Category Archives: Fake News

NBA and NFL network announcers are serial name-droppers. They love sliding mentions of conversations theyve had this week with Gregg Popovich or Andy Reid into telecasts on ESPN and the broadcast networks as a way of establishing their authority and credibility. And then Jeff Van Gundy admitted that coaches dish plenty of fake news in those pregame meetings.

Jeff Van Gundy and basketball date to the days as a kid when he tagged along with his brother Stan to college practices run by their father, Bill Van Gundy. After playing Division III ball in Rochester, New York, he went on to coach one season at a local high school.

A year later, he worked for Rick Pitino as a graduate assistant for a Providence College team that reached the NCAA Tournament Final Four. In subsequent seasons he worked for veteran coaches Gordon Chiesa at Providence and Bob Wenzel at Rutgers.

Along the way, Van Gundy earned a reputation as a tireless worker, which caught the attention of the NBAs New York Knicks, where he worked on the staffs of Stu Jackson, John MacLeod, Pat Riley, and Don Nelson. On March 8, 1996, the Knicks promoted him to head coach.

He resigned early in the 2001-02 season and then got back into coaching with the Houston Rockets from 2003-07. In parts of 11 pro seasons, Van Gundy went 430-318 in the regular season and 44-44 in the playoffs. The Rockets fired Van Gundy after a first-round exit in the 2007 playoffs and, though his name still surfaces occasionally when jobs open up, he has resisted returning to the bench.

Van Gundy moved from the Rockets into broadcasting at ESPN and ABC.

As Jeff Van Gundy learned with the Knicks, there is no consistently tougher media market in sports than New York City. TV and print outlets across the Tri-State region and the presence of 24/7 sports radio mean that coaches of struggling teams get put on blast with more intensity than those anywhere else.

In addition to local media, however, coaches deal with TV play-by-play announcers and analysts a few days before national telecasts like weekend NFL games or the NBA contests that ESPN and TNT carry.

Whether via Zoom or in person, coaches face questions about the upcoming game and their players. Van Gundy has been on both ends of those conversations. While he agrees that probably earns him some trust, Van Gundy told The Athletic most of the conversations are useless.

There used to be more people in the room when the coaches were talking to us. I thought a lot of times it was sort of a waste of time. A lot of platitudes. No real insight and I dont blame the coaches. You do have to be cognizant of what youre saying, and you dont know a lot of these people.

According to Jeff Van Gundy, the real conversations about players take place once the meetings that the network and the team arrange end.

There will be certain coaches that will text me something afterward, and a lot of it is, Use your own words, but this is whats going on, Van Gundy admitted. Youre just trying to get answers. Like, I wonder why this guy is not playing, is this a legit injury or is he milking the injury, and things of that nature. So, you want them to steer you right but also make sure that you dont break any confidence.

Thats a difficult balancing act when five people in the room hear one player evaluation and then Van Gundy goes on the air the following night with a different take.

I had one coach one time who had just said the opposite in the meeting about how wonderful a guy is, he recalled. I might have had a strange look on my face, and he called later and said, You know I was bulls******* in there, but I had to do that.

Having coached, you know how that goes. So, I appreciate when they can tell me the truth.

Van Gundy has been off the bench long enough now where he runs up against the occasional generation gap. That reality hit home when the Washington Wizards hired Wes Unseld Jr. to coach in the offseason.

I coached against his dad, and Wes Unseld Jr. played for my college coach at Johns Hopkins, Van Gundy said. Thats how old I am now. But I love talking to coaches. I have great empathy for how hard a job it is, and its really one of the highlights for me.

I love getting the chance to listen to them.

Thats true even if the real listening begins after the meeting ends.

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RELATED: Im a Basket Case, NBA Analyst Jeff Van Gundy Admits

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Jeff Van Gundy Dishes on How NBA Coaches Spew Fake News When Talking to Reporters - Sportscasting

Following Facebook and Twitter finally banning Donald Trump from spreading false news from their pages, the former president has found new ways to get his message across. The Wall Street Journal published one on Wednesday Letter from the former PresidentIn it he makes a number of unsubstantiated, unsubstantiated and already invalid allegations; Among other things, he said the 2020 presidential election was rigged. Countless Investigations and trial No trace of such statements could be found.

The election was handled, which unfortunately you still dont understand, Trump wrote before listing unsubstantiated explanations for his claims. Following the publication of this letter, the Wall Street Journal received a lot of criticism from its own team. Former senior editor Bill Cruzkin commented on Twitter, asking why the authors did not verify the facts of the letter or remove the worst lies. When someone spreads many untruths, authors are usually obliged to dissect them or at the same time publish the answer, the Wall Street Journal did not explicitly do so, Groskin said.Washington Post.

The HuffPost reporter at the White House also responded TwitterMost newspapers do not allow commentators to make simply nonsense lies. The Wall Street Journal is obviously not one of them.

That The Wall Street JournalResponding on his comment page on Thursday, he supported the release of the letter: We hope our readers can get an idea of Trumps statements for themselves. Moreover, the former president, who could run again in 2024, (or specifically) though his claims are utter nonsense, we think it is worthwhile to write about what he did.

Of Speakal It is suspected that there is a trick behind Trumps repeated allegations about the 2020 presidential election. Through his statements, he is destroying the confidence of citizens in the US election process. Considering the 2022 midterm elections Presidential Election 2024 It is feared that this will be the basis for not recognizing or even canceling future election results.

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The Wall Street Journal publishes Donald Trump's letter with fake news about the 2020 election - Socialpost

On the second day of the 41st Session, Wednesday 27 October 2021, the Congress adopted reports on local self-government in Cyprus and North Macedonia. The report on Cyprus was presented by Gunn Marit Helgesen (Norway, EPP/CCE) and Marc Cools (Belgium, ILDG). The debate was followed by an exchange with Cyprus Minister of Interior Nicos Nouris. Zdenek Broz (Czech Republic, ECR) and Harald Bergmann (Netherlands, ILDG) presented the report on North Macedonia, which was followed by a statement by Deputy Minister for Local Self Government of North Macedonia, Zoran Dimitrovski, who also replied to questions from the floor.

Congress members held a debate in the plenary on Covid: the road to recovery?. It sought to tackle pressing issues at stake in European cities and regions: how can societies recover from the crisis while the health situation seems to stabilize in many European countries? OECD Deputy Secretary General Ulrik Vestergaard-Knudsen stressed the heterogeneity of the economic and social impact of the pandemic among regions. CEB Appointed Governor Carlo Monticelli underlined the role of local and regional authorities as "precious allies when it comes to delivering high impact social investments to communities most in need".

Local and regional elected representatives throughout Europe have been faced with the rise of fake news and hate speech in recent years, particularly on the Internet and social networks. As such, a thematic debate was organised by the Chamber of Local Authorities to determine which responses should be enacted and what tools should be developed to tackle the challenge of fake news and hate speech. The project will explore means of detecting these phenomena and possible legal and technical action against them. At the opening of the sitting President of the Chamber of Local Authorities, Bernd Vhringer, drew attention to the increase of hate speech and fake news on the internet and the impact of these negative phenomena on the working environment of mayors and councillors.

In the plenary, the State Secretary responsible for Security Policy of Hungary, Pter Sztaray, underlined the key priorities of the Hungarian Presidency: artificial intelligence and digitalization, the protection of national minorities, environmental issues, antisemitism, and youth issues during his speech to the Committee of Ministers.

On the same day, the Chamber of the Regions debated inter-regional and cross-border co-operation for better territorial integration in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Congress called on members States in particular to make use of Protocol No. 3 of the Madrid Convention which constitutes a legal basis for cross-border co-operation in Europe. The Congress also called for special legal provisions for transborder communities having a legal status, in order to overcome the obstacles created by the different legal regimes on either side of the border, as well as for strengthening cross-border governance and horizontal subsidiarity through the transfer of operational competences and resources to transborder communities.

The Chamber of Regions also discussed the challenges to expand professional education and lifelong learning for young people at the regional level, shared measures and best practices to remedy these issues, and considered what further action the Congress desires to take on this suject. This was achieved through a debate on the lifelong education to ensure/secure lifelong employment perspectives for young generations, a challenge for the regions.

Members of the Chamber further explored the role of relations with diaspora communities as a contribution to regional development and regional mechanisms for engaging diasporas to foster commercial and cultural exchanges, attract foreign investment, facilitate technology and knowledge transfer, and seize other socio-economic benefits from the links with diaspora during its third debate on Wednesday morning.

At the opening of the sitting, the President of the Chamber of Regions, Harald Sonderegger, called for a re-decentralisation of competences and resources to regions and their better distribution with an improved system of multi-level governance. This follows the fact that during the Covid-19 crisis, many competences were recentralised to the national executive and many decisions were taken without proper consultations with regional authorities despite the multi-level governance proving to be more effective and flexible in responding to the pandemic, when it was used.

Also on the agenda was the Dosta!-Congress Prize awarded to Municipalities from Portugal, Greece and the United Kingdom for initiatives aimed at integration of Roma and Travellers. First place went to the Portuguese municipality of Torres Vedras, which came up with a unique plan enhancing cohesion between local communities and Roma. The second place was awarded to Greek municipality of Argostoli for improving living conditions of the Roma community, attendance conditions for children in schools, as well as for providing housing and health care support to Roma population on Kefalonia island. British Salford won the 3rd prize for implementing an educational exhibition.

The Chamber of Local Authorities elected John Warmisham (United Kingdom, SOC/G/PD) and Oksana Derkach (Ukraine, EPP/CCE) as 6th and 7th Vice-President, respectively.

Videos of the debates: Plenary Session | Chamber of Local Authorities | Chamber of Regions

*** 41st Session of the Congress ***

Agenda- Documents : ENG | FRA | DEU | ITA | RUS41st Session webpage: live broadcast, photos, videos and useful links

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Congress held debates on local self-government in Cyprus and North Macedonia, as well as on Covid-19 recovery, hate speech and fake news, territorial...

This article is adapted fromAQs special report on the battle over fake news | Leer en espaol |Ler em portugus

The image on our cover, a photoshopped image depicting Pope Francis smoking marijuana with former Bolivian President Evo Morales, thus proving the Argentine pontiff is a decadent socialist at heart, was the most ridiculous recent example of fake news we could find. But it was hardly the most damaging.

This special report of AQ focuses on the profound, and possibly terminal, threat that fake news and misinformation pose to the democracies of the Americas. Whether its memes falsely alleging election fraud in Brazil, or touting bananas as a miracle COVID-19 cure in Mexico, the onslaught has accelerated a decade-long trend of declining confidence in democratic institutions, while costing countless lives during the pandemic. Disillusioned, many are putting their faith instead in authoritarian leaders, who are delighted by (and in some cases directly feeding) the confusion.

Upcoming elections over the next year in Chile, Colombia and, especially, Brazil will be a major test. Governments, social media companies and traditional media are brandishing an array of toolssome new, some oldin the hope of halting the decay. But there is no silver bullet, and some of the proposed cures, such as government-run fact-checking agencies or jail time for those who propagate fake news, may be worse than the disease itself. President Jair Bolsonaro and other leaders seem determined to protect their freedom of speech online, setting up a showdown with courts and tech companiesand possibly a constitutional crisis in Brazil.

The only surefire solution is education: media literacy and other programs to teach citizens to be more discerning about what they consume. Big tech companies could also increase funding for serious newsgathering outlets (whose business model they helped destroy). But these are long-term solutions, and they require public buy-in. So far, the 21st century has only seen people withdraw deeper inside bubbles of their own design. Its unsettlingly unclear what, if anything, could change that.

Any opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Quarterly or its publishers.

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NEW AQ: Can Latin American Democracies Survive the Age of Fake News? - Americas Quarterly

1. How Facebook's Algorithm Led a New India User to Fake News, Violence  Bloomberg
2. How Facebooks algorithm led a test user in India to fake news, gore  Business Standard
3. Facebook selective in curbing hate speech and fake news in India?  Asianet Newsable
4. Facebook Failed to Curb Fake News that Spread Violence and Gore: Internal Report  Silverscreen
5. Facebook Dithered in Curbing Divisive User Content in India | Political News  U.S. News & World Report
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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How Facebook's Algorithm Led a New India User to Fake News, Violence - Bloomberg

PHONEIX, AZ Perhaps one of the biggest surprises to this NFL season has two parts to it. One part has the Arizona Cardinals, generally regarded as the worst team in the meatgrinder that is the NFC prior to the start of the season, as the sole remaining unbeaten team at 6-0. The second part is generally how quiet that 6-0 has been, relative to other NFL headlines. Between all the drama with Aaron Rodgers, other teams quarterbacks, the struggles of the Chiefs, Tom Brady winning in New England wearing another teams colors, Urban Meyer, Jon Gruden and Dan Snyder all in a race to determine who is the biggest [Easterby] of a NFL leader, you would probably have little to no time to read about the team in Arizona observed some random dude our intrepid Totally Not Fake News reporter talked with at a local Starbucks.

Yet, coming into Week 7, the Cardinals are sitting in a good place as a team. Man, we gotta great team. Absolute certified nightmare of a team noted Cardinals Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury. [Easterby], this team is so good, they have been killing it in practice and on the field. Its been so good, I figured that the organization would be good if I just took the day off. Hey, sometimes, you just feel the need to take a breather. Just take the day and chill at home. I mean, I was kinda sick, maybecant be too careful in this day and age.

Coach loves a challenge snorted defensive lineman J.J. Watt. Weve been doing so well, we actually told him Dude, just take a game off. We can get some other late-30s white guy out of the stands who may or may not have seen Sean McVay in person at an airport or something, put a headset on him and let him stand on the sidelines, shouting a few incoherent things and making a timeout signal or two. We absolutely are in a good place right now.

Yep, definitely shaping up nicely chimed in wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. A great start to the season. A 6-0 start, going into a bye week. Oh man, life is good. Ya know, during the bye week, I am hoping to make it up to New York. Curious to see the latest fall/winter fashion trend

Mr. Hopkins our reporter chimed in. You do realize that you do not have a bye this coming week. Your team has an actual game.

Oh, really? We do? [Hopkins immediately checks phone.] Oh, thats right. We do have a game. Ill be [Easterbyed]!

Wait, we have a game next week? Watt chimed in. Huh, how bout that? Who are we playing?

Houston

Watt paused. Ok. Houston. This was followed by a shoulder shrug from the two players and they immediately returned to practice.

We at Totally Not Fake News can completely understand the nonchalant response to the fact that the Arizona Cardinals are hosting the Houston Texans. After all, these two teams only face each other once every 4 years. There is not a lot of drama or history between the two. Houston claimed the last game against the Cardinals in 2017, and Houston came up short in their last visit to Arizona back in 2013.

Try as we might, we cant really find any other story about this game, except that it is a match-up between two NFL teams. Believe us, our crack staff did a lot of digging. This may or may not have involved sending a bunch of phishing-like emails to the staffs of both the Cardinals and Texans. Yet, we cant find any sort of subplot or underlining narrative. We cant even make up a narrative (not that we at Totally Not Fake News would ever do that). Yeah, the NFL probably doesnt want to hear this, but you probably dont have any real reason to watch or tune into this game, unless you just want to see all the on-the-field stuff.

Hopefully, other matchups will have plenty of prime, juicy stories filled with personal backgrounds/history/and a whole lot more personnel drama. Until then, enjoy the game for the sake of the game.

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Totally Not Fake News: Just Another Game - Battle Red Blog

In February 2019, Facebook Inc. set up a test account in India to determine how its own algorithms affect what people see in one of its fastest growing and most important overseas markets. The results stunned the companys own staff.

Within three weeks, the new users feed turned into a maelstrom of fake news and incendiary images. There were graphic photos of beheadings, doctored images of India air strikes against Pakistan and jingoistic scenes of violence. One group for things that make you laugh included fake news of 300 terrorists who died in a bombing in Pakistan.

Ive seen more images of dead people in the past 3 weeks than Ive seen in my entire life total, one staffer wrote, according to a 46-page research note thats among the trove of documents released by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

The test proved telling because it was designed to focus exclusively on Facebooks role in recommending content. The trial account used the profile of a 21-year-old woman living in the western India city of Jaipur and hailing from Hyderabad. The user only followed pages or groups recommended by Facebook or encountered through those recommendations. The experience was termed an integrity nightmare, by the author of the research note.

While Haugens disclosures have painted a damning picture of Facebooks role in spreading harmful content in the U.S., the India experiment suggests that the companys influence globally could be even worse. Most of the money Facebook spends on content moderation is focused on English-language media in countries like the U.S.

But the companys growth largely comes from countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil, where it has struggled to hire people with the language skills to impose even basic oversight. The challenge is particularly acute in India, a country of 1.3 billion people with 22 official languages. Facebook has tended to outsource oversight for content on its platform to contractors from companies like Accenture.

Weve invested significantly in technology to find hate speech in various languages, including Hindi and Bengali, a Facebook spokeswoman said. As a result, weve reduced the amount of hate speech that people see by half this year. Today, its down to 0.05 percent. Hate speech against marginalized groups, including Muslims, is on the rise globally. So we are improving enforcement and are committed to updating our policies as hate speech evolves online.

The new user test account was created on Feb. 4, 2019 during a research teams trip to India, according to the report. Facebook is a pretty empty place without friends, the researchers wrote, with only the companys Watch and Live tabs suggesting things to look at.

The quality of this content is not ideal, the report said. When the video service Watch doesnt know what a user wants, it seems to recommend a bunch of softcore porn, followed by a frowning emoticon.

The experiment began to turn dark on Feb. 11, as the test user started to explore content recommended by Facebook, including posts that were popular across the social network. She began with benign sites, including the official page of Prime Minister Narendra Modis ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and BBC News India.

Then on Feb. 14, a terror attack in Pulwama in the politically sensitive Kashmir state killed 40 Indian security personnel and injured dozens more. The Indian government attributed the strike to a Pakistan terrorist group. Soon the testers feed turned into a barrage of anti-Pakistan hate speech, including images of a beheading and a graphic showing preparations to incinerate a group of Pakistanis.

There were also nationalist messages, exaggerated claims about Indias air strikes in Pakistan, fake photos of bomb explosions and a doctored photo that purported to show a newly-married army man killed in the attack whod been preparing to return to his family.

Many of the hate-filled posts were in Hindi, the countrys national language, escaping the regular content moderation controls at the social network. In India, people use a dozen or more regional variations of Hindi alone. Many people use a blend of English and Indian languages, making it almost impossible for an algorithm to sift through the colloquial jumble. A human content moderator would need to speak several languages to sieve out toxic content.

After 12 days, 12 planes attacked Pakistan, one post exulted. Another, again in Hindi, claimed as Hot News the death of 300 terrorists in a bomb explosion in Pakistan. The name of the group sharing the news was Laughing and things that make you laugh. Some posts containing fake photos of a napalm bomb claimed to be Indias air attack on Pakistan reveled, 300 dogs died. Now say long live India, death to Pakistan.

The report entitled An Indian test users descent into a sea of polarizing, nationalist messages makes clear how little control Facebook has in one of its most important markets. The Menlo Park, California-based technology giant has anointed India as a key growth market, and used it as a test bed for new products. Last year, Facebook spent nearly $6 billion on a partnership with Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in Asia, who leads the Reliance conglomerate.

This exploratory effort of one hypothetical test account inspired deeper, more rigorous analysis of our recommendation systems, and contributed to product changes to improve them, the Facebook spokeswoman said. Our work on curbing hate speech continues and we have further strengthened our hate classifiers, to include four Indian languages.

But the company has also repeatedly tangled with the Indian government over its practices there. New regulations require that Facebook and other social media companies identify individuals responsible for their online content making them accountable to the government. Facebook and Twitter Inc. have fought back against the rules. On Facebooks WhatsApp platform, viral fake messages circulated about child kidnapping gangs, leading to dozens of lynchings across the country beginning in the summer of 2017, further enraging users, the courts and the government.

The Facebook report ends by acknowledging its own recommendations led the test user account to become filled with polarizing and graphic content, hate speech and misinformation. It sounded a hopeful note that the experience can serve as a starting point for conversations around understanding and mitigating integrity harms from its recommendations in markets beyond the U.S.

Could we as a company have an extra responsibility for preventing integrity harms that result from recommended content?, the tester asked.

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Facebook led test account to gore, fake news in just 21 days - The Indian Express

It is vital to know what fake news, mis- and disinformation are, what influence it has on the reader and how to spot it. This is because what you read in the media has a huge effect on how you look at the world around you. If you are being fed false information that you believe to be true, it can truly cause a lot of damage.

That is why media updates Talisa Carlson digs deeper to see exactly what, how and why this is found within the news.

Ready to take a closer look? Then take out your magnifying glass and lets get to it:

Misinformation is easily shared amongst people, even though they are not 100% sure if it is indeed factual. This is because the reader might not be aware that it is actually incorrect.

This type of information is misleading and contains false information, but it is spread without the intention of causing damage or harm.

For example, a blogger might have only read an articles headline on social media and then wrote an opinion piece on that. In the blog they are writing, there could be a lot of 'information' and the blogger may not mean any harm when writing the piece. But in this same piece, there is a clear lack of facts and research.

This type of information can be found in blogs that might be run by political parties (without the public being aware of it) to push out content that contains disinformation to push a certain agenda.

As readers consume a lot of news daily, one would think that it will be easy for people to spot disinformation; so why does it continue to thrive? The simple answer: People believe what they want to believe.

That is why there is so much disinformation surrounding politics, the pandemic and even when it comes to racial issues. Readers need to be extremely cautious of this type of news because it can cause a lot of damage.

For example, in 1946, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company began making a bold claim in its advertisements, saying, More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!

The company made claims that Camels cigarettes assist with a wide range of health issues, and this was published in the mainstream media. A lot of people soon after started smoking, not knowing that they had been disinformed.

When it comes to fake news, the intention is all about pushing an agenda and purposefully crafted, sensational, emotionally charged, misleading or totally fabricated information that mimics the form of mainstream news.

Fake news is also referred to as false information by industry professionals and its main focus is to damage a persons reputation or evoke a specific emotion within the reader.

This is very evident in the political setting, for example, because politicians want to create hype surrounding themselves or their opposers.

Here are four questions to ask yourself to spot false content:

1. Does the message seem emotionally charged?

Remember, when a journalist is reporting back on happenings that took place, they wont be emotionally invested. They will focus on reporting the facts.

2. Does the content seem biased?

In ethical journalism, you wont find content that is biased. This means that the journalist will just talk about the facts and not provide their own personal opinion.

3. Did big news outlets cover the same story? If you come across news that seems a bit far-fetched, its best to head over to Google and do research. Have big publications talked about the issue? If not, it might be a clear indication that its fake information.

4. Does the person who posted this have other social media accounts? Ever wanted to be an FBI agent? Because now is your chance! Doing research on the person or account who posted a story is a great way to debunk any false content.

For example, if it is posted on a blog, does the blog have social media accounts? Do these accounts link back to reliable sources? Did the person who posted it have an active social media account? If you answered no to most of the questions, accept it to be fake.

Disinformation and misinformation Fake news False information Misinformation and disinformation in media Media industry Fake news Difference between misinformation and disinformation Purpose of misinformation and disinformation

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Misinformation, disinformation and fake news: What readers should know - Media Update

Many myths and falsehoods have emerged, which are being used to distort people's perceptions about crypto & blockchain. However, rather than believing everything found on the internet, one should verify all facts before drawing conclusions. Below are 5 crypto myths that shouldn't be taken at face value. The opinions in this article belong to the author alone and should not be considered investment advice. The author of this article provides an overview of the technology behind the development of Bitcoin and the use of blockchain technology in the market.

If you're looking to make an investment or construct an asset portfolio, cryptocurrency has become a popular topic of debate.

However, many myths and falsehoods have emerged, which are being used to distort people's perceptions about crypto & blockchain.

The naysayers about crypto will continue to exist. However, rather than believing everything found on the internet, one should verify all facts before drawing conclusions.

Below are 5 crypto myths that shouldn't be taken at face value.

1. "Many Cryptocurrencies are counterfeit."

When you hear the word "cryptocurrency," you're probably thinking of "cryptography," which is a procedure that makes it impossible to counterfeit Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

It is difficult to "double-spend," that is, fraudulently generate more than one transaction with a single operation.

2. "Cryptocurrencies will make you rich quickly."

You may have come across adverts and bogus finance "gurus" on the internet who promote their products by offering a "get-rich-quick" program to the general public to attract customers.

People are more likely to believe such charlatans than they are to evaluate the risks involved with cryptocurrency.

Don't allow a random stranger to handle your hard-earned money, and don't let anyone handle your digital assets when it comes to investing.

3. "Cryptocurrencies are prohibited under the law."

The anonymity provided by blockchain transactions plays a significant role in perpetuating this illusion.

As crypto transactions do not contain any "finger information" that can be traced back to a single individual, criminals are becoming increasingly drawn to this digital cash.

However, this does not rule out the possibility of someone tracking them down using the transaction data.

While blockchain transactions may not carry individual information, they do contain the user's wallet address, which can be linked to a real-world identity if more investigation is done.

4. "Cryptocurrencies aren't a safe investment."

Many people have expressed concerns about the security and safety of cryptocurrency transactions, which is understandable given the lack of organizations or authorities to turn to in the event of fraud.

However, the reality is that crypto transactions are more secure than traditional fiat currency records are.

In the case of cryptocurrencies, the entries are recorded in the form of blocks in a central ledger known as a blockchain, which is a distributed ledger system.

Hacking a blockchain is extremely hard due to the immutability of the blocks, which means that no one can edit a block after it has been created.

5. "Blockchain is just for crypto."

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the applications of blockchain technology, which supports crypto.

The consensus among some experts is that blockchain has failed to demonstrate any practical application and that bitcoin is the only financial instrument to have achieved some level of popularity.

The reality is that technological advancements in the blockchain industry are occurring at a rapid rate. Smart contracts on the blockchain, for example, can be used to store a contract between a lender and a house loan beneficiary. With blockchain technology, there are countless applications and use cases available, ranging from DeFi to NFT.

The above were a few major myths surrounding crypto & blockchain that you shouldnt believe before verifying the facts yourself.

Disclaimer: The opinions in this article belong to the author alone and should not be considered investment advice.

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Filter the Fake News About Crypto and Blockchain - hackernoon.com

A Broomall man who worked as an international tabloid journalist was convicted this week of forgery, identity theft, and tampering with public records after state prosecutors said he wielded electronic devices as weapons by creating a racist email he claimed came from a Delaware County official.

Nikolaos Hatziefstathiou, 28, was found guilty by a jury Thursday after a four-day trial in Media. In addition to the conviction for creating the fake email, jurors convicted him of impersonating Liam Stack, a reporter for the New York Times, and ABC News correspondent Stephanie Walsh in an attempt to interest county prosecutors in his claims of harassment by a local police officer.

Hatziefstathiou, known as Nik the Hat, published a story on his website, YC News, in 2019, saying a confidential source forwarded him an email from a supervisor in Delaware Countys adult probation and parole department. The email, reproduced by Hatziefstathiou in his article, used the n-word and mocked the countys Black residents.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Kelly Sekula, the lead prosecutor on the case, said Hatziefstathious actions were part of a pathetic effort to bolster his own profile.

He tried to drum up attention for himself by creating the false Stephanie Walsh and Liam Stack emails, and when that failed, he turned his attention to a story that would generate publicity: Racism in high levels of county government, Sekula said. And it worked.

Hatziefstathious attorney, Norm Pattis, pushed back against that assertion. He described his client as Americas most reliable fake news reporter, a sardonic mockery of the label given to him by prosecutors during his arrest.

Everything Hatziefstathiou did, Pattis said, was legitimate, as was the probation department email he published. The entire prosecution, he said, was an attempt by Delaware County to get revenge on a reporter who asks inconvenient questions to people in power.

Information comes to reporters from sources who do not want to be disclosed, and reporters protect the identity of those sources, and seek to confirm or corroborate what those sources have told them, Pattis said. That is what Nik Hatziefstathiou did in this case.

The YC News article gained attention quickly, and prompted a news conference by State Rep. Margo Davidson, a Delaware County Democrat, and other local officials.

In investigating the email, county officials began to suspect it was fake they found no record of it on the countys email servers.

Investigators obtained search warrants for Hatziefstathious iPhone and MacBook, and discovered that he had created the email himself, using a legitimate email from his own probation supervisor as a template. During the trial, Sekula had forensic experts recreate the step-by-step process Hatziefstathiou took to make the email by scanning the email he had received and using photo-editing software to insert a racist message.

Detectives found evidence that Hatziefstathiou had emailed then-District Attorney Katayoun Copeland from accounts he created in the names of Stack and Walsh. In the messages, Hatziefstathiou, posing as the reporters, pressed Copeland for information about alleged harassment against him by a detective in Marple Township.

Pattis conceded that Hatziefstathiou sent those emails, but said he did so only because Copeland and her office had ignored his requests to investigate the harassment.

His purpose was to engage law enforcement. His purpose was to get them to conduct an investigation, Pattis said. His purpose was to ask for help, help he had been denied.

Sekula said, in truth, Hatziefstathious aim was much simpler.

This case boils down to one thing, one person: Nik, she said. His ego, his need for attention, and his complete disregard for others.

Hatziefstathiou will be sentenced by Delaware County Judge John P. Capuzzi, Sr. in November.

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A Delaware County man was convicted of forging a racist email he claimed came from county officials - The Philadelphia Inquirer