroyed two grieving parents.

Right, so why would a stone-cold pair of killers raise and spend millions pursuing a noisy, relentless, multimillion-euro global campaign to keep the investigation alive for 15 years?

Wouldnt you just slink off saying phew, we got away with it? Its the money, stupid, chanted the anti-McCanns.

In many ways the anti-McCanns were a precursor of the circular reasoning that has become social medias default. Ask for independent evidence to support a glib claim, distortion or smear vaccines, Brexit, election steals, politicians and the answer will come, whatabout . . ., educate yourself , MSM shill, too busy doing a real job, bye.

Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, uses a generic Twitter exchange to illustrate.

Me: Wow. Have you seen evidence for that?

Them: Yes, try looking.

Me: Can you point me to any ?

Them: Im not your golden retriever.

Me: Agreed! Can you point me to any?

Them: Do your own research.

It can be dismissed as online trash of course, easily avoided, so just get off Twitter.

Except these are the certainties and the bad faith assumptions that are shaping whole nations and our world. In this case the kind that resulted in the casual public destruction of parents grieving the unimaginable loss of their child. And plenty of people you know took joy in it.

Original post:

Fake news trolls have persecuted innocent McCanns for 15 years - The Irish Times

Fact Check

oi-Deepika S

| Published: Tuesday, May 24, 2022, 13:06 [IST]

New Delhi, May 24: Several media reports claimed that actor VijayDeverakonda and SamanthaRuth Prabhu were injured while shooting for Kushi movie .The report further stated that the duo immediately rushed to a hospital and was helped with first aid.

As soon as the news spread on social media, the spokesperson of the film called the report 'fake'.

"There are few reports that Vijay Deverakonda and Samantha Ruth Prabhu were injured while shooting for Kushi movie. There is no truth in this news. The entire team returned to Hyderabad yesterday after successfully completing 30 days of shooting in Kashmir. Don't believe such news," he tweeted.

Earlier reports were rife that Samantha and Vijay were performing a stunt sequence in the Pahalgam area of Kashmir during which they sustained injuries. In both the actors had to run a vehicle over the rope tied on both sides of the Lidder river, but unfortunately, the vehicle fell down into the deep water and both injured their backs.

Kushi, the film is being directed and produced by Shiva Nirvana. It is slated to release on December 23, 2022, in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.

Vijay Deverakonda, Samantha injured on Kushi sets.

Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Vijay Deverakonda are safe. Dont believe such rumours.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 24, 2022, 13:06 [IST]

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Fake news alert: Vijay Deverakonda, Samantha injured on Kushi sets? Here's the truth - Oneindia

By Jake Chung / Staff writer, with CNA

The Supreme Prosecutors Office on Wednesday established a task force to combat bribery and election-related violence, which is to take special note of new methods of paying bribes, such as cryptocurrencies and mobile payments.

The November local elections would be a challenge for the judiciary, especially in three areas bribery, fake news and possible foreign intervention Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang () said at the establishment ceremony.

Local prosecutors offices have established temporary command centers to provide technical support when investigating election cases, Tsai said, exhorting the task force to stop at nothing to prosecute any person seeking to sway an election through wealth or violence.

Law enforcement officers and the judiciary should also take note of new methods of payment, such as cryptocurrencies and mobile payment systems, which could replace traditional ways of paying bribes, he said.

The judiciary should closely monitor any abnormal payments to election candidates or their heelers via the ministrys Financial Intelligence Unit, he added.

The judiciary must also pay attention to whether an election has been swayed by fake news and, in the instance of confirmed fake news, the judiciary must act swiftly to debunk the claims as soon as possible, Tsai said.

Talking about anti-bribery measures is still a useful ploy and adequate use of the Internet to disseminate the message would also help convince young people to call out any acts of vote-buying, Prosecutor General Hsing Tai-chao () said.

The central government plans to create and distribute anti-bribery videos to local prosecutors offices, airports and railway stations, he said.

Anti-bribery efforts and measures to prevent coercion by force would continue as usual, but prosecutorial units would prioritize the prosecution of cases involving fake information, Hsing said.

He added that he would ask local prosecutors offices to task prosecutors with looking into cases of suspected foreign invention, while stepping up police sweeps of underground currency exchanges and betting pools.

Hsing also mentioned cryptocurrency, online game credits and other things with monetary value that could be used to bribe voters as something to look out for.

The judiciary would be looking very closely at whether the source of payments come from foreign sources and prosecute those involved for contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (), Hsing said.

Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.

Excerpt from:

Taskforce to tackle bribery, election violence -

Mahant Ganesh Shankar Upadhyay of Kashi Karwat temple has slammed Aaj Tak and The Lallantop for presenting his statements about the Shivling found in Gyanvapi in a way to suit their own agenda. In a video response he gave to the channels while talking to Khabar India TV, Ganesh Shankar Upadhyay said, If they have led me in a particular direction to say something and then used it to prove their point that there is no temple but there is a mosque; then cant they see that it is originally a temple structure from the front and back and sides? Are they blind?

In a report by The Lallantop and Aaj Tak, Mahant Ganesh Shankar Upadhyays statement, in which he had shared his childhood memories about the wuzukhana of the disputed structure at Gyanvapi, was used to peddle their agenda that there is no Shivling in there and hence implying that the structure is a not a temple but a mosque. The leftist media houses and subsequently the Islamists had used his selected comments to claim that a Hindu priest is saying that there is no Shivling in the structure.

When asked about the Shivling found in Gyanvapi during the videography, Mahant had told the Aaj Tak journalist, Its shape is just like that of a Shivling. According to the information that we are fed since our childhood, it is a fountain. We were told so since our childhood. We have seen it since childhood. We used to go there. We have been to the mosque hundreds of times. We used to sit there for hours. We used to talk with the Maulavis and Sevadars there. The structure existed at that time too. It was seen in the centre there. It is not a new thing for me. Out of curiosity, we used to ask them what is this. So we were told that this is a fountain. We never saw it in operating condition, nor did we bother to ask first. We then asked them how it operates, and how it looks when there are fountains. And you know fountains usually look good and they were saying that it is since the Mughal era, so we were curious.

He further said, So we were like, there is a mosque in front of our home. Our Mahant residence is just 10 meters away. And there is a Mughal time fountain in the mosque as told by them. We had a cordial relationship with the Maulavis. There were no disputes in those days. We used to talk with them many times. So what information we have from those personal talks is that it is a fountain. But we have never seen it in working condition. Now there are visuals in the media. The pond is being cleaned. There is a top view of the structure. It indeed looks like a Shivling only. We have seen the pond in a dry condition for the first time. Though we were told that it is a fountain, now the thing has come up that it is a Shivling. It is a claim of Hindus and the court is to decide it. Nandi is also there, though it is situated at a distance. And there was a Kashi Vishwashwar temple is an undisputed fact. And that temple was destroyed during the Mughal rule. The mosque was made on the top of some part of the temple.

Even while continuing the talk, the Aaj Tak journalist had started his next question with a remark, As you have said that it is a fountain. Even in the reports, Aaj Tak focused on Mahant saying that it is a fountain. In this way, Mahant Ganesh Shankar Upadhyays statements were used to peddle an agenda. They ignored the next part of his statement and focused only on the first part, where he had said what he was told by the Muslim clerics. He didnt claim on his own that the structure is a fountain and not a Shivling.

While talking with Khabar India TV, furious Mahant Ganesh Shankar Upadhyay lashed out at the agenda peddlers. He said, Those spreading and broadcasting false propaganda are a blot on Sanatan Hindu Dharma. You shoot for five times in different ways and show only the five minutes? You take some statement. Join it to some other and then make the thing that suits you. They have done it under a conspiracy. They have presented my remarks in a way that will divide the collective Hindu opinion. And dividing Hindus is a conspiracy of non-Hindus. There is a need to identify those who are creating this divide. This all is a conspiracy. There is a whole lobby doing that. They may be from the media. They may be from politics or they may be Vidharmi Hindus.

Mahant Ganesh Shankar Upadhyay further said, Shahar Mufti says that we gave away Babri and now nothing more can be given. What did they give? And is it really given by them? Did Hindus beg for that? No. It was a fight of centuries and generations. Thousands of people have given their lives for that. And they talk of Aurangzeb who killed his father, brother, and son. Among all the Mughal rulers, he was the ugliest. And about what centuries of history you are talking about. If you want to talk about centuries, talk to Hindus. How many centuries of history does Islam have? We are here for the last one lakh years. And we have its proofs. We have all the scriptures and Puranas.

Read the rest here:

Lallantop and Aaj Tak spread fake news about what Mahant of Kashi Karwat temple had said about Shivling in Gyanvapi: Here is the truth - OpIndia

Islamist-sympathiser CJ Werleman, who has a notorious history of peddling fake news on social media platforms, yet again took to Twitter to put out an undated video to claim that a Muslim man was assaulted by a mob of Hindu extremists in the national capital Delhi on Wednesday.

Sharing an edited video of a Muslim man being thrashed by the public, serial fake news peddler Werleman claimed that a mob of Hindu extremists in Delhi assaulted a Muslim man.

The carefully edited video was shared by Islamist sympathiser Werleman to put out a false narrative that Muslims are being attacked in India by Hindus.

However, it is not true.

The video shared by Werleman pertains to an incident that occurred last week in Delhi. The full clip of the incident with the audio was shared by a social media user named Nitin Singh. Werleman had removed the audio from the video so that people dont know the facts behind it.

In the original video shared by Nitin Singh, it can be seen that the mob was thrashing a Muslim man, for eve-teasing and allegedly molesting a 14-year-old girl for over five days. The girl finally confronted the 45-year-old Muslim man and informed the locals.

The locals caught the culprit, who thrashed him for his unruly behaviour with the minor girl. The incident was reported in Nathu Colony in Delhi.

The audio clearly shows that the locals are beating him for molesting a minor girl. However, CJ Werleman used this incident to edit the video carefully, removed the audio, and circulated it across social media platforms to propagate lies against Hindus and incite Muslims in the country.

Well, this is not the first time that theIslamist-sympathiser who was profiled by Shekhar Guptas ThePrint has resorted to peddling fake news against Hindus. Just last week, he had spread a similar fake news by claiming that a Dalit was killed by Hindus for marrying a Muslim girl, when the fact is that the man was killed by the Muslim family members of the girl. CJ Werleman had said in a now delated tweet, A Dalit was lynched to death to death by Hindu extremist mob for marrying a Muslim woman.

In the tweet, he had included a photograph of Billapuram Nagaraju and his wife Syed Ashrin Sultana from Hyderabad. Sultanas family was opposed to this inter-faith marriage, and her own brother had killed Nagaraju on May 4th. Sultana herself has identified her brother Syed Mobin Ahmed as one of the killers of her husband, and Ahmed along with his accomplish Mohammed Masood Ahmed have already been arrested by police within a day of the murder. But still serial fake news peddler CJ Werleman had claimed that Nagaraju was killed by Hindu extremist mob.

He keeps sharing such fake news on a regular basis, and surprisingly, he tweets are not labelled as fake by Twitter.

Last year, he shared an undated video on his Twitter profile to claim that a group of Hindu men desecrated and destroyed a Muslim Graveyard in Nathan, India. In a tweet, he wrote, Hindutva radicals desecrate and destroy a Muslim graveyard in Nathan, India.

However, the local administration had called out the lie peddled by the radical Islamist sympathiser.

Similarly, he had made false allegations that the Indian government is suppressing Muslims on several other occasions. In August 2018, he took to Twitter to wrongly claim that the BJP had banned the slaughter of livestock during Eid. Werlemen also contended that the Police Officer was forcing an Imam to declare Qurbani is a punishable crime to his followers in the video that he had attached. In the same year, heposteda video claiming Hindutva fanatics destroying 25 Muslim owned businesses and properties in Aurangabad on 25th March.

CJ Werlemenappears to have a particular grudge against Uttar Pradesh, probably because a saffron-clad monk is the Chief Minister of the state. In several tweets, he had mentioned Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as a Hindutva terrorist.

In 2018, Kasganj Police had torefutehis allegations after Werlemen accused them of teaming up with Hindu extremists to target Muslims. In a separate instance, this time not involving Uttar Pradesh, Werlemen used a video depicting the violence during the Bhima-Koregaon clashes in Maharashtra and claimed that it, in fact, showed Hindus destroying Muslim property.

Read more here:

Serial fake news peddler CJ Werleman shares another fake news claiming that Hindutva extremists thrashed a Muslim man - OpIndia

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent Twitter shares tumbling on Friday when he said he was going to put his$44 billion acquisition of the social network "on hold" while he researches the proportion of fake and spam accounts on the platform.

Though Musk later clarified that he remains committed to the deal, he continued to hammer on the issue of fake accounts. He wrote, on Twitter, that his team would do their own analysis and expressed doubt about the accuracy of numbers Twitter has reported in its most recent financial filings.

In its first-quarter earnings report this year, Twitter acknowledged there are a number of "false or spam accounts" on its platform, alongside legitimate monetizable daily active usage or users (mDAU). The company reported, "We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter."

Twitter also admitted to overstating user numbers by 1.4 million to 1.9 million users over the past 3 years. The company wrote, "In March of 2019, we launched a feature that allowed people to link multiple separate accounts together in order to conveniently switch between accounts," Twitter disclosed. "An error was made at that time, such that actions taken via the primary account resulted in all linked accounts being counted as mDAU."

While Musk may be justifiably curious, experts in social media, disinformation and statistical analysis say that his suggested approach to further analysis is woefully deficient.

Here's what the SpaceX and Tesla CEO said he would do to determine how many spam, fake and duplicate accounts exist on Twitter:

"To find out, my team will do a random sample of 100 followers of @twitter. I invite others to repeat the same process and see what they discover." He clarified his methodology in subsequent tweets, adding: "Pick any account with a lot of followers," and "Ignore first 1000 followers, then pick every 10th. I'm open to better ideas."

Musk also said, without providing evidence, that he picked 100 as the sample size number for his study because that's the number Twitter uses to calculate the numbers in their earnings reports.

"Any sensible random sampling process is fine. If many people independently get similar results for % of fake/spam/duplicate accounts, that will be telling. I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate."

Twitter declined to comment when asked if his description of its methodology was accurate.

Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz weighed-in on the issue via his own Twitter account, pointing out that Musk's approach is not actually random, uses a too small sample, and leaves room for massive errors.

He wrote, "Also I feel like 'doesn't trust the Twitter team to help pull the sample' is it's own kind of red flag."

BotSentinel founder and CEO Christopher Bouzy said in an interview with CNBC that analysis by his company indicates that 10% to 15% of accounts on Twitter are likely "inauthentic," including fakes, spammers, scammers, nefarious bots, duplicates, and "single-purpose hate accounts" which typically target and harass individuals, along with others who spread disinformation on purpose.

BotSentinel, which is primarily supported through crowdfunding, independently analyzes and identifies inauthentic activity on Twitter using a mix of machine learning software and teams of human reviewers. The company monitors more than 2.5 million Twitter accounts today, primarily English-language users.

"I think Twitter is not realistically classifying 'false and spam' accounts," Bouzy said.

He also warns that the number of inauthentic accounts can appear higher or lower in different corners of Twitter depending on topics being discussed. For example, more inauthentic accounts tweet about politics, cryptocurrency, climate change, and covid than those discussing non-controversial topics like kittens and origami, BotSentinel has found.

"I just can't fathom that Musk is doing anything other than trolling us with this silly sampling scheme."

Carl T Bergstrom

Author, "Calling Bulls---"

Carl T. Bergstrom, a University of Washington professor who co-wrote a book to help people understand data and avoid being taken in by false claims online, told CNBC that sampling one hundred followers of any single Twitter account should not serve as "due diligence" for making a $44 billion acquisition.

He said that a sample size of 100 is orders of magnitude smaller that the norm for social media researchers studying this sort of thing. The biggest issue Musk would face with this approach is known as selection bias.

Bergstrom wrote in a message to CNBC, "There's no reason to believe that followers of the official Twitter account are a representative sample of accounts on the platform. Perhaps bots are less likely to follow this account to avoid detection. Perhaps they're more likely to follow to seem legitimate. Who knows? But I just can't fathom that Musk is doing anything other than trolling us with this silly sampling scheme."

See original here:

Elon Musk wants to know how many fake accounts Twitter has, but experts say his approach is all wrong - CNBC

On May 13, Friday, controversial news outlet NDTV posted a Tweet saying that in an attempt to relaunch itself ahead of the crucial 2024 general elections, the Congress party has agreed on its much-touted one family, one ticket norm but with a clause that exempts the Gandhis.

NDTV, in its news report published on May 13 titled, Congress Clears Key Reform With Loophole For Gandhis: 10 Points, mentions that at the three-day Chintan Shivir or introspection in Rajasthans Udaipur beginning Friday, the Congress agreed that a One Family, One Ticket rule will return with a rider that exempts the Gandhis.

On the One Family, One Ticket rule, which bars more than one person from a family from contesting elections, the Congress has hinted in advance that this may spare the Gandhis Sonia Gandhi and her childrenRahul Gandhiand Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, says the NDTV report.

It further quotes the Congress leader Ajay Maken as saying when asked whether the Gandhis are exempted, There is unanimity on this rule. If family members still want to contest them they should have been active for five years. They are active for the last five years. Priyanka Gandhi started working formally for the party in 2018.

The media outlet thereby concluded that the rules rider, which allows all three Gandhis to contest, indicates a loophole, reinforcing critics claims that the party will make just cosmetic changes at a time when a major revamp is needed.

Following NDTVs Tweet, Congress and the party loyalists launched a scathing attack on the media outlet accusing it of spreading fake news. Youth Congress national president Srinivas BV, who himself has been caught umpteen number of times peddling fake news and unverified claims to target the Modi government, called it fake news, clarifying that the rule is applicable for everyone in the party, not just the Gandhi family. He wrote, Fake News Alert . Second member of a family can be considered for a party ticket only if he or she has already put in at least five years of work in the partys organisational work. The rule is applicable to everyone in the Party.

Twitter handle @bole_bharat, which identifies itself as a Fan of Congress, slammed NDTV by referring to it as a propaganda factory. It Tweeted, NDTV The Propaganda factory. Congress leader @ajaymaken didnt mention anything about Gandhi family while take about One Family One ticket rule. The rule is applicable for all.

Many other Congress loyalists also followed suit. They took to the microblogging site Twitter to call out the media outlet for propagating fake news.

The Congress members clarified that Congress leader Ajay Maken, in his address to the media, at no point in time named the Gandhi family and that the rule is applicable to everyone in the Party.

The Congress party has shared the video of the special Congress briefing on the discussions the party had during the three-day Chintan Shivir in Udaipur, and it appears that NDTV did misquote the party on the issue.

At around 11.30 minutes into the video, AICC general secretary Ajay Maken is heard saying that while the Shivir is keen to have the One Family One ticket norm in place, an aspiring second member of a family can be considered for a party ticket only if he or she has already put in at least five years work in the partys organisational work.

Although this rule technically qualifies all three Gandhi scions to run for office, it is also true that Ajay Maken did not mention the Gandhi scions during the briefing. Moreover, this rule will be applicable for all members of the party. It is evident that the information provided by NDTV is clearly based on assumptions.

As the Congress begins its three-day brainstorming session Nav Sankalp Shivir in Udaipur on Friday, the party announced that major changes are coming to the organisation, including 50% representation for persons under 50 at all levels, starting with the Congress Working Committee (CWC).

Prior to the meeting, Maken said the aim of the Shivir is to change the way Congress functions as an organisation. We are going to make some big changes in the organisation, he said, adding that the partys opponents have been faster than the Congress in catching up with the new tools of democracy. Now the party will use the new tools of democracy more efficiently.

Follow this link:

NDTV claims Congress partys One Family One ticket rule exempts Gandhis, Congress hits back saying fake news: Here is what we know so far - OpIndia

One of the images that circulated online supposedly depicting the "Ghost of Kyiv". (Ukrainian Air Force)

Hero of Ukraine Stepan Tarabalka is NOT Ghost of Kyiv and he did NOT hit 40 planes. This is one of the most interesting statements included in an official statement shared on social networks by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The post, was published in the afternoon European time on Apr. 30, 2022, and appears to be a response to the reports that started to circulate on British media outlets on Apr. 29.

Citing Ukrainian sources, The Times was the first to report that a Ukrainian Air Force pilot, Maj. Stepan Tarabalka, 29, a father of one, shot down while flying a MiG-29 on Mar. 13, 2022, was the legendary Ghost of Kyiv, a fighter pilot who shot down more than 40 Russian aircraft.

We first reported about the legend of the Ghost on Feb. 25, shortly after the Russian troops had started their invasion of Ukraine and the news a mystery pilot who singlehandedly shot down six Russian aircraft in a matter of few hours, had gone viral.

According to social media posts, one day into the war, the Ghost of Kyiv had become the first air combat ace over European soil since World War II, achieving the ace-in-a-day (shooting down more than five enemy aircraft) status. As we explained back then, the legend started with a series of three tweets showing a loneUkrainian fighter jet operating over the capital, which were retweeted thousands of times. The Spanish newspaperMarca was among the first to claim that the Ghost of Kyiv had downed the six aircraft.Among his alleged kills, the Ghost initially claimed no less than two Russian Sukhoi Su-35s, a Russian Su-27 Flanker, a Russian MiG-29 and two Russian Su-25 ground attack aircraft.

Even the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense posted about the Ghost, retweeting footage of a MiG-29 fighting a Russian aircraft in what was later revealed to be a video recorded in the flight simulator DCS World. Former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, posted on Twitter a photo of a fighter pilot, claiming it to be the real Ghost of Kyiv. Obviously, there is no way to confirm his real identity and his air-to-air kills, but for many the one from the former president appeared to turn a wild urban legend into reality.

However, since the very beginning, the story didnt add up: as we clearly explained in our first post on the Ghost:

Theres only one catch: there probably is no Ghost of Kyiv and this internet legend is probably not true.

The legend of the Ghost of Kyiv is almost certainly an example of bizarre distortions and manipulations of fact or near-fact that are amplified during the chaos of war, especially a new war during the opening hours. These legends sometimes have at least some basis in fact, but as they travel through language barriers and across borders at the speed of light via social media, they become embellished, retransmitted and retweeted as news. There may have been Ukrainian air-to-air victories in the opening day of the war. There may have even been six total, or some other number. But the likelihood that six of these alleged aerial victories belongs to a singular, gallant ace-in-a-day is remote.

Despite the lack of evidence, many people claimed that the Ghost existed and kept fighting Russian jets, while many started to believe the Ghost was probably just a legend, that had become the worldwide emblem of the Ukrainian resistance, a moral-booster as well as the main character of many interesting artworks.

While stories about the Ghost of Kyiv have emerged every now and then after the first week or so of the war, the prevailing theory was that the mysterious pilot was just a legend that could give Ukrainian people hope, pride and desire to fight, acting as an example of bravery and love for the motherland to follow. Until the existence of the legendary pilot was allegedly supported by some Ukrainian sources cited by The Times and by various British tabloids immediately thereafter.

In the end, even the official Ukrainian accounts have had to post an official statement to respond to such reports that could probably damage the reputation and credibility of Kyivs military along with its past and future claims.

The post by the Ukrainian military roughly translate as follows:

PLEASE DO NOT FILL THE INFO SPACE WITH FAKES-Once again, we ask the Ukrainian community NOT to ignore the basic rules of information hygiene, not to issue the desired one as valid, check the sources of information before spreading it. Hero of Ukraine Stepan Tarabalka is NOT Ghost of Kiev and he did NOT hit 40 planes.On March 13, 2022, Major Stepan Tarabalka was heroically killed in an air battle with the dominant forces of the Russian occupiers. Heres the information about him on the official website of the KPSU: https://www.facebook.com/kpszsu/posts/339462291555059Ghost of Kiev is a superhero-legend whose character was created by Ukrainians! This is a faster collected image of pilots of the 40th Air Force tactical aviation brigade, who protect the sky of the capital. What suddenly appear where they are not expected! Military pilots are not yet studying abroad on F-16, as much as we all want it.No official statement on this matter has been published in the media! Well, and lastly, for especially creative American bombers do not fly over Ukraine either!Keep calm and use official sources of information. Glory to Ukraine! Public Relations Service Command Air Force Armed Forces of Ukraine

In other words, Maj. Stepan Tarabalka was a hero pilot who was killed in action on Mar. 13, 2022, but he did not shot down 40 Russian aircraft.

The post also addressed some other recent claims, as the one that Ukrainian pilots would be training on F-16s in Germany or that American bombers would be flying over Ukraine.

Therefore, as explained at the beginning of the war, the Ghost of Kyiv was a still is a meme, a collective image of all Ukrainian fighter pilots who bravely fight against Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft over Ukraine: a symbol rather than an actual pilot, no matter what some media outlets speculate.

David Cenciotti is a freelance journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of The Aviationist, one of the worlds most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

Read more from the original source:

'Stop Spreading Fake News: The Ghost Of Kyiv Is A Legend', Ukrainian Military Says - The Aviationist

On 1 December 2016, a man with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle entered a pizza restaurant in Washington DC because he believed that Hillary Clinton was sexually abusing children in the basement of that restaurant.

The man had read about this story the so-calledPizzagate scandalon social media posts and fake news websites and ultimately believed it was true. To his surprise, he found only some pizza dough and a bunch of frightened employees. Luckily, no one was harmed but the anecdote highlights how false news may have dramatic consequences.

Reading this, you may well be tempted to think that fake news and misinformation speak only to a few unsophisticated people with bizarre or extreme beliefs.

But while it has been found that people withpoor science knowledge,low cognitive abilitiesand atendency to be accepting of weak claimstend to be more inclined to believe false stories, you may want to think carefully about how immune you are to misinformation.

In fact, ask yourself the following questions: How good am I at judging the accuracy of news stories? If I read a fake story or heard a false pundit comment, would I really be able to spot the lie?

In our recent study entitledThe Ability to Distill the Truth, Tiziana Assenza, from the Toulouse School of Economics, and I conducted an online experiment to estimate Americans true ability to evaluate the accuracy of news items.

To do this, subjects read a series of short news stories on different topics from a wide range of sources. Independent fact-checking organizations had classified half of these news items as containing accurate information, and the remaining half as containing incorrect and demonstrably false information. For each news story, subjects had to state whether they believed that it contained accurate information or not.

Despite a large share of people with great confidence in their ability to cut through misinformation, we found that most people have limited ability to differentiate between fake and true news stories.

In fact, on average, participants in our experiments provided the correct evaluation of veracity only in 62% of the news stories they saw, and only 14% of subjects were able to discern the veracity of information in at least 80% of the news stories.

The viral and rapid diffusion of misinformation exposes people with poor abilities to discern the accuracy of news stories to greater chances of making adverse decisions, including financial choices. In fact,about 63%of Americans argue that the dissemination of misinformation and fake news has made it more difficult to make important financial decisions.

Moreover, the spread of misinformation is detrimental not only to individuals but also to society as a whole. It can generate significant economic losses through several channels of the economy, such as higher costs for public health, manipulated returns and reputation management costs for companies.

For example, in 2019,Metro Bank faced an 11% drop in stock market capitalizationafterfalse rumourson social media reported it was experiencing financial problems.

The events we have lived through in the last decade from Brexit to the election of Donald Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic have created great concern about the role played by false news and have motivated policymakers to move the contrast to misinformation to the top of their agenda.

While the policy debate focuses mostly on the role played by media companies in the creation and diffusion of fake news, scholars have proposed different approaches to increase peoples ability to discern the truthfulness of information.

People often share misinformation on social media simply because their attention is on factors unrelated to accuracy, such as the desire to please followers.

Accordingly,a simple intervention, which asks individuals to think about the accuracy of the news story they read before sharing it, has been found to increase the quality of the news that people share on social media.

In our research, we tested a different kind of intervention: improving peoples awareness by informing them of their true ability to differentiate between fake and true news stories. To do this, we randomly selected half the participants and told them the number of news stories that they correctly identified as accurate or inaccurate.

We found that subjects who received this informative feedback increased their awareness of the problems related to misinformation and showed a greater desire to act against the risk of being affected by it.

See more here:

Can you really spot a lie? Fake news is more difficult to catch than you think - ThePrint