Category Archives: Fake News

Industrialist and philanthropist Ratan Tata took to Instagram and shared a story calling a viral quote attributed to him fake. He wrote, This was not said by me. Thank you.

In a post doing rounds on social media, the 83-year-old businessmans name was put. The post advocated the use of Aadhaar Card for liquor sales.

The post read, Liquor sales should be sold through Aadhaar card. Government food subsidies should be stopped for alcohol buyers.

It further read, Those who have the facility to buy alcohol can definitely buy food. When we give them free food they buy alcohol."

Public figures have been constantly facing the problem of fake news on social media. Every now and then, a few posts go viral attributing bizarre quotes to them.

Ratan Tata had been a victim of such news last year when he was wrongly attributed for a statement on the downfall of economy. It was claimed in the post that he doesnt agree with the experts on the issue of economy and its relation to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Tata was quick to point out that he had nothing to do with any such statement. Tata wrote on Twitter, This post has neither been said, nor written by me. I urge you to verify media circulated on WhatsApp and social platforms. If I have something to say, I will say it on my official channels. Hope you are safe and do take care.

With fake news taking over social media, the celebrities have only one way of countering it and that is to release a denial as soon as possible.

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`Not said by me, thank you`: Ratan Tata calls liquor sales-Aadhaar card quote attributed to him `fake` - Zee News

On September 1, Islamist-sympathiser and columnist with Shekhar Guptas The Print, CJ Werleman, shared an undated video on his Twitter profile and claimed that a group of Hindu men desecrated and destroyed a Muslim Graveyard in Nathan, India. He wrote, Hindutva radicals desecrate and destroy a Muslim graveyard in Nathan, India.

Several Islamists picked up the video to defame Hindus. Bibi Sajeda wrote, Are these bhakts agents of urbanism? Which authority has given them this assignment?

Aidarouss Ahmed Hirsi said, #HinduvtaTerrorist militias destroy a #Muslim cemetery in Nathan, #India

Abdul Hameed Lone said, Hindutva radicals desecrate & destroy a Muslim graveyard in Nathan, India. This is a question mark for the international community as to where India is heading in the South Asian subcontinent & u are all silent.

Kamaal Khan, who appeared to be associated with Tipu Sultan Party, wrote, Hindutva radicals desecrate and destroy a Muslim graveyard in Nathan, India.

News Agency MuslimMirror wrote, Hindutva radicals desecrate and destroy a Muslim graveyard in presence of police in Nathan village, Naggar Tehsil in Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh, India.

All the claims made by CJ Werleman in his tweet were wrong. First, the incident is not from Nathan as claimed by him. OpIndia reached out to Kullu Police, under which Nathan village in Naggar Tehsil is located. SHO Ashok Sharma, Kullu Police, said that the video is not from the Kullu district and no such incident took place in the area.

The video is from Nahan, the headquarters of Sirmaur District in Himachal Pradesh, and it does not show a Muslim Graveyard destroyed by Hindutva radicals as claimed by Werleman. Actually, the video shows an illegal majar being demolished by some Hindu activists with the cooperation of the administration. If one watches the video carefully, a couple of policemen can be seen present at the spot. This indicates that it was not some vandalism, but had the support of the administration.

Kamal Gautam, the General Secretary of Hindu Jagaran Manch in Himachal Pradesh had already posted the same video yesterday on Twitter. In his tweet, he had informed that the Sirmaur unit of Hindu Jagaran Manch had uprooted an illegal majar constructed by Islamic jihadis under their land jihad agenda at Nahan. He added that Jihadis were trying to encroach this precious prime land near medical college Nahan.

A report by Punjab Kesari confirms this incident, which says that the municipal board demolished the illegal majar with the cooperation of HJM members. The report states that some unknown people had set up the illegal majar on government land near the Dr Y S Parmar Medical College in Nahan. The organisation had informed the urban body about the illegal construction, after which it was demolished and the construction material stocked at the site were removed.

HJM state secretary Manab Sharma said that some unknown people had gathered construction material to build the illegal majar in the night. After they informed the authorities about the same, the illegal construction was removed in the presence of administration and police officials.

Therefore, the video shows an illegal majar being demolished by Hindu Jagaran Manch with the full cooperation of the administration and police, and it was not a Muslim graveyard destroyed by Hindutva radicals as claimed by The Print journalist.

This is not the first time Werleman has published a fake report to claim there is Islamophobia in India. On several occasions, he had made false allegations that the Indian government is suppressing Muslims. In August 2018, he took to Twitter to wrongly claim that the BJP had banned the slaughter of livestock during Eid. Werlemen also claimed 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, he posted a video of claiming Hindutva fanatics destroying 25 Muslim owned businesses and properties in Aurangabad on 25th March.

CJ Werlemen appears 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 to refute his 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.

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Columnist with Shekhar Guptas The Print spreads fake news claiming that Hindutva radicals destroyed a Muslim graveyard - OpIndia

Selena Gomezs costar Aaron Dominguez is applauding the singer for the way she handles press intrusion and fake news about her personal life.

During an interview with Insider, Dominguez, who stars alongside the former Disney actor in Only Murders in the Building, said he admired the actor for the way she dealt with fake reports about the two of them dating.

"She deals with it a lot, I'm sure. When you're under the spotlight a lot... that's a pointed topic for her all the time, he said.

Dominguez went on to say that he is unable to comprehend why Gomezs romantic life is constantly falling prey to rumours since she "has so much more to offer as an artist as well."

"She handles it very well, and as gracefully as she does. She was class A the entire time through, he said.

Back in February, photos from the set of Only Murders in the Building came to surface, showing Gomez and Dominguez cosying up for a scene, which subsequently sparked rumours of them dating.

Clearing the air about the speculation, Gomez had told the Los Angeles Times in March: "She was class A the entire time through. I honestly thought, 'No wonder guys don't want to date me!' I think people only care because I'm young, and the older I get the less they'll care. For now it's a part of the job that I don't really like.

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Selena Gomez praised for gracefully handling press intrusion and fake news - Geo News

Media watchdogs have called on government to withdraw the bill, saying it could be used to stifle criticism.

ByJeong-Ho LeeBloomberg

South Koreas ruling party is set to push through a bill stepping up penalties for fake news, with international media groups arguing the measure could hamper press freedoms and opposition lawmakers saying its intended to silence critics.

President Moon Jae-ins progressive Democratic Party used its supermajority in parliament Wednesday to move out of committee the bill to revise the Press Arbitration Act, setting it up a full vote in a plenary session as early as this week.

Under the revised bill, news organizations would be required to issue prompt corrections for the deliberate or grossly negligent dissemination of false news reports. It also calls for up to a five-fold increase in compensation paid as a penalty, if a court acknowledges the publication is false.

For cases that are hard to track the specific damage amount, the bill dictates media organizations to compensate plaintiffs within the range of 50 million won ($43,000) to 100 million won ($85,000).

The bill is meant to combat the dissemination of fake news, according to Democratic Party, which has pointed to what it sees as a rise in news articles often without any attribution that has moved markets before corrected or deleted. Others have published anonymous allegations posted online that have turned out to be untrue or denied by the accused, it said.

The bill establishes public trust in the press and expands the value of free speech, party spokesman Han Jun-ho said.

The main conservative opposition People Power Party called the bill unconstitutional and is planning a filibuster. The Democratic Party revealed its intention to curb the media that reported unfavorable news to them, PPP spokeswoman Jun Joo-hyae said Monday.

Press freedom is a sensitive subject in South Korea, where authoritarian leaders who ruled the country until the late 1980s used their power to stamp out dissent and squeezed the media to be in line with the government.

Media watchdogs, including the Vienna-based International Press Institute, have called on Moons party to withdraw the legislation. At a time when authoritarian governments are increasingly adopting so-called fake news laws to stifle criticism, it is disappointing to see a democratic country like South Korea follow this negative trend, IPI Deputy Director Scott Griffen said in a statement last week.

Moon, whose single, five-year term ends in May, and his party have had their battles with the press. Some of the most heated have come around two of Moons choices for justice minister who were forced to step down in the face of local media reports of graft and favoritism, which eventually led to investigations by prosecutors and charges being brought.

The media bill comes after Moons party put in place a law that took effect in January mandating prison terms for people spreading falsehoods about pro-democracy rallies in Gwangju in the 1980s that were crushed with deadly force, which prompted criticism from historians who saw the measure as an excessive use of authority.

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South Korea faces resistance to proposed fake news bill - Aljazeera.com

Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.

GOVERNMENT'S response to the Covid-19 pandemic is seriously impacted by the proliferation of disinformation, an official of the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS) said.

"The damage inflicted by fake news can be serious, and its ramifications far and wide as news could travel more quickly on social media, especially sensational stories, which most disinformation producers invent in selling fake news," Sheila Siar, PIDS research and information director, said in a webinar.

Quoting World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Siar said the world is fighting not just a pandemic but also an "infodemic" as fake news is spreading faster than Covid-19.

Based on the definition of WHO, "infodemic" refers to the overabundance of information - some accurate and some not - that makes it difficult for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.

"Fake news can expose individuals and communities to further risks from not following the health protocols and not getting vaccinated. It can also instigate public fear, panic and anxiety, creating a host of mental health issues," she said.

Siar, in her policy paper, noted that false information could also affect the economy.

An example is the "news about the supposed health benefits of certain plants, such as ginger, in preventing Covid-19 infections," which "triggered an artificial spike in prices, causing a global shortage."

Fake news could also cause unnecessary hoarding and panic buying, according to Siar.

In a study she cited, the sudden increase in the demand for health supplies, such as masks and protective equipment, disrupted the local and global supply, resulting in a market failure.

Siar suggested some interventions to prevent the proliferation of fake news.

According to her, there is a need to increase people's awareness, familiarity and understanding of available tools for fact-checking.

She said government agencies, academic institutions and media networks should help in promoting these to validate the authenticity of information circulated on the internet and through social media.

Siar said strengthened citizen engagement is also needed, noting that "misinformation is a whole-of-society problem and not just an issue for the government to solve or for the tech companies to address."

She said it is vital to engage citizens in fact-checking and capacitate citizens through continuous training and education.

Siar also highlighted the importance of developing analytical thinking and digital intelligence early on in life among children, stressing that "based on cognitive psychology research, the propensity to fall prey to fake news is linked to poor analytical thinking and reflective reasoning."

Moreover, she urged the government to include media literacy in the country's basic education curriculum, explaining that "while there is a subject called Media and Information Literacy in the Senior High School program, it is a general course and not focused on developing media literacy skills."

Siar encouraged netizens to make fact-checking an automatic response whenever they receive potentially false information and messages from dubious sources.

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'Fake news threat to public health' - The Manila Times

African National Congress KwaZulu-Natal secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli has denied any involvement by any ANC member regarding fears about a national shutdown.

The African National Congress (ANC) of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) stated that it was not involved in spreading a planned shutdown poster.

The poster, mentions that a planned national shutdown protest will be held outside the party's provincial offices on Monday 23 August.

The African National Congress KwaZulu-Natal secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli has denied that the party was aware of any plans for the supposed march.

When the poster went viral last week, we issued a statement as the ANC to distance ourselves from the post because we are deeply concerned that it included a logo of the ANC, and since then, we have been checking within our structures to ensure that none of our members are involved, and we now know that this is not the work of the ANC people.

In fact, it appeared to us as fake news intended to provoke fear and panic in the province but we are still following it.

Even today we have not seen anything; anywhere including places that were affected in July.

We've told the ANC structures to be on the lookout for anything unusual and to notify us or law enforcement if they observe anything unusual so that we can immediately identify individuals who are doing wrong and determine if any of our members are engaged so that we can take action.

We are very confident that the structures of the ANC would not allow for what happened back in July to happen again.

RELATED: Contact crimes increased by 60.6% in Q1, Cele reveals

Over 300 people were killed in KwaZulu-Natal as a result of violence and looting.

Since then, provincial governments have been under enormous pressure to repair shattered social relations and R45 billion worth of public and private infrastructure.

Listeners on the Clement Manyathela Show weighed in on the possibility of a nationwide shutdown, with many expressing their displeasure with the prospect of the shutdown damaging the country's already struggling economy..

Zuma failed to obey the judiciary system which is why he has been arrested, so people should not be talking too much in his defense. He is in jail and deserves it.

If the government was serious about its counter intelligence effort why have I not received a simple Whatsapp number where we can alert them if we see any inflammatory messages or adverts when they come up on our social media pages.

I think the instigators are not imprisoned because the government is unaware of their identities. They keep making political remarks to give the impression that they are in control when they clearly are not because if they were, they would be in jail right now.

Listen to the full conversation below...

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The shutdown appeared as fake news intended to instill fear and panic - ANC KZN - 702

HOUSTON, TX When people use the term nuclear option this tends to involve the most extreme, the most desperate measure available for use. The modern lexicon has multiple uses for the nuclear option. Should one go to that sage source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, you will receive a brief overview about the nuclear option as a procedure in the US Senate. There are also other various references to using the nuclear option. Most of this stems from the fact that nuclear weapons are considered the ultimate in firepower and for those countries who have them, there is always that option.

However, lest we dwell on the ramifications of thousands of nuclear warheads detonating across the globe, bringing about such charming concepts as nuclear fallout/winter, mass extinction and the end of life on the planet, lets move on to other, more important topics. By this, we mean the trench-warfare stand-off between Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans. You remember Watson, right? The fourth string quarterback and back-up non-contact safety who has only suited up in pads once at Training Camp. Oh, yeah, he was a starting QB for the team, allegedly.

There was quite the to-do when people at the Texans training camp on Monday saw the fourth stringer (or second-string non-contact safety if we want to be a little more charitable) have a discussion with the most powerful velociraptor in the NFL, Nick Caserio. While official sources did not report on what was said, we at Totally Not Fake News, using our own special and possibly, somewhat, kinda-sorta-but-maybe-not-entirely-but-well-say-they-are legal listening devices means were able to gleam what the two entities discussed:

Watson: Hey, Nick, did you trade me yet?

Caserio: No

Watson: You gonna trade me today?

Caserio: No

Watson: You gonna trade me tomorrow?

Caserio: No

Watson: You gonna trade me at some point soon?

Caserio: No

Watson: Youre funnybut no, seriously, when are you gonna trade

Caserio: No.

Watson: Ok[inaudible]well, when you come around, give me call at the following. Got a great massag[CENSORED SO THAT WE DONT GET SUED VIOLATE HIPAA ISSUES]

To recap, since the early stages of the off-season, #4 as declared that he wanted out of Houston, requesting, nay, demanding a trade. Thus far, the team has not traded the back-up non-contact safety, as apparently, other teams are realizing the Texans do not have the previous GM on the team.

Non-contact, back-up safeties who can also play fourth string quarterbacks dont just grow on trees ya know. If you think we are trading that valuable camp asset for anything less than a franchise-altering level of draft picks, well, we cant help you on that one observed a spokesperson for Nick Caserio.

However, the long stalemate is apparently wearing on all parties. Coach Culley, in an effort to save his voice, is taking to placing a laminated card on his podium for press conferences that reads as follows:

For All Questions About the 4th string QB/2nd string non-contact safety, please refer to one of the following responses:

A) Nothing has changed

B) No comment

Saw that [Easterby] card at least 25 times in the last press conference observed a lesser press entity that was clearly not the great and glorious Totally Not Fake News.

As for the multiple-faceted camp asset, there is growing frustration in his camp. [Easterby], I thought the team was for sure gonna free him by now observed an anonymous consultant to #4. First, we made the public pronouncementshe even removed all references on SOCIAL MEDIA.in 2021, that is like a living death, man! Then, after what we saw the Stafford and Wentz deals, we thought for sure that we was gonna be gone, hopefully to a great city/organization. Hey, they might have gotten some decent picks, dont know. Couldve been the big win/win they always talk aboutah well.

When asked about the various allegations, the consultant went into conniptions You mean the FALSE allegations. They didnt happen, they cant prove it, my employer/bill-payer is completely and totally innocent. FAKE NEWS!!!

After he calmed down for a bitWell, to be honest, we felt that this could still have worked to our advantage. The team, which is so big on character and morality wouldve been thrilled, or so we thought, to get rid of a so-called predator. Ship him out, get him off the books and move onbut Oh nothey want this whole fair value thing. Either that, or they are still holding to that pronouncement that Watson is The Chosen One. Ordained by the one true prophet of the Texans that will lead the blessed Texans to the Promised Landor some bull[Easterby] like that.

The consultant appeared deflated. Yet, here we are. The team aint lettin him go, and #4 gotta go clock ingotta pay the bills. I mean, we may, not that we want to, but we may have to look at thethenuclear option.

Thus, the following exchange occurred:

TNFN Reporter: You want to end the filibuster for the Texans?Anonymous Consultant: What? No! This team is a theocracy. There aint no filibusters in the Bible.

TNFN Reporter: You have actual nukes?Anonymous Consultant: No! [Easterby] no! Besides, radioactive fallout could really hinder my clients [CENSORED]

TNFN Reporter: So, what exactly is this nuclear option that you speak of?

The consultant was not at liberty to say, but he did reveal that they think they figured out the critical node for targeting.

The teams center of gravity is its spiritual advisor and his message. Disrupt that, or shock the [Easterby] out of that and #4 will be as free as a jaybirdmoney and all.

How could #4 employ the nuclear option to maximum effect? We have unconfirmed reports that the following transcribed soundtrack was playing at his residence around midnight. The transcript was a little incomplete, as there were sounds of what seemed like dying animals, but we could get the following:

ALL HAIL SATAN!!!! All HAIL THE FALLEN ANGEL!!! ALL HAIL THE MORNING STAR!!! ALL HAIL

[Editors note: The rest was drowned out by indiscriminate noise of some sort of life form(s)we arent sure.]

[Editors 2nd note: Our sound technician has suddenly taken to a habit of eating raw hamburger meatwe arent sure why].

Whatever option, if any are deployed, we at Totally Not Fake News will relay that information, provided our staff are located at a minimum safe distance.

Read this article:

Totally Not Fake News: The Nuclear Option - Battle Red Blog

Political misinformation whether "fake news," conspiracy theories or outright lying has often been attributed to widespread ignorance, even though there are numerous examples of 20th-century propaganda aimed at those most attentive to politics. Books like Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" began to challenge that notion, as did the 1991 study of media coverage of the first Gulf War with the memorable bottom line, "the more you watch, the less you know."In the age of social media, scholarlyexplanations have shifted to discussions of "motivated reasoning," which could be defined byPaul Simon's line from "The Boxer": "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

But the ignorance perspective has a deep hold on us because it appeals to the Enlightenment notion that we aremotivated to pursue truth. We are"the thinking animal," right? The important part of that expression may be "animal." Human beingshave an evolutionary history, and deception is commonplace in the animal world because it confers evolutionary advantage. There's good reason to believe we're not so different, other than thefact that humans are ultra-social creatures. In ancestral and evolutionary terms, being part of a successfulsocial group was every bitas essential as food and water. So deception among humans evolved from group conflicts. That's the thesis of a recent paper called "The Evolutionary Psychology of Conflict and the Functions of Falsehood" by the Danish political scientists Michael Bang Petersen and Mathias Osmundsen and American anthropologist John Tooby.

While the paper alignswith the "motivated reasoning" perspective, its focus goes deeper than the psychological mechanisms that produce and reproduce false information. These researchers are tryingto elucidate the functions of those mechanisms, that is, to answer the question of why they evolved in the first place. I interviewed Petersen three years ago, about a previous paper, "A 'Need for Chaos' and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies," which wassummarized on Twitter thusly: "Many status-obsessed, yet marginalized individuals experience a 'Need for Chaos' and want to 'watch the world burn.'" That paperprovided crucial insight intoprolific spreaders of misinformation and why they do what they do. But that individualist account was only part of the story. Thisnew paper seeks to illuminatesthe evolutionary foundations and social processes involved in the spread of outright falsehoods. So I had another long conversationwith Petersen,edited as usual for clarity and length.

Over the past decade or so, it's become more common to regard the spread of political misinformation, or "political rumors," as they're sometimes called, as theresult of "motivated reasoning" rather than ignorance. But your new paperproposesa broad evolutionary account of the social functions behind that motivated reasoning. Tell meabout what led you to writing it, and what you set out to do?

One of our major goals with this research is to try to understand why it is that people believe things that other people believe are completely bizarre. I think it's clear for everyone that that problem has gained more prominence within the last few decades, especially with the advent of social media. It seems that thosekind of belief systems belief in information and content thatother people would say isblatantly false is becoming more widespread. It can havesome pretty dire consequences, as we could seefor examplewith the storming of the Capitol on Jan.6.

Sowhat we're trying to understand is, why people believe things that must be false.The traditional narrative is, 'Well if you believe false things, then you must be stupid. It must be because you haven't really made an effort to actually figure out what is going on." But over the last few decades, more and more research has accumulated that suggests that's not the case. Infact the people who are responsible for spreading misinformation are not those who know the least about politics. They actually know quite a lot about politics. In that sense, knowledge doesn't guard against believing things that are false.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

What we're trying to do is to say, "Well, if it's not because people are ignorant, then what is it?" Inorder to understand that, we utilize the framework of evolutionary psychology, basically trying to understand: Could there be anything adaptive about believing false information?Could this in some way be functional?Is it actually sort of on purpose that false information is believed andspread, rather than being an accident?

Before you discuss human evolution, you have a section of nonhuman animals. What can we learn from deception and conflict in the animal world?

I think that's an important stepping stone, to look at the animal world, because most people would say that what animals do isthe products of biological evolution, and has some sort of evolutionary advantage. And what we can see in animals is that they spread false information all the time when they are engaged in conflict.

One sort of obvious exampleis that animals try to appear larger than they are when they are engaged in conflict with other animals. That's, of course, tosend a signal to the other animals that you shouldn't mess with me and if we actually get into a real fight I will win. So animals are trying to get an upper hand in conflict situations by making false signals.

Sohow does thatchange, ornot change, when we look athumans?

First, that is also what we should expect that humans do, that if they cansendfalse signals that are advantageous to them, then they should do it. What we then discussis that there are certain constraints on the degree of falsehood in animal communication. That constraint is that communication systems evolved in the first place because they are a helpful for both individuals or both organisms involved in the exchange. So before a communication system can evolve it should beadaptive for the sender andfor the receiver. That means that even in conflict situations you cannot set up blatant falsehoods. There are some kinds of reality constraints.

We are then sayingthatactually, in some situations, with regards to humans andhuman evolution, these constraints doesn't operate. That's because if we look at nonhuman animals, then the conflict is often between two individuals, but in human conflict it's often between two groups, and the members of one group, are cooperating with each other against the other group. That meansthere might be certain advantages, within one group, to spread misinformation and spread falsehoods, if that can give them an upper hand in the conflict with the other group. Then we go on to discuss a number of ways in which that might be true.

You identify three functions of information sharing: group mobilization for conflict, coordination of attention, and signaling commitment. You argue that accomplishing these goals efficiently is what gets selected, in evolutionary terms, not truth or veracity. Canyou give an example of each, starting with mobilization?

When you want to mobilize your group, what you need to do isfind out that we are facing a problem, and your way of describing that problem needs to be as attention-grabbing as possiblebefore you can get the group to focus on the same thing. In that context, reality is seldom as juicy as fiction. By enhancing the threat for example, by saying things that are not necessarily true then you are in a better situation to mobilize and coordinate the attention of your own group. The key thing is that itmay actually be toyour group's advantage that if everyone isin agreement that we don't like these other guys, then we make sure that everyone is paying attention to this other group. Soby exaggerating the actual threat posed by the other group, you can gain more effective mobilization.

The key to understand why thismakes sense, why this is functional, is that one needs to distinguish between interests and attention.A group can have a joint set of interests, such as, "Well, we don't like this other group, wethink we should deal with this other group in in some way." But on top of that interest or set of interests, there is the whole coordination problem. You need to get everyone to agree that this is the time to deal with that problem. It's now, and we need to deal with it in this way. It's in thatsort of negotiation process whereit can be in everyone's interest to exaggerate the threat beyond reality, to make sure that everyone gets the message.

You've more or lessanswered my next question about coordination. So what about signaling commitment? How does falsehood play a role there?

I think these are the two major problems, the mobilization on the one part and then the signaling on the other part. When you're a member of the group, then you need other group members to help you. In order for that to take place, you need to signal that, "Well, I'm a loyal member of this group. I would help you guys if you were in trouble, so now you need to help me."

Humans are constantly focused on signals of loyalty: "Are they loyal members of the group?" and "How can I signal that I'm a loyal member?" There are al sorts of ways in which we do that. We take on particular clothes, we have gang tattoosand all sorts of physical ways of expressing loyalty with the group.

But because we humans are exceptionally complex, another way to signal our loyalty is throughthe beliefs that we hold. We can signal loyalty to a group by having a certain set of beliefs, and then the question is, "Well, what is the type of belief through which we can signal that we belong?" First of all, it should be a belief that other people are not likely to have, because if everyone has this belief, then it's not a very good signal of group loyalty. It needs to be something that other people in other groups do not have. The basic logic at work here is that anyone can believe the truth, but only loyal members of the group can believe something that is blatantly false.

There is a selection pressure to develop beliefs or develop a psychology thatscansfor beliefs that are so bizarre and extraordinary that no one would come up with them by themselves. This would signal, "Well, I belong to this group. I know what this group is about. I have been with this group for a long time," because you would not be able to hold this beliefwithout that prehistory.

I believe we can see this in a lot of the conspiracy theories that are going around, like the QAnon conspiracy theory. I think we can see it in religious beliefs too, becausea lot of religious beliefs are really bizarre when you look at them. One example that we give in the text is the notion of the divine Trinity in Christianity, which has this notion that God is both one and three at the same time. You would never come up with this notion on your own.You would only come up with that if you were actually socialized into a Christian religious group. So that's a very good signal:"Well, that's a proper Christian."

Right. I was raised Unitarian. As a secular Jew in Northern California at that time, the only place we could have a home was a Unitarian fellowship. It was filled with secular Jews,definitely not "proper Christians."

Yes, I went to a private Catholic school myself, so I've been exposed to my portion of religious beliefs as well. But there's another aspect that's very important when it comes to group conflict, because another very good signal that you are a loyal member is beliefs that the other group would find offensive. A good way to signal that I'm loyal to this groupandnot that groupis to take on a belief that is the exact opposite of what theother group believes. So that createspressure not only to developbizarre beliefs, but also bizarre beliefs that this other group is bad, is evil, or something really opposed to the particular values that they have.

This suggests that there arefunctional reasons for both spreading falsehoods, and alsosignaling these falsehoods. I think one of the key insights is that we need to think about beliefs in another way than we often do. Quite often we think about the beliefs that we have as representations of reality, so the reason why we have the beliefis to navigate the world. Because of that, there needs to be a pretty good fit or match between the content of our beliefs and the features of reality.

But what we are arguing is that a lot of beliefs don't really exist for navigating the world. They exist for social reasons, because they allow us to accomplish certain socially important phenomena, such as mobilizing our group or signaling that we're loyal members of the group. This means that becausethe function of the beliefs is not to represent reality, their veracity or truth value is not really an important feature.

In the section "Falsehoods as Tools for Coordination" you discuss Donald Horowitz's book, "The Deadly Ethnic Riot."What does that tell usabout the role offalsehood in setting up the preconditions for ethnic violence?

"The Deadly Ethnic Riot"is an extremely disturbing book. It's this systematic review of what we know about what happens before, duringand after ethnic massacres. I read this book when I became interested in fake news and misinformation circulating on social media, and this was recommended to me by my friend and collaborator Pascal Boyer, who is also an evolutionary psychologist. Horowitz arguesthat you cannot and do not have an ethnic massacre without a preceding period of rumor-sharing. His argument is exactly what I was trying to argue before, that the function of suchrumors isactually not to represent reality. The total function of the rumors isto organize your group and get it ready for attack. You do so by pointing out that the enemy is powerful, that it's eviland that it's ready to attack, so you need to do something now.

One of the really interesting things aboutthe analysis of rumors in this book is that, if you look at the content of the rumors, that'snot so much predicted by what the other group has done to you or to your group. It'sreally predicted bywhat you are planning to do tothe other group. So the brutality of the content of these rumors is,in a sense, part of the coordination about what we're going to do to them when we get the action going which also suggests that the function of these rumors isnot to represent reality, but to serve social functions.

What I was struck by when I read Horowitz's book was how similar the content of the rumors that he's describingin these ethnic massacres all over the world, how similar thatis to the kind of misinformation that is being circulated on social media. Thissuggests that a lot of what is going on in social media is also not driven byignorance, but by these social functions.

One point you make is that to avoid being easily contradicted or discredited, these kinds of"mobilization motivations should gravitate towards unverifiable information: Events occurring in secret, far away in time or space, behind closed doors, etc." This helps explain the appeal of conspiracy theories. How dothey fit into thispicture?

When we look at falsehoods there is a tension. Onone level, there is amotivationto make it as bizarre as possible, for all the reasons we have been talking about. Onthe other hand,if you are trying to create this situation of mobilization, you want the information to flow as unhindered as possible through the network. You want it to spread as far as possible.If you're in a situation whereeveryone is looking at a chair and you say, "Well, that chair is a rock," that's something that will hinder the flow of information, because people will say, "Well, we know that's really a chair."

So while there is this motivation or incentive to create content as bizarre as possible, there is also another pressure or another incentive toavoid thesituationwhere you're being called out by people who are not motivated to engage in the collective action. That suggests it's better to develop content about situations whereother people have a difficult time saying, "That's blatantly false." So that's why unverifiable information is the optimal kind of information, because there you can really create as bizarre content as you want, and you don't have the risk of being called out.

We see a similar kind of tactic when conspiracy theorists argue, "Well, we are only raising questions," where you are writing or spreading the informationbut you have this plausible deniability,which is also a way to avoid being called out. Conspiracy theories are notorious exactly for looking for situations that are unverifiable and where it's very difficult to verify what's up and what's down. They createthese narratives that we also seein ethnic massacres, where we have an enemy who is powerful, who is eviland who is ready to do something that's very bad. Again, that completely fits the structure of mobilizing rumors that Horowitz is focusing on. Sowhat we've been arguing, here and elsewhere, is that a lot of conspiracy theories are really attempts to mobilizeagainst the political order.

In the section "Falsehoods as Signals of Dominance" you write that "dominance can essentially be asserted by challenging others," and argue that when a given statement "contradicts a larger number of people's beliefs, it serves as a better dominance signal." I immediatelythought of Donald Trump in those terms. For example, he didn't invent birtherism, and when he latched onto it he didn't even go intothe details there were all these different versions of birther conspiracy theories, and he didn't know jack-shit about any of them. He just made these broad claims, drawing on his reputation and hisvisibility, andestablished himself as a national politicalfigure. I wonder if you can talk about that not just about Trump, but about how thatworks more generally.

Yes, I can confess that I too was thinking about Donald Trump when writing that particular section of the paper.SoI will talk a little bit about Donald Trump, but I will get to the general case. I think one of the first examples for me of that tactic was during the presidential inauguration in 2017, where the claim was that there were more people at Trump's inauguration than Obama's inauguration, and everyone could clearly seethat wasfalse.

So there are two explanations. Either Trump is ignorant and I don't believe he's ignorant, I think he is an extremely skilled or intuitive psychologist who knows how to mobilize his followers or it suggests he's thinking, "I can say whatever I want, and I care so little about the other group's opinions that I can say things that are blatantly false, wherethey know that I know it's false, and it's precisely because they know that I know that it's false that it serves as a dominancesignal."

That's why, in order to get that kind of dominance signal through, you need to find these cases where it's clear that it's not just because you're getting it wrong it's exactly because you know and you just don't care. That's the kind of signal you want to go for when you are trying to assert dominance through holding those kinds of beliefs.

You point out that for group members preparing for conflict, "signals of falsehoods are cooperative rather than conflictual." It seems to me that one of the ways your paper could be built on is tolookat other ways falsehoods enterinto the picture. For example, there are times when people deny or undercut the false claims they've made. Withthe recent spread of racist voter-suppression laws, the underlying racism helps build group solidarity and prepare for conflict, but you also constantly hear Republicansdeny any racist intention. I wonder if you have thoughts about how further work canbe done in that direction.

Just to start with that particular observation,I think with that sort of denial for example, "This is not racism, this is not sexism," orwhatever part of the function is again to have plausible deniability, whereby you can make sure that the information spreads, that everyone who needs to hear itwill hear itand it's not really being blocked. Because you could say that outright racism or outright sexism would be something that would stop the spread of the information.So people who are in a mobilization context are always caught in this cross-pressure between making sure that the signal is as loud as possible, and that it is disseminated as widely as possible. Often there is this tension between the two that you need to navigate. I think looking at and understanding that conflict and that tensionis an important theoretical next next step.

As we saynumerous times in the chapter, this is a theoretical piece where we are building a lot of hypotheses which are in need of empirical evidence. So I think one important next step is to gain and develop the empirical evidence or empirical tests of these hypotheses, to see what actually seems to hold up, and what may be misguided.

One thingI'm very interested in personally is to to look into who usesthese tactics more than others who ismost motivated to engage in these kinds of tactics to win conflict. This is a line of work that we havebeen studying,and onethingwe arefinding is that people who are seekingstatus are themost motivated touse these kinds of tactics to gain that status.

I always like to end by asking: What's the most important question I didn't ask? And what's the answer?

I think the most important questionthat you may not have asked is this: We started outtalking about motivated reasoning, so what isthe difference between what we are bringing to the table, compared to the traditional theories of motivated reasoning?Those argue that you hold certain beliefs because they feel good. You like to believe certain things about your group because it gives you self-esteem. You like to believe the other group isevil because that also helps you feel good about your group. When social scientistshave abandoned theignorance argument for those kinds of beliefs and looked into social function, then they say, "Well, the social functionof these beliefs is to make you feel good about yourself."

What we are saying is that whileit is probably true that these beliefs make you feel good about yourself,that's not really their function, that's not their real purpose. We're saying that evolution doesn't really carewhether you feel good or bad about yourself. Evolution cares about material benefits and, in the end, reproductive benefits. Sothe beliefs that you have should in some way shape real-world outcomes.

We are arguingthat these false beliefs don't just exist to make you feel good about yourself, but exist in order to enable you to make changes in the world, tomobilize your group and get help from other group members. I think that's an important pointtothink more about: What it is that certain kinds of beliefs enable people to accomplish, andnot just howit makes them feel.

See the original post here:

A terrifying new theory: Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy - Salon

Just ahead of the 2016 election, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told the nation in a Fox News interview that the Trump campaign had a "big surprise" regarding the ginned-up Hillary Clinton email controversy. The former New York City mayor even went so far as to suggest that the FBI had been leaking info about the agency's probedirectly to Giuliani for Trump's political gain.

But according to a newly released 2018 transcript ofGiuliani's interview with Justice Department investigators probing a potential leak, it all appears to have been a complete lie.

Giuliani explained tofederal officials that it's OK to "throw a fake" while campaigning.

The revelation, first reported by The Washington Post, stems from a transcript obtained by the Project on Government Oversight of Giuliani's 2018 interview with federal officials in Trump's D.C. hotel. During the interview, FBI agents working on behalf of the Justice Department inspector general questioned the now-disbarred attorney on whether agency officials had leaked him sensitive info about Clinton's email fiasco back in 2016.

In response, Giuliani's legal counselor Marc Mukasey said that the threshold for truth-telling is much lower in campaigns than it is for typical legal affairs.

"In the heat of a political campaign, on television, I'm not saying Rudy necessarily, but everybody embellishes everything," Mukasey explained. "You're under no obligation to tell the truth."

Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor for New York City, even added: "You could throw a fake."

"Fake news, right?" a federal official asked.

"Right," Mukasey replied.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department inspector general concluded that he could not find any evidence that FBI agents leaked info about the Clinton email investigation to Giuliani, putting to rest longstanding concerns that the agency had actively undermined her candidacy.

But back in 2016, two days before then-FBI Director James B. Comey reopened a probe into Clinton's email affair, Giuliani had gone on Fox News to tell viewers that he had "a surprise or two that you're going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I'm talking about some pretty big surprises."

Many took this claim to be indicative of a clandestine back channel between the former New York Mayor and the FBI, even though Giuliani later walked his rhetoric back as the weeks dragged on.

In 2018, during his formal interview with the FBI, Giuliani struck a different tone, claiming that Comey's probe was in fact "a shock" to him. He suggested that, at most, he may have heard control room gossip about the investigation.

The revelation is just the latest in Giuliani's string of alleged and proven improprieties before, during, and after Trump's presidency.

Back in June, the former prosecutor's law license was suspended by the state of New York over his promotion of Trump's baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. Giuliani is currently facing a federal investigation into his relationship with various Ukrainian officials leading up to the 2020 election.

The former New York mayor is also said to be on the brink of bankruptcy amid a multibillion dollar defamation lawsuit leveled against him by voting technology company Dominion for pushing the erroneous notion that the firm tampered with its own vote-counting machines to sabotage Trump's political prospects.

Original post:

"Throw a fake": Rudy Giuliani reveals to FBI how he used Fox News to push lies about Hillary Clinton - Salon

In Malaysia, a game that can be played by children as young as eight has taught basic fact-checking skills on fake news about Covid-19. In Myanmar, a news outlet has produced over 400 articles in Shan, Burmese, and English to educate people on the health crisis and vaccination all while evading the states crackdown on media. In Cambodia, data visualisation has been made available to reporters and citizen journalists alike to help them make sense of Covid-19 numbers.

These are some of the quick-response projects IWPR Southeast Asia has supported as part of its work combating disinformation amid the pandemic.

There are no geographical boundaries, not even language boundaries, to misinformation and disinformation. It is a common issue of public concern, said Johanna Son of Reporting Asean: Voice and Views from Within. The project surveyed nine countries in the region, fidning that 57 per cent of respondents relied on news outlets for information about the virus, despite often finding it hard to distinguish between factual content and misinformation.

Many of the projects supported by IWPR thus focused on making accurate information more accessible.

Factual, a project launched from the Philippines, made use of a chatbot that users could interact with to ask questions related to Covid-19.

Making critical information more accessible through Facebook messenger allowed more Filipinos access to reliable and up-to-date data, said Factual's Anthony Esguerra. Our project was the first fact-checking programme to concentrate on the Filipino language by engaging using a more conversational tone, we create more allies in fighting disinformation.

The Thibi project promoted data visualisation templates, or what they described as easy-to-cook recipes for charts and scroll maps to help journalists produce effective and attractive data-driven reports without stressing about the technicalities.

We want to make data look nice, said Thibis Yang Naung Oak. We don't want people to shun data because of the number of rows and columns.

In Cambodia, two organisations the Cambodian Centre for Independent Media (CCIM) and the Womens Media Centre (WMC) produced radio shows on the pandemic.

We did three live radio shows as well as fact-checked articles on Covid-19, said WMCs Chanthol Oung, adding that the broadcasts reached 17 of Cambodias 25 provinces.

Through our radio program, True or Not, we provided reliable information on Covid-19. It also became a platform for citizens to check the information they received whether it is true or fake, added CCIMs Sothoeuth Ith.

Meanwhile, Open Development Cambodia (ODC) trained 39 citizen journalists through its Covid-19 digital hub.

We compiled and disseminated data and resources and equipped relevant stakeholders and citizens with reliable, up-to-date and complete data and information, said ODCs Julia Puig.

In Vietnam, a Facebook page on pandemic-related disinformation was set up by a department of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics. The page had 1,000 posts that included safety tips for journalists and hosted seven webinars with stakeholders such as leading medical experts, media owner, and journalists, which led to the production of a guide for best practice in both Vietnamese and English.

Fortify Rights, an advocacy group based in Thailand, documented and countered Covid-19 related attacks on refugees and migrants. As a result of its campaigning, Facebook removed 12 xenophobic pages fanning anti-migrant sentiment on its platform.

In Malaysia, the online game Choices I Make -- available in English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese educated people on the potential consequences of disinformation on individuals and on society as a whole.

The characters and storylines were crafted to cover various ethnic groups, age groups and scenarios relevant to Malaysias handling of the pandemic, said Hazwany Jamaluddin of Malaysia Information Literacy Education. We want to enable them to navigate the infodemic by better evaluating information, especially prior to sharing it.

In Myanmar, a small group of journalists and social media specialists banded together to create True News, a Facebook group linked to three pages with the aim of fighting back against misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19.

The military coup that happened in Myanmar targeted journalists and some of our members were detained by the military and some are still in hiding for safety reasons. But we tried as much as we can to contribute reliable and correct information, said Phone Myint Min, adding that they had to shift to an SMS platform when the junta started restricting internet access.

IWPR Asia programme coordinator Rorie Fajardo-Jarilla said that the outpouring of information around Covid-19 had been unprecedented and demanded an urgent, concerted response.

We are getting more and more of our audiences involved, she said. By understanding better how our Southeast Asian audiences consume information, and by equipping them against disinformation and misinformation, I can also say that our work has also been unprecedented.

Read more from the original source:

Fighting Fake News in Southeast Asia - Institute for War and Peace Reporting