Category Archives: Fake News

Is Pakistan interested to acquire the latest military hardware from Russia? Recently, Sergy Lavrov visited Islamabad where he said Russia was ready to supply special military equipment to Pakistan to boost its counter-terror capabilities.

Earlier, Pakistani media outlet the Express Tribune wrote Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on his visit to Islamabad had delivered an important message to the Pakistani leadership from President Vladimir Putin.

Senior Pakistani official quoted FM Lavrov as saying I came with a message to inform the Pakistani government that Moscow is ready for any cooperation, whatever Pakistan needs, Russia is ready for it.

The media outlet claimed In other words, the Russian president has offered us a blank cheque.

Indian media outlet the Economic Times quoting diplomatic sources countered the Blank Cheque claims and wrote Pakistans claim about getting a blank cheque from Moscow is false propaganda and fake news.

ET quoted Russian officials as saying There is no basis for blank cheque theory. Pakistan has a habit of inflating its ties with Russia. There is no attempt to threaten President Putins commitment to PM Modi and Moscow will not sell defense equipment to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Indian news agency PTI reported After promising defense equipment to Pakistan and admonishing the Indo-Pacific strategy, Moscow has reassured India by describing it as a trusted partner and said there were no divergences between the two nations and that it has limited cooperation with Pakistan based on independent relations.

In a press conference, the Russian embassys deputy chief of missionRoman Babushkin said We are all members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and develop cooperation in various fields including regional security, fight against terrorism and to deal with other threats, he said.

Russia has limited cooperation with Pakistan as compared to India. However, the fight against terrorism is our common agenda. So we also help Pakistan in providing anti-terrorism equipment and holding dedicated exercise, he added.

Experts on the Russian affairs who wished to stay anonymous told the EurAsian Times that the global order is changing. Pakistan is slowly moving in the China-Russia block while India is shifting towards the western block. It is a role reversal from the cold war.

Russia is expanding its ties with Pakistan firstly on the behest of China and secondly as a warning to India as New Delhi cozies up with the west and forming the Asian NATO the QUAD block.

Russia would not want to jeopardize its ties with India the biggest importer of Russian military hardware. At the same time, Moscow wants to balance its ties with India and China and one way of keeping Beijing happy is to warm-up to Pakistan not only in the defense sector but by also investing in the CPEC project.

Earlier, as EurAsian Times reported, Pakistan has agreed to hand over the management control of a gas pipeline project to Russia through a special purpose company. The new pact would pave the way for Pakistan to hold a 74% stake in the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline (PSGP) project, with Russia having 26% ownership.

Go here to see the original:

Russia Will Not Sell Its Latest Military Hardware To Pakistan; Media Propagating Fake News Indian Experts - EurAsian Times

Faisal Hanif argues that the medias inbuilt prejudice against Muslims leads to a clamour for stories, no matter what the credibility of the source

As Muslim parents protested outside Batley Grammar School after a teacher showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad one noticeable feature of the reporting has been the frequent updates concerning a petition allegedly set up by a group of students at the school.

From 10,000 to 20,000 signatures, and now more than 60,000, the petition in support of the teacher has been deemed important enough by the media to generate headlines. The students have demanded that the burley Yorkshire lad (as the Daily Mail and its associated Newspaper group have resorted to calling the teacher) be reinstated.

One noticeable omission from the reporting, however, is confirmation of whether the petition was in fact set up by students. Establishing this is the job of the reporter and is imperative given the ease with which anyone can set up an account and instigate campaigns. Yet, the claim has been reported as fact, and it seems no one has bothered to verify the identity of the petition-master.

In a similar incident, a paramedic who called himself Tom alleged on Christo Foufas talkRADIO show that he had been denied entry to a Mosque to treat a heart attack patient because he was gay. Tom further claimed that he had been threatened with beheadings on the streets of Oldham. This was a hook for the presenter to curate an exchange based on the trope that there are no-go areas in Britain populated heavily by Muslims.

The caller, who claimed to be a 26-year-old veteran of the North West Ambulance Service, said that his piercings and blue Mohican gave away his sexual preferences and caught the ire of his detractors. The allegation was serious enough to make headlines in two national tabloids, yet it seems as though neither they and nor Foufas made an attempt to verify the source of the claims.

After being contacted by the Centre for Media Monitoring, the North West Ambulance service looked over two years worth of call logs and said that the incident, or any of the other allegations, did not happen and no such person fitting the description of Tom had worked for them.

Yet, this was not enough to humble those behind the interview, with the radio presenter citing the context of alleged death threats towards the Batley school teacher as a valid reason for the caller to hide his identity.This was a part of the justification given by Foufas when he explained his reasoning for awarding 17 minutes of airtime to Tom.

The power of anonymous information targeting Muslims was most infamously seen in the so-called Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham schools in 2014-2015. Accusations against Muslim teachers and governors via an anonymous letter led to an entire media and government campaign against them, which in turn ruined lives and careers.

The identity of the individual who made the accusations has to this day seemingly been left unchecked, even though the case against the teachers collapsed, with the integrity of the process called into disrepute.

Platforming the anonymous often seems to be an excuse to air spurious generalisations and tropes against individuals, families and communities alleviating the author and the publication from the burden of proof.

Even the BBC, which prides itself on verifying information before publication, has hosted feature articles under pseudonyms where accusations against Muslims flow freely. One such example is the story of a woman leading a double life who accuses her grandfather of having ruled the roost, with Islamic sermons and prayers five times a day, and older members of the community of living in the 8th Century, not the 21st.

In 2018, the Independents opinion section published an article from an alleged survivor of Rotherham grooming gangs under the pseudonym of Ella Hill. One of the central claims of the piece was how religion was a motivating factor in the gang crimes, with groomers said to have quoted verses from the Quran whilst beating her. The individual behind the pseudonym has gone on to make claims of how over half a million non-Muslim girls have been raped by grooming gangs in the last 40 years on a Hindu Supremacist website known to publish fake news and anti-Muslim conspiracies. She has also made the claim that rape victims of white perpetrators are jealous of grooming gang victims.

The comedian Andrew Doyle showed how easy it was to publish accusatory articles on the Independents comment site when he admitted to writing a hoax article under a pseudonym which slated the stand-up circuit as a hotbed of racism and sexism. Doyle stated that traditional media fabricates outrage to create an anti-woke backlash, and the same can be said of how it reports on Muslims and Islam. This goes to show that, if a particular publication or broadcaster wants something to be true, then it shall be so, even if the claim remains unproven or unverified.

This is particularly the case for reporting on Muslims, who are the subject of misinformation and even blatant fabrication. The narrative has been established that Muslims are a unique danger in British society. Therefore, sources of information who confirm this narrative often receive a platform without basic journalistic due diligence.

A report from the Columbia School of Journalism concluded that pseudonyms were inherently undesirable in journalism as they invite fiction. Given how British newspapers have an established record of concocting stories to demonise Muslims, it is justifiable to be highly sceptical of the use of pseudonym sources by individual journalists and publications. Information should always be presumed to be untrue until its verified.

New to Byline Times? Find out about us

Our leading investigations include Brexit Bites, Empire & the Culture War, Russian Interference, Coronavirus, Cronyism and Far Right Radicalisation. We also introduce new voices of colour in Our Lives Matter.

To have an impact, our investigations need an audience.

But emails dont pay our journalists, and nor do billionaires or intrusive ads. Were funded by readers subscription fees:

More here:

How Anonymous and Unverified Information Fuels Anti-Muslim Fake News Byline Times - Byline Times

The public is being reminded to share information on COVID-19 from official sources only.

The reminder comes from the Ministry of Health, following a series of messages being forwarded on WhatsApp claiming that COVID-19 vaccines are being administered to walk in patients below the age of 60 between 4pm and 9pm at the Diego Martin Health Centre.

The Ministry in a post to its Facebook page rubbished the claims, noting that the supposed advisory was not issued by the Ministry or any Regional Health Authority (RHA).

Members of the public are urged to refrain from sharing any false or misleading information about COVID-19 or COVID-19 vaccination, the Ministry restated.

Phase one of the Governments vaccination programme involves the vaccination of people over the age of 60 with non-communicable diseases and frontline healthcare workers.

The second phase of the vaccination programme will begin shortly, which Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said will be accelerated with the donation of vaccines from India. The shipment of 40,000 vaccines was originally expected to arrive in the country today but has reportedly been delayed by bad weather.

The latest count from the Ministry puts the total number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 at 7,146.

Read more from the original source:

Health Ministry: Beware fake news on COVID-19 vaccination - Loop News Trinidad and Tobago

Domestic disinformers in the United States are probably the best in the world at creating and spreading disinformation. They dont really have to launch a campaign: they just plant seeds that grow with the infrastructure that exists online, and that are distributed with the help of the acolytes theyve created.

They partner with influencers who launder the messages for their followers to consume. Pair that with microtargeting sending really specified pieces of information that they learn about us using things like Facebook groups combined with the public voter file that shows how we voted, what our issues are, who we care about, what weve donated to and its much more effective than anything Russia or China could do.

I mean, theyre good at following events and understanding whats going to be the meme du jour, but in terms of the level of disinformation thats currently being produced and spread, I dont think they could hope to achieve something like this. Its endemically American.

Its really hard to regulate the internet. This is perhaps the most complicated regulation that any democracy has ever pursued because of the ways that the internet has become enmeshed in our lives. It touches commerce, elections and freedom of speech. How do you disentangle all of that to create regulation that works for democracy? And should that be the governments job?

Ive been thinking a lot about TikTok lately, the way it works, the way it is so ultra-personalised. You cant really do an influencer campaign on TikTok. You cant pay for something to go viral. You also cant create a fake account and expect something to go viral.

TikTok is dedicated to being the last happy corner of the internet. And because there are so many teens on the platform, the people at TikTok are not reserved about taking content down if they think it violates their policies things that are blatantly false, or harassment. But TikTok is a private company, owned by a Chinese businessman. They make their own rules.

Certain countries need to deal differently with regulatory questions than we do in places like the UK and US. The Ukrainian government subsidises their telecom companies, along with access to all the main apps. And so, when we say were going to quit Facebook, thats nice for us, but in Ukraine they have a subsidised dependence on social media platforms that we dont. If we regulate, how are people in these countries that depend on these platforms for everyday, free communication everything from baby pictures to work stuff to government staff going to operate?

I used to use the term media literacy, but now I talk about information literacy. Being information literate is broader than understanding how social media platforms work and how they target you. Its about the whole ecosystem that a consumer of information online needs to understand to have the full context, like why am I being targeted with this?

In terms of how we fight this, theres no easy solution. Fact checking people individually doesnt work. People tend to stand their ground when they see something that tells them that theyre wrong.

Ive found that getting into a conversation has some success. Ask them, Why do you believe this article? What appeals to you about it? Understand where theyre coming from and then hopefully equip them without saying, youre wrong. Instead, we can say, I know you care about child trafficking. Here is a better source than that. And then, over time and with better evidence, they come to change their minds.

The emotional approach takes so much more time and energy, but its what you need to do to counteract disinformation online.

Interviewed by Aleks Krotoski

More on how to make the internet great again:

Original post:

The simple reasons online disinformation may never be fixed - BBC Focus Magazine

A 27-year old construction worker was arrested yesterday for posting a video on social media claiming that many Cambodians died after being vaccinated with Chinese vaccines.

The suspect was identified as Kong Sambath who lived in Meanchey districts Chak Angre Krom commune.

Captain Hong Kimheng attached to Phnom Penh Municipal anti-cybercrimes department said the suspect was arrested about 3pm yesterday after he posted on his Facebook account named Changhan Huy on Friday that many people died after being injected with the Chinese vaccines and told people not to take the vaccine injections.

He posted a fake news. Whatever the suspect posted is not true. His action has affected the Royal Governments hard work and stringent measures to fight the coronavirus which is causing many people to suffer from the disease, he added.

In this case, he said, the suspect is alleged to have violated Obstacles to the Implementation of Measures under Article 11 of the Law on Measures to Prevent the Spread of Covid-19 and Other Highly Contagious Diseases.

If the suspect is charged and found guilty, then he will face a jail sentence of between six months to three years.

The suspect is currently detained for further investigations by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court before being charged.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court deputy prosecutor Seng Heang who is in charge of questioning the suspect could not be reached for comments.

See more here:

Construction worker arrested for posting fake news that many Cambodians died due to Chinese vaccines - Khmer Times

Arvind Malkhede, Divisional Railway Manager, Hubballi Division, in a Press Briefing held on April 9, 2021 jointly with Aneesh Hegde, Chief Public Relations Officer, South Western Railway, at DRM office, Hubballi appealed to media to inform the public that a fake video has been circulated in social media which shows that trains are overcrowded. He pointed out that the video is undated, manipulated and the information is not authentic. He clarified that there is no rush or overcrowd in any Railway Station of Hubballi Division as the Railways are running adequate number of trains. He also pointed out that based on the demand the train services are run regularly in the Division.

He appealed to public through the media to convey that there is no crowd/rush.

Aneesh Hegde CPRO stated that to gear up for the anticipated Ugadi festive rush in view of indefinite strike of Road Transport Corporation workers, SWR, in response to the demand of Govt. of Karnataka is running 20 fully reserved special trains from 09.04.2020 to 15.04.2020 to facilitate the passengers in view of Ugadi festival and avoid hardship due to strike of Karnataka Road Transport Corporation Employees and for clearing rush. These Special trains are in addition to the regular express and passenger special trains which are already operational throughout SWR, he said.

See the article here:

SWR Hubballi Division appeals to people not to pay heed to fake news/rumours - Free Press Journal

HYDERABAD: A video of a large crowd storming into a building is viral on social media. Users claim the Mamata Banerjee's supporters are storming a polling booth in West Bengal's Cooch Behar during the fourth phase of voting.

"Mamata Banerjee's supporters storming a polling booth in Cooch Behar, West Bengal. EXCELLENT job done by the CRPF in pushing away the goons [sic]," a Twitter user said.

Click here and here to view the Twitter archives and here for the claim on Facebook.

Newsmeter found that the claim is false as the video dates back to 2019. It was shot in Kyamgei Muslim Makha Leikai polling station in Manipur.

We performed a reverse image search of a keyframe from the viral video and found a video report by INDIA TODAY SOCIAL from April 2019 that carried the same visuals. The description of the video reads: "Polling in Kyamgei Muslim Makha Leikai area of Imphal East was disrupted after people stormed the polling station and destroyed EVM".

We then searched on Youtube with the keywords ' 2019 Kyamgei Muslim Makha Leika EVM' and found several reports by media organizations that claimed the visuals were from a Manipur polling station.

According to NDTV, the voting in the Kiyamgei High Madrassa polling station in the Imphal east district of Manipur was disrupted after voters turned violent over the alleged misconduct of the presiding officer of the booth. A large number of voters ransacked the polling booth alleging foul play by the presiding officers. EVMs, VVPATs, and CCTV cameras installed in the polling station were destroyed.

We also found a report by PTI published in Business Standard. According to the report, unidentified men stormed into one of the booths at the Kiyamgei Muslim Makha locality and broke EVMs and VVPATs, claiming that "proxy voting" was being carried out in the station.

The 2019 viral video is from Manipur. Unidentified men broke the EVM over alleged proxy voting.

Therefore, the claim that this incident took place in West Bengal's Cooch Behar during the fourth phase of the ongoing Assembly elections is false.

Read more:

Fake news alert: Manipur polling booth vandalization passed off as WB violence - NewsMeter

Prominent Lucknow markets, including Hazratganj and Aminabad, will remain voluntarily closed from Thursday to check the spread of Covid-19 virus in the city.

Markets in Hazratganj will remain close from April 15 to 18 in wake of pandemic, said Kishan Chand Bhambwani, president, Hazratganj Traders Association after a late-night meeting of traders on Wednesday.

Traders of Jhandewala Park Vyapar Mandal, State Bank Vyapar Mandal and Dildar Vyapar Mandal in Aminabad have also decided to close their business establishments from April 15 to 21 because of Covid.

In a press release issued by these trader associations, the traders said that despite the ongoing marriage season, Navratri and Ramzan they have decided to close their establishments because saving lives was more important for them than business.

In absence of any announcement of lockdown from the government it is the duty of traders to break the chain of coronavirus, said Sandeep Bansal, president of Uttar Pradesh Udyog Vyapar Mandal.

Read this article:

LIVE News Updates: Delhi CM Kejriwal to hold a meeting with LG Anil Baijal today over increasing COVID19 cases - National Herald

The call of Bharat Maata Ki Jai and more urgently the scare of the pandemic in Trumpland had made Chimanlal decide to return to his home town after 15 years from New Jersey where, though an illegal immigrant, he had found a job as an attendant in a motel his Patel uncle owned.

How could Ramlal die of COVID-19? After all, as the president of Ram Krupa society, Ramlal had organized the Taali bajaao, Ghanta bajaao and Diya jalaao mass programme raising the cry of Go corona, Go interspersed with the war cry of Jai Sriram in response to the call given by our very own Gujju PM, wondered Chimanlal.

Moreover, he was believed to be close to both Mota Bhai and Nana Bhai. Did he not get the cooking gas agency for Jethalals brother-in-law using his political connection with the owners of the Gas company? pointed out Amrutlal, who was unable to get job for his 25 year-old engineering graduate son as a clerk in the revenue department because he could not mobilise Rs 5 lakh that the minister demanded.

View original post here:

COVID-19: Conversations in Gujarat reflective of what people are going through - National Herald

As Israel draws international attention as a COVID vaccine success story, and as the countrys ability to document inoculation with vaccine passports has allowed for something resembling a return to normal life, anti-vaccine activists have taken notice.

While they do battle in their own countries against COVID mitigation measures, inoculation campaigns and, most recently, the implementation of vaccine passports in their own countries, activists from both sides of the political spectrum have turned to the modern weapon of fake news to distort perceptions of Israels experience.

One new strategy is to pepper the internet with false information regarding the results of Israels vaccine campaign and the rollout of the Green Pass, as the vaccine passport program launched on February 21 is known. The green passport allows vaccinated Israelis to access indoor dining, cultural and sporting events, nightclubs, gyms and more.

Israel is also increasingly being incorporated into existing COVID conspiracy theories. Some implicate the country in a global vaccine conspiracy designed to exaggerate efficacy and cover up vaccine injury and death. While the attacks are mainly limited to online activity, some have made their way into mainstream media.

Prominent among skeptics is author Alex Berenson. A popular guest on prominent Fox News shows like The Tucker Carlson Show, the Unreported Truths on COVID-19 and Lockdowns writer has repeatedly asserted that vaccines are not as effective or as safe as Israel reports.

In the first few months of Israels vaccine rollout, Berenson took to Twitter to claim that that large-scale vaccination campaign did not seem to be having an effect on infection and serious illness. As coronavirus infection rates began to dramatically drop as the percentage of vaccinated Israelis grew, Berenson changed his focus from efficacy to safety. He implied, while providing no evidence, that illness and death resulting from COVID vaccination was being covered up by Israeli authorities. Berenson has taken these claims beyond Twitter, to the Fox News airwaves.

On Laura Ingrahams program The Ingraham Angle, Berenson asserted that vaccines are not 95 percent effective, thats pretty clear from the data coming out of Israel. On Carlsons show last month, Berenson said he believed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is very afraid that there will be cases of people getting vaccinated and sick or dying, as has happened in Israel. We know thats happened in Israel. Carlson agreed.

Prof. Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, has been closely tracking the pandemic and says Berensons claims are baseless. The evidence regarding effectiveness is overwhelming. There is zero possibility for any other explanation for what is happening in Israel besides vaccination, he says.

He recounts that skeptics like Berenson cast doubt on the findings after Israel began vaccinating citizens over age 60 in late December and COVID numbers began declining a few months later. They were saying, OK, numbers are dropping all over the world its not the vaccines that are responsible.

But in past weeks, much of Europe and the rest of the world has seen infections, hospitalizations and deaths rise again, while Israels figures have plunged after more than half its adult population has been vaccinated.

Even more convincing, says Segal, is the fact the drop in hospitalizations and death has hewn precisely according to the vaccination timeline. First there was a drop in over-60s, then the over-50s and then younger people, he says. Now were at the point where we have relatively few people in the country who have not been vaccinated, especially older people. We see that 80 to 90 percent of our remaining critically ill COVID patients come from that very small group.

Study after study backs up his assertions. Research by Maccabi Health Services and the Technion last month found that there have been 96 percent fewer cases, 90 percent fewer new daily critically ill patients and 85 percent fewer deaths since the rollout began.

As for charges swirling in online anti-vaccine circles that Israel is somehow concealing data to cover up vaccine injury, Segal says these accusations have no basis whatsoever. The data is there, its available and the evidence is overwhelming. If there are any delays, it is purely due to technical issues.

Berensons coverage of the pandemic was eviscerated in an article by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic last week, headlined Alex Berenson, the Pandemics Wrongest Man. The piece covered multiple misstatements and distortions by Berenson, but was particularly emphatic when it came to Israel.

Berenson is wrong about all sorts of little things when it comes to Israel, wrote Thompson. But I want to emphasize how straightforward and obvious the big picture is here. Israel is a world leader in vaccinations. Its COVID-19 cases have plunged, and its economy is roaring back to life.

Vaccine passports have become a political hot potato in many countries, as critics view them as invasive and discriminatory. To bolster this claim, they charge that Israel a pioneer in the use of vaccine passports to permit entry into large gatherings has become a two-tier society that has turned non-vaccinated people into second-class citizens deprived of rights and oppressed by the government.

A global study called the Virality Project, launched by a coalition of research institutions including Stanford and NYU, has set out to detect, analyze, and respond to incidents of COVID-19 vaccine disinformation across online ecosystems. In its most recent report, it observes that much of the propaganda regarding Israels vaccine passport program strikes an unmistakably antisemitic chord.

On far-right channels of the social media app Telegram, the report finds that articles and video content mentioning the Green Pass have been shared by users belonging to antisemitic Telegram channels as part of a narrative that claims that the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a Jewish plot against the goyim.

Holocaust imagery is rampant in such content. Across social media platforms, the report says, narratives being pushed by anti-vaccination and conspiratorial communities describing the present moment as a pre-Holocaust period wherein unvaccinated people will be second-class citizens and targets for persecution, similar to the Jewish people during the Holocaust and WWII. Essentially, groups can use the specter of vaccine passports to create a perception that rights and freedoms will be taken away, connecting these claims to historical examples of deprivation of rights like the Jewish people during World War II.

The app will know

Restrictions on non-vaccinated Israelis are being misrepresented and falsified towards this purpose. The English-language Twitter account Freedom Israel, which claims to be a grassroots organization that started due to the disproportionate measures the country has taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has been retweeted and amplified internationally, has used doctored photographs to illustrate this alleged oppression.

The account tweeted a photo of chair-shaped signs on the Tel Aviv beaches in which the municipality encourages vaccination. The Hebrew ad reads Get vaccinated now in Tel Aviv! Beside it, an identical sign carries a Photoshopped mistranslation: Reserved for vaccinated people only. The post implied that these signs were actual chairs, and that only vaccinated people have access to them.

On the eve of Israels Holocaust Remembrance Day, the account posted a YouTube video portraying Israels vaccination campaign as like something by the Nazis, and claiming the country had created a hated underclass of the unvaccinated.

Among those retweeting Freedom Israel is once-respected Jewish feminist Dr. Naomi Wolf, who has become one of the most prominent challengers of masking, lockdowns and now vaccines. She has been fighting forcefully against proposals for vaccine passport legislation in the United States, characterizing them as a slippery slope to totalitarianism and oppression.

She has seized on the Israeli Green Pass as an example of the vaccine passports dangers. In four months, vaccine passports quote, unquotehave turned Israel into a closed society, destroyed civil society organizations, created an apartheid system, and activists and advocates and critics of the system in Israel are saying that they are surveilled 360 degrees, 24 hours a day and marginalized from society, Wolf warns in a YouTube video.

Predicting a dystopian Big Brother future if similar programs are adopted in the United States, she says the app will know who the vaccine dissenters are, and use that information to follow them and disrupt their ability to organize protests. Its already happening. Thats what weve seen in Israel. Its been used not just to identify whos been vaccinated and who isnt, but to track dissenters and silence dissent and critics.

Wolfs assertions are patently false. The official Health Ministry app is only one way to display the green passport; no one is required to download it. Each vaccinated Israeli also receives a vaccination certificate bearing a QR code and the holders national ID number, which can be printed out, carried in ones pocket and displayed. It can also be accessed via smartphone and computer.

Civil liberties organizations in Israel have, in fact, voiced concerns about potential abuse or overuse of vaccine passports. They are fighting legislation that would enable information on vaccinations to be shared with public agencies and employers without consent. Debates are taking place in and out of court as they are in the rest of the world as to whether proof of vaccination should be required for teachers to return to the classroom, and whether university students without Green Passes will be admitted to the classroom.

The executive director of the civil rights group Zulat Institute for Equality and Human Rights, Einat Ovadia, told Haaretz last week that we need to ensure that expanding the demand to present a Green Pass wont lead to other infringements of individual rights.

Zulat, together with Physicians for Human Rights, issued a report warning that expanded use of the green passport could lead to the erosion of individual rights, and pushed for increased PR efforts as an alternative strategy to get a higher percentage of the Israeli population vaccinated. Privacy groups worry about the Green Pass vulnerability to hackers.

Still, this reality hardly resembles the kind of existing totalitarian oppression that Wolf and other detractors describe. A spokesperson for Facebook said that the social network has tripled the number of people working to combat coronavirus disinformation, reviewing content 24 hours a day in over 50 languages, including Hebrew. A YouTube spokesperson said the platform removed over 850,000 videos from its platform for spreading dangerous or misleading COVID information. But this is not quite the silencing of vaccine opponents by government bodies; no one is being fined or thrown in prison.

Nor do non-vaccinated Israelis appear to be suffering from overly restrictive application of the rules in daily life. A recent New York Times piece describing life in Israel as a test case for a post-lockdown, post-vaccinated societyportrays the reality with which those in the country are familiar: That enforcement is far more apt to be overly lax than in danger turning the country into a police state.

A concert in Tel Aviv was the first time I was asked to show my Green Pass and the last, the Times Isabel Kershner wrote. She recounted staying at a Galilee bed and breakfast where food was served indoors to vaccinated and unvaccinated guests alike, and a crowded restaurant that allowed indoor seating to her unvaccinated young child. A Jerusalem restaurant inquired about green passports for reservations, but did not request to see them when they arrived to dine.

Green passports, says Segal, are first and foremost a safety issue, not a coercive tool. They have been a precautionary measure as we open up the economy, to make sure the virus is not spread in large gatherings.

He noted that those who are not vaccinated due to their age, for medical reasons or simply personal preference are not barred from any activity if they are able to provide a negative COVID test. The fact that they motivate people to get vaccinated is a side effect, Segal says.

Read more from the original source:

Fake news and Holocaust imagery: COVID anti-vaxxers around the world take aim at Israel - Haaretz