Category Archives: Fake News

This photograph taken by a JEOL 7401F scanning electron microscope of the detailed structure of a sample swab from an antigen test shows that there are no parasites on it - what you are looking at are the bristles of the brush on the swab. (PHOTO: Biology Center of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

The Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences is refuting a lie that has been spreading through the Czech Internet with the aid of videos and other hoax materials alleging that parasites have infested the swabs that come with antigen tests. According to the findings of scientific researchers, there are no parasites to be found in or on such items.

Scientists from the Academy of Sciences' Electron MicroscopyLaboratory have shed light on the falseness of the claims making the rounds on social media. They are responding to posts in which a video with shots from a regular microscope are purporting to show the tip of a swab used to take nasal samples to test for the presence of the novel coronavirus.

The hoax alleges that black threadlike structures can be seen on the photograph taken of a sampleswab under a microscope and claims they are parasites that will crawl through our noses right into our brains when we take the samples. Scientists from the Biology Centrehave posted the following information about those false allegations to their website: "A staff member of a firm entrusted with the task of arranging the process of testing for their employees contacted us for assistance. The assignment was not an easy one - to quickly find antigen tests for a reasonable price, to set up a system of testing and announcing the test results, and to fine-tune a million other details. However, he had not counted at all on one barrier that proved to be rather essential. He did not count on his employees' fear of the testing, a fear that had been prompted by a video allegedly 'showing parasites' on the tips of the sample swabs."

"Because we have the best technology for observing the micro-world, and many years of experience in discovering the world around us that is invisible to the naked eye, we decided to check a sampling swab. First we looked at one under a regular microscope and then we looked at it througha JEOL 7401Fscanning electron microscope. As the photographs taken with those microscopes demonstrate, the bristles at the end of the sampling swab are actually a perfect miniature brush. There are no parasites there, not spherical ones and not thread-shaped ones!" the scientists posted online.

"We were surprised by the sterility of the swab, because the micro-world is full of bacteria, mold spores, pollen and an inexhaustible amount of fragments and fibers, so the absence of such things is unusualand demonstrates whatthe requirements are for the purity of the material used for close contact with the mucous membranes of the nose," says Jana Nebesov of the Electron MicroscopyLaboratory. "In any event, if you were to rub those little bristles anywhere else other than inside your nose, it is certain that this miniature broom would capture a great deal of micro-garbage that could then look like miniature interlopers or parasites."

The truth, however, is that a sterile swab for taking a sample from your nose, when it is first unwrapped, has nothing living on it, and that includes the parasite that is so frequently being discussed on social media right now, Vlasovec mzn (Wuchereria bancrofti). "The larva of a Wuchereria bancrofti measures, at the most, approximately 0.3 mm in length, and there is no way that corresponds to the size of the fibers that are being shown in many of these videos on the Internet. What's more, such larvae are carried just by certain kinds of mosquitoes when they draw blood, which is how such larvae mightaccess a human being's circulatory system. The larvae would then grow and settle in the person'slymph nodes, where they wouldmatureand causeblockage, which would then leadto the development of the disease called elephantiasis, during which different parts of the body increase in size enormously. What is being shown in these videos is clearly not Wuchereria bancrofti. I would appeal to people's common sense," said tefan Balog, a graduate of the Faculty of Life Sciences at Charles University in Prague who currently is the manager of the ROMEA organization's scholarship program.

"These hoaxes that are being disseminated are of no aid to society when it comes to getting us out of the situation we are in. For that reason, please, maintain your cool,try to find more out about an issue first before you share it with others," Balog called on his fellow Internet users; the Czech fact-checking websiteManipultoi.cz has been debunking the disinformation and hoaxes making the rounds online.

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Czech Internet flooded with fake news alleging parasites are infesting items now mandated by the Government, such as antigen tests - Romea.cz

A recent report published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and Anti-Vax Watch suggest that approximately two-thirds of COVID-19 misinformation originates from 12 people.

What does this mean? Well, approximately 65% of the anti-vaccine content you see on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms have recently been tied to just 12 individuals or organizations globally.

Social media is then used to further spread propaganda about vaccines. Heres what you need to know.

The study is based on analysis of a sample of anti-vaccine content that had been shared or posted on Facebook and Twitter over 812 000 times betweenFebruary 1 andMarch 16, 2021.

Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH explains that disinformation has become a direct threat to public health and was created to mislead the general population about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

Social media is enabling anti-vaxxers to recruit millions of Americans and indoctrinate them with fear and doubt. If Big Tech companies dont act now, the pandemic will be prolonged, and more lives will be lost.

The spread of misinformation continued despite major social media platforms determination to clamp down on propaganda. Sadly, these [12] individuals have largely been permitted to maintain their presence across mainstream social media.

The 12 individuals and organizations mentioned in the report have repeatedly violated Facebook and Twitters terms of service agreements during the global pandemic.

The vast reach of misinformation has now led to the CCDH and Anti-Vax Watch issuing a call to action to social media giants, urging them to remove those responsible for the majority of anti-vaccine content.

Ahmed explains that the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google will appear before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee to discuss the role of social media in the spread of disinformation.

Members of the committee must use this opportunity to hold these companies accountable and urge them to follow through with their commitments to crack down on life-threatening disinformation.

He says the only way to stop the spread of anti-vaccine propaganda would be to remove the Disinformation Dozen from their platforms. Social media giants should also take steps to further decrease the presence of online misinformation.

The biggest culprit mentioned in the report is Joseph Mercola, an alternative medicine promoter who runs a multimillion-dollar business selling dietary supplements online.

The list also includes John F. Kennedys nephew, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who was recently banned from Instagram for violating the sites coronavirus vaccine misinformation policy. Twitter has yet to take action against Kennedy, Jr.

Other members of the Disinformation Dozen include Sherri Tenpenny, Ty & Charlene Bollinger, Rizza Islam, Ben Tapper, Rashid Buttar, Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, Erin Elizabeth, Christiane Northrup, and Kevin Jenkins.

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Disinformation Dozen: Here are the 12 people behind world's COVID-19 vaccine fake news - The South African

Now that time has begun to do what it always does confer a more complete perspective we can offer thanks for the last American presidency even if only for one aspect of it. That misadventure showed what happens when an unanchored force uses disinformation to achieve its objectives. It might be tempting to dismiss the suggestion that such an up-the-garden-path strategy might work here with the disdain of a Parisien rejecting a vaccine because it was not made in France but that would be foolish. Dangerous too.

Saturdays anti-lockdown march in Dublin was a modest affair involving around 150 souls but 11 were arrested. Others were fined for ignoring public health guidelines. It is difficult, and disheartening, to try to understand why people, even if only a tiny minority, subscribe to views so very contrary to public health advice.

It is possible but unacceptable, that anger on other issues makes them susceptible to online quackery. That dynamic, and unspoken ambitions, may be behind similar protests in Germany this weekend. In Kassel, far-right opponents of pandemic regulations clashed with police and counter-protesters. The protests came as the rate at which Germans are being infected passed the level at which authorities say healthcare systems will be overburdened.

Today we report on how the HSE works to counter the misinformation spurring those protests. The authority has highlighted more than 300 posts spreading misinformation in the last six weeks alone. It is not hard to think that recent protests in Dublin and Cork were provoked by what the HSE has described as deliberate misinformation.

That intended and deliberate dishonesty is not confined to health issues. The Royal Swedish Academy of Science publishes a report today warning that fake news on social media about climate change and biodiversity loss has a delaying and worrying impact on averting environmental threats.

The scientists warn that urgent measures will be hard to enforce if they continue to suffer targeted attacks on social media. Given the vast scale of the problem, the report warns that modest adjustments to todays industrial and agricultural practices will be insufficient. Transformative changes are now necessary, it concludes. Misinformation from one lobby or another has become a real and growing threat.

As if to confirm that these battles are as much emotional or intellectual as scientific in recent days Canadas Conservatives voted to reject the line that climate change is real from a revision of its policy documents. It might be interesting to know how the citizens of Australias New South Wales would react to that incomprehensible vote. This weekend NSW issued more evacuation orders following the worst flooding in decades. Already ravaged by bush fires Australian attitudes towards climate change are changing.

The role misinformation plays in shaping public attitudes can hardly be confined to the pandemic or climate collapse. Once again Yeats advice seems wise: Cast a cold eye on life lest we blindly march up one beguiling garden path or another just as those so misled to attack Washingtons Capitol on January 6 were.

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Irish Examiner view: Fake news is another pandemic - Irish Examiner

A year ago, the UK went into lockdown.

Yet while most worried deeply about what was happening, incredibly, for much of the time before that, some people online simply did not believe what they were being told.

Twelve months on, we look back at the reactions of people across the UK as the virus first emerged in China, then spread here in isolated outbreaks - before cases soared and forced the most severe restrictions on freedom of movement in UK history.

And the analysis shows a number of things - from the ridicule and disbelief that some expressed at first at what some thought was 'just the flu', to the worry that spread over the weeks as the UK became gripped by the virus.

Perhaps most striking of all is just how far-sighted many comments from ordinary people were - with discussion on social media about what the Government should do to protect schools and the NHS at times running well ahead of what was actually happening.

Coronavirus has changed society here and across the globe.

This is a look at what people were thinking on social media as the virus closed in on our shores.

On January 11, one website informed readers of a "mystery deadly virus" that had hit the city of Wuhan and was spreading at an increased rate.

We now know that 12 days later the Chinese city went into a lockdown that became the template for how the rest of the world would deal with the pandemic.

But at the time, people in the UK had heard little - and some were sceptical about what they were being told.

"Mass hysteria!" said one person commenting on Facebook.

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Covid-19 was first recorded in the UK on January 31 when two cases were reported. At that point, the global death toll was 265.

In a statement, Professor Chris Whitty, a then little-known public health official, said: "We can confirm that two patients in England, who are members of the same family, have tested positive for coronavirus. The patients are receiving specialist NHS care, and we are using tried and tested infection control procedures to prevent further spread of the virus.

"The NHS is extremely well-prepared and used to managing infections and we are already working rapidly to identify any contacts the patients had, to prevent further spread.

"We have been preparing for UK cases of novel coronavirus and we have robust infection control measures in place to respond immediately. We are continuing to work closely with the World Health Organization and the international community as the outbreak in China develops to ensure we are ready for all eventualities."

We now know that was the beginning of a terrible outbreak that has so far claimed more than 126,000 lives.

But while the reaction that day on Facebook seems eye-opening in retrospect, at the time few even in government had any sense of how dreadful things would soon get.

"That's it - time to start trying to scare everyone," said one person in response to a news story about the first UK cases.

"Here we go - get ready for scaremongering," said another.

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Already, though, people were expressing concern that flights were still being allowed to the UK from China.

"The borders should have been shut," said one person.

"Should have closed the borders instantly - no one in or out," said another.

"As if we dont have enough health problems," one person said.

"We need stricter border control while this is on and proper health checks in the airports for everyone."

That is an issue that was still being discussed many months later.

Meanwhile, advice that is now commonplace was starting to be voiced by people worried about what lay ahead.

"If we all follow guidelines, we can all prevent spreading - share the prevention, not the virus," said one person.

"Get your hands on some Dettol and hand alcohol gel."

But there was worry, too, with one person saying simply: "It's very frightening."

The NHS - for decades an iconic institution at the heart of British life - has now seen its reputation enhanced beyond all measure.

Back in January last year, though, well before the claps at doorsteps, people were praising the NHS as being an organisation that would be able to cope with what might lie ahead.

"Don't underestimate the NHS," said one person. "They are troopers."

Because of what was happening abroad, it was already clear that something very serious was likely to be on the way here.

By the next day, February 1, with rumours now spreading of more cases, news reports said a section of Paddington station in London had been cordoned off after staff told commuters about a 'suspected virus outbreak' that saw two people taken to hospital.

The global death toll had risen overnight by 45, to 310 - and more people were anxious about what was going to happen.

It transpired days later that the Paddington patients did not in fact have coronavirus - but, before that became clear, opinion at the time ranged from disbelief to serious concern.

"Scaremongering at its finest," said one Facebook user, while another put it more bluntly, saying: "This is boring me now."

Another, much more worried person saw it differently, saying: "This should be taken seriously - don't underestimate how this will spread."

By February 3, Health Secretary Matthew Hancock said the Government would plough fresh money into developing a vaccine to combat the virus.

It was announced that infectious disease experts would use 20 million of UK government funding to embark on a six-month plan to produce a vaccine.

At this stage, the official death toll in China was 361, and the global death toll 432.

There had still been only two cases in the UK at this point.

Reaction to news about the new investment online was mixed.

One person said simply: "Not rapid enough."

Another, more personal message was touching, but understandably failed to appreciate just how deadly the coronavirus crisis would soon become.

"They are hoping for a vaccine in six months," the Facebook user said. "20 million given to research.

"Every year there are 2,190 people dying in the UK from motor neurone disease.

"And 150 years after first diagnosing this disease, we still don't have a treatment or cure.

"If they would spend that amount on finding a cure or a treatment for MND, people like me and many others would have a chance to live and not be trying desperately to fight a losing battle with this horrific disease that slowly robs you of your ability to walk, talk, move, swallow and breathe."

Heartbreaking though those sentiments were, the death toll from Covid-19 would eventually be far, far worse than even those figures.

Hospitals prepare for outbreaks

By February 5, the number of cases was still no higher - the only confirmed patients being the two announced on January 31.

One newspaper reported that a hospital trust had told its board it already had plans in place to support staff responding to outbreaks of the infection.

Training is also underway to ensure clinical teams are well prepared," the trust said.

The ongoing outbreak is an evolving situation and our teams are working closely with our partners to ensure any response is coordinated and effective.

It was a fairly technical statement, but one reader raged at the news outlet, saying: "That's the way to cause mass panic. Shame on you."

These kinds of comments were in fact commonplace during the early phase of the pandemic in the UK - although even today news organisations reporting straightforward official data on the virus are vilified by some who think Covid has been blown out of all proportion.

Some were angry about what they clearly felt was a non-news story.

But others were starting to ask more basic questions - like how would it affect their day-to-day lives.

One person asked: "Silly question, but what about all the parcels coming from that way like off eBay, if they sneeze in the box and seal it up, then its posted around the world?"

The global death toll by February 5 now stood at 572.

However, there had now been 27,463 cases globally - a massive jump on the 557 cases reported two weeks earlier.

February 15 was a day after Valentine's Day, and for the vast majority of people, life was still carrying on in a fairly ordinary way.

That day, though, health officials were seen in one Midlands town wearing hazmat suits after reports a man had fallen ill after returning from a trip to Hong Kong with his wife the day before.

The reaction online was relaxed, with some even joking about it. One person quipped: "I don't think anyone there has ever left the place, let alone gone to China."

The story attracted a lot of news coverage at the time, although as far as is known no coronavirus cases were ever confirmed.

By now, there had been nine coronavirus cases in the UK. But there had now been 69,052 cases worldwide.

And there had now been 1,670 deaths - up from 17 on January 22 when the tally first began.

On February 18, a surgery in the south-east of England announced it would be deep-cleaned after a suspected coronavirus case.

Public Health England later said that the case was actually not linked to the virus.

However, like the hazmat incident a few days earlier, any sign of the virus was being pounced on by the authorities.

There was still reason to be calm in the UK, with the overall case total still standing at nine. There were no deaths yet, and nor would there be until March 2.

The story reached more than 40,000 people, with dozens tagging in friends about the news - even though there was no case.

Some were angry that the incident was even being reported.

There had now been 75,152 cases across the globe, and 2,010 deaths.

But at this stage, in the UK, we were still in the equivalent of what during the Second World War was called the phoney war - the first eerie months of inaction before the nightmare arrived.

In the ten days between February 18 and February 28, the number of UK cases increased steadily - from 10 on February 21 to 42 by February 28.

Supplies of hand sanitiser and face masks were starting to run low. One website reported that stock was running low across the area.

One chemist said: "We cant get any hand sanitisers or face masks.

We are sold out of face masks and we have noticed the prices of those products have gone up."

Another said: I have asked staff to order some face masks as customers are asking for them and we are struggling to get any in.

Panic-buying had not arrived at the supermarkets yet - but hand sanitiser was starting to become harder to locate.

Online, one Facebook user said: "I saw a woman in Home Bargains clear the shelf of about 20 bottles."

But the gross insensitivity of some online was still clear to see - even though by now the global case count was 84,122 and the death toll had reached 2,924.

One person summed up the unfeeling attitude of some online by saying: "It's only going to kill the old and weak - don't worry about it."

On March 2, an elderly woman who already had underlying health problems became the first person in Britain to die after being diagnosed with the disease.

Some no doubt thought that it might be an isolated case.

Within a month, however, there had been 6,005 deaths - although many of these were not reported at first but only added to the records days or weeks afterwards.

By now, there had been 108 cases in the UK. Across the world, that figure was 90,377, and there had been 3,118 deaths.

A report on one website told people about the different symptoms for Covid-19 and the common cold.

With the crisis yet to really arrive in the UK, reaction online to the situation was calm, with some dismissing news reports about the virus as an over-reaction.

"More people die on the roads every day but cars aren't banned," said one person.

"I'm not dismissing it but just trying to put it into perspective."

Another common theme at the time was that Covid-19 was just the flu - which between 2001 and 2019 in the UK had, along with pneumonia, killed between 25,406 and 34,496 a year.

Link:

From 'fake news' to fear - how views changed in the weeks before UK lockdown one year ago - Wales Online

DENVER (CBS4) A bill to help kids in school discern fake news from credible media sparked heated debate at the state Capitol. The bill directs teachers to incorporate media literacy in their curriculum and provides an online bank of resources from the Department of Education to help them.

At issue is whether the resources, compiled by an outside task force, teach kids how to tell fact from fiction or teach them what is fact and what is fiction.

Lawmakers spent nearly three hours debating the bill on the House floor Friday.

The bill sponsor, Rep. Lisa Cutter, says she was surprised by the pushback, We just want kids to understand how to dig a little deeper. You know, when you see that headline and you go, Oh my gosh! and you react so strongly, we want children, in particular, to say, Oh, hey, wait, maybe thats biased, I better look at this a little further.

She says the bank, or library, teaches kids how to think critically.

Rep. Patrick Neville says it tells them what to think. He questioned why there werent any Republicans on the task force and why it didnt take any public input.

This library is more than just teaching general logic and reasoning to students. I would almost say that Socrates would be turning in his grave right now because it is more than that. Its really leading into what they believe the truth is and leading students to that specific truth to what they have already concluded is the truth.

Neville points to an article in the bank of resources written by Black Lives Matter and another article about climate change that refers to Wikipedia as a source, I dont think any academic person would say that Wikipedia is a reliable source for anything.

Cutter insists the articles are irrelevant. The purpose of the bank, she says, is to give kids the tools they need to evaluate those articles.

The resource bank just has a variety of examples of information and nobody is prescribing that they use them or theyre the truth, thats absolutely against the point of what were doing, said Cutter.

The bill doesnt require teachers to use the bank of resources. It got initial approval in the House.

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Colorado Republicans Outraged Over Bill Involving Kids And Fake News - CBS Denver

HOUSTON, TX With the start of the new league calendar year, teams can start to negotiate and sign various free agents. The aim of these actions is to either rebuild the deficient shortcomings of a squad from a previous season and/or reload on areas of strength, building up critical depth for the coming season. For the Houston Texans, leadership is looking do both.

Since Sunday, this team has been a house afire!!! noted one team official. Caserio has been going crazy, a freakin berserker signing players left and right! We cant keep the toner in the printer/fax machines refilled fast enough, getting contracts out and receiving signed deals into our office. We no sooner announce one signing, where we can pose their bio and the obligatory photo-shopped Texans jersey before we get word that Caserio just signed another guy. Five of our folks are pleading exhaustion. It got so bad that one of the PA staff actually replayed Building the Texans to feel good about himselfNOT THAT THERES ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!!! The team official in question suddenly started to look left and right in a frantic manner, as if expecting something.

It would be one thing if we were signing players that people had heard of. You know, like the big ticket free agents. However, we are mostly signing guys that none of us have ever heard of outside of the signed contract paperwork. In fact, after we signed Chris Moore, we got a note from his parents, surprised that they had a son that was playing for the Texans. Yet, the biggest shock wasnt that he was in the NFL or playing for the Texansthey actually didnt remember having a son with that name. It has just been insane.

To say that the Texans have been busy in free agency is an understatement. Since Sunday, the team has traded Benardrick McKinney for Shaq Lawson, traded for Patriots Offensive Lineman Marcus Cannon for a series of pick swaps and signed 10 free agents, and this doesnt include the clubhouse leader for Week 1 Start [CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE EASTERBY]...er, back-up quarterback to Watson, Tyrod Taylor. Surprisingly, all of these moves still left the Texans with about $2M in cap space, but more space will be made in the days ahead.

Some on the staff had some unique takes on the strategy. Word was going around the office that we implemented Operation Bargain Bin. Initially, after Caserio went all angry-Velociraptor these past two weeks, Cal was really, really excited about free agency, talking up how we were going to buy the best and the brightest. However, Caserio had to point out that we only had so much cap space and a lot of personnel needs, so the team couldnt run through all the money now. Cal threw a fit, but Caserio and Easterby managed to talk him down. That, and Janice had to tell Cal that he could spend money, but it was like shopping in the bargain bin at GameStop. That and they had to promise that if he was a good boy, he could spend a lot of money in 2022.

Besides, it wasnt there was a ton of competition for most of these guys. I mean, I love seeing the team make these moves, but most of these guys werent getting a lot of swipes right on NFL Tinder, if you get my drift.

Hey, I aint gonna complain. The 1-year deal beats what I could have pulled down working at Taco Cabana observed Tremon Smith, who, we think, may or may not have played for the Colts. We really dont have any idea at this point.

There were also a few eyebrows raised when Caserio was working deals with Miami and New England. Well, New England, isnt it obvious? He was calling home. I am sure that Belichick was willing to work with Caserio, especially since he didnt care about that one OL guy anyway observed another team staffer. However, Miami was a more unique case. Much of the current Miami staff has ties to New England. When Caserio first called, I think they were leery, but then he uttered Do your job and suddenly, things just started happening magically.

However, there were questions as to the long term strategy of the Texans. Some might be heartened by the activity, especially given the roster holes and the lack of quality draft picks. Others might wonder just what the [Easterby] this team is doing. For the ground truth, we turned to the heart of the Texans, and he gave an expectedly positive answer.

Oh ye of little faith! Doth not you see the glory and vision that is of the Easterby? noted Jack Easterby. Following the doctrine of Smart, Tough and Dependable, we are creating a new divine order. It is said that you are only as strong as your weakest link. Well, we are building up a stronger weakest link. Our backups will be the best in the league, as they will beat up all other back-ups. Im already calling the Texans to win the pre-season, with our solidified depth signings. VICITORY, VICTORY, VICTORY, VICTORY, VICT [Editors note: This goes on for about 30 lines]blessed be the Easterby, for while he be poked with the arrows of spite, he will truly lead the faithful to the promised land, the divine and blessed paradise that is the Houston Texans.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go post my latest motivational quote to my adoring social media followers, who thirst for the divine word of their prophet, The Easterby.

While he does that, we at Totally Not Fake News will continue to make sense of the whirlwind moves of the Houston Texans, as they attempt to move on from the combined dumpster fire/$hitshow/cluster[Easterby] that was the 2020 season and the mismanaged situation with disgruntled franchise quarterback Des[CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE EASTERBY]really, this bug again? Ok, the situation with current starting quarterback Deshaun Watson. Happy now, you [Easterby] bas[CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE EASTERBY]?

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TOTALLY NOT FAKE NEWS: Rebuilding, Reloading and the Road to Victory - Battle Red Blog

Greg Gutfeld slammed the mainstream media in the wake of a massive correction by The Washington Post, which read in part that, contrary to the paper's original reporting, former President Donald Trump did not tell Georgia stateelections investigator Frances Watson to "find the fraud."

The quote, attributed to a leaked phone call between the two officials, came as Trump routinely railed against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger's handling of the election. The president's back and forth with his fellow Republicans in Georgia provided the media with much fodder.

On "The Five," Gutfeld said that while "deep fake" images have been a trend on the internet for some time, the mainstream media has engaged in "deep fakes" of journalism for a while as well.

"It sounds new but the media hasbeen out of it for years; onlywith words, tricking the publicto say something they didnt," he said.

"Take 'The Washington Post'whofinally issued a brutalcorrection of a huge damaging lie.They contorted Donald TrumpsDecember phone call with the Georgiasecretary of states topinvestigator claiming Trumpordered her to find the fraudand if she did she would be ahero."

"That lie came from a singleanonymous source and withendlessly repeated by the media."

The host went on to further criticize the media, playing a montageof national newscasters reporting on the now-retracted quote:

"What lemmings. They're like Smolletts who can type," he said. "They claimed theyconfirmed it but askyourself, how could all of thembe wrong about the same exactthing?There is only one way:onesource."

Gutfeld credited the Washington Examiner for its take on the retraction, remarking that multiple newsrooms must've confirmed the scoop by speaking with the same anonymous source.

"It is like tracing cases of foodpoisoning to a single batch ofrancid potato salad.Just as easy to track and moredisgusting," he said.

"We knew this was behind most anti trump drech --oneanonymous source gave it to Paper A, then Network B calls thesame source to get confirmation.Then Snopes and thefact-checkersagree."

Gutfeld characterized the situation as an example of "investigative incest," and predicted it was the same process that led to the dissemination of the Steele dossier.

"So how can we ever trust theseclowns again?They would do everything todestroy a person -- from apresident they cant stand to hisobviously evil supporters.They'd push a lie to help theirside win an election," he continued.

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"Its like Biden claiming thevaccine started with him or that there's noemergency at the border, but thepress dont just nod along butthey take the lies and turn itinto truth.Its not fake news, deep fakenews. Be ready when they useit on you."

Gutfeld went on to note that the Post's media critic, Erik Wemple, criticized his own paper for the retraction as well.

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Greg Gutfeld blasts WaPo's 'deep-fake news' after massive retraction in Trump-Georgia reporting - Fox News

Many people who share fake news online do so because they arent paying close attention to what theyre sharing, according to a new study. The research found that simply prompting people to think about the accuracy of their news content helps curtail the spread offalsehoods.

When deciding what to share on social media, people are often distracted from considering the accuracy of the content, the authors, from the Hill/Levene Schools of Business at the University of Regina and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), wrote in the new paper published in Nature.

While the spread of inaccurate or false information and conspiracy theories is nothing new the climate denying disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry dates back decades the studys findings undercut the notion that there is a widespread desire among the public to actively spread disinformation. Rather, it adds further evidence showing how social media allows for fake news to spread rapidly and how to slow itdown.

Online disinformation seemed to hit a fever pitch in the past year, with the spread of the violent QAnon conspiracy, Covid denial, 2020 election conspiracies, and pro-insurrection voices all intermingling and cross-pollinating.

But instead of the malign actors involved in creating disinformation such as the Koch-backed network of think tanks, charities and politicians seeking to undermine climate science, or, more recently, coordinated social media campaigns and troll farms, sometimes backed by government intelligence agencies, aimed at undermining elections around the world the new Nature study looks at the much larger set of everyday social media users who share this type of misinformation online, often unwittingly, or at least not with malicious intent. The results offer some reasons for hope, as well as some tools to fightdisinformation.

The study surveyed thousands of U.S. Twitter and Facebook users. It found that most people do not wish to spread fake news and, in fact, they rate accuracy as an important principle. When asked about what motivates sharing, participants rated accuracy higher than other factors, such as whether a piece of news was interesting, funny, or politically-aligned with their beliefs. Moreover, most people are fairly good at identifying and distinguishing accurate news from false news. In addition, most people do not share inaccurate news for hyperpartisan reasonseither.

Instead, what the researchers found was that many people spread fake news without thinking too much about whether the information is accurate or not. Its a problem of inattention, made worse by social media which pushes people to sift through news rapidly andsuperficially.

This means that when thinking about the rise of misinformation online, the issue is not so much a shift in peoples attitudes about truth, but rather a more subtle shift in attention to truth, two of the studys authors, David Rand of MIT and Gordon Pennycook of the University of Regina, wrote in Scientific American, summarizing their findings (emphasis inoriginal).

The researchers conducted several experiments to parse out contributing factors. In one experiment, participants were given a mix of true and false news stories, and one group of participants was asked to decide whether the headlines were accurate and another group was asked whether they would share them on socialmedia.

Interestingly, the participants looking for accuracy did a reasonably good job identifying accurate stories from fake ones. In one experiment, participants rated true stories as accurate more often than false stories by a margin of 55 percentagepoints.

But the group weighing whether or not to share a story chose to share fake stories at a much higher rate compared to when they were only asked to weigh accuracy. When looking only at false headlines, 50 percent more were shared than were rated asaccurate.

In other words, when asked about accuracy, people were good at spotting accurate versus fake stories. But when asked about sharing, people chose to share more stories, even fake ones. And they chose to share stories that fit their political views at a much higher rate (by 19 percentage points) than stories that went against their politicalbeliefs.

That would seem to suggest an ideological or partisan motivation. But the authors conducted another experiment, with over 5,000 participants on Twitter who had previously shared news from Breitbart and Infowars, two sites professional fact-checkers have rated as highly untrustworthy. The authors sent a private Twitter message to the participants and asked them to judge whether or not a single non-political headline wasaccurate.

The researchers then monitored the participants subsequent sharing behavior and found a significant improvement in sharing choices; in the 24 hours after the prompt, participants shared relatively more news from reliable outlets such as CNN and relatively less from sources of inaccurate information likeInfowars.

The authors surmise that simply redirecting attention towards the concept of accuracy helped cut down on sharing of false information. [W]e find that the single accuracy message made users more discerning in their subsequent sharing decisions, they wrote in their study. Relative to baseline, the accuracy message increased the average quality of the news sourcesshared.

The researchers replicated these experiments with Covid-19 information and found a similardynamic.

The study shows that there is a disconnect between what people share and what they consider to be accurate, suggesting that people share content in which they themselves might not necessarilybelieve.

Individuals scroll quickly through a social media news feed, which tends to be mixed with accurate and inaccurate information, along with emotionally engaging content. And crucially, the authors wrote, they are provided with instantaneous and quantified social feedback on sharing. The quest for retweets and likes, in other words, may discourage people from reflecting onaccuracy.

Rather than a wholesale rejection of truth, people lazily pass on inaccurate information because that tends to be what is rewarded on socialmedia.

The good news was that even small interventions the prompt asking whether or not headlines were accurate redirected people away from a tendency to share false information. This suggests that social media platforms could, perhaps, periodically survey people on the accuracy of selected headlines in an effort to subtlety remind users about accurate information, the authorssay.

Twitter has recently been taking steps to slow the spread of misinformation. Last year, the social media platform introduced a new feature that reminds people to read an article before retweeting it, which it says has promising results. The platform also began tagging misleading tweets withdisclaimers.

The new study's authors concede that the research is limited to sharing of political news among people in the United States. They note that follow up research could examine the impact of subtle accuracy nudges when coordinated disinformation campaigns are in question, such as the climate denial or election fraud, which are backed by groups actively working to promote afalsehood.

In a recent analysis, DeSmog found that dozens of prominent climate deniers supported the January 6 insurrection in Washington D.C. They spread debunked claims about election fraud and in some cases supported political violence. This is the type of campaign that was then likely shared by many more people who, as the Nature study illustrates, may have shared the content without taking time to think about itsaccuracy.

Experts have identified tools and methods for protection against malicious disinformation campaigns, such as prebunking, which involves learning about the tactics and tricks of bad actors before you are exposed to them. However, such campaigns of weaponized disinformation are potentially more challenging to combat when compared to one-off fake newsstories.

Main image: Social media apps. Credit: Jason Howie (CC BY 2.0)

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Nudging Social Media Users to Think Critically Helps Slow the Spread of Fake News, Study Finds - DeSmog

Its bad enough when the major networks and the daily dead fishwrappers push false stories to fuel a political agenda.

Now, we have elected officials doing it too

Case in point, a letter of condemnation from the entire Portland city council last night about murders in Atlanta.

The letter says We condemn acts of hate and bias-fueled incidents, pointing out that six of the eight people murdered were Asian Americans. It ignores the other two white skinned victims.

Problem is, theres no evidence at this point that the murders were racially motivated.

In fact, accused killer Robert Long told the police that his addiction to sex drove him to commit the murders at three Atlanta massage parlors.

It seems politically advantageous for Mayor Ted Wheeler and the council to condemn phantom racial bias for the murdersbecause it drives the narrative that America is under threat from mythical white supremacists.

Much less convenient for Feckless Ted to condemn sex addictionsince its only been a short time since he infamously declared that he welcomed campaign donations from sex industry workersincluding strippers. And, Im not kidding.

It also gives Feckless Ted another opportunity to blame Donald Trump for something months after he left officewhile Joe Biden, the candidate he favored, helps out the cartels who are trafficking adults AND children, across our southern border to populate the sex trade.

The post NW Government Takes Their Turn Spreading Fake News appeared first on The Lars Larson Show.

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NW Government Takes Their Turn Spreading Fake News - 550 KTSA

Weve all seen it: social media is full of garbage. While wed like to think otherwise, a big chunk of this garbage is shared by users much like ourselves. Thankfully, there are ways to address this. Prompting people to reflect on the accuracy of news headlines can greatly reduce the amount of fake news in our feeds, a new study shows.

In recent years, weve seen a lot of misinformation flowing around the internet. Its not like this is a new phenomenon, but new channels (such as social media) have given people a loudspeaker, and many are using it to spread misinformation whether theyre aware or not.

This is more than just a nuisance. This type of misinformation, as weve recently seen, spreads to all layers of society, including its higher political echelons.

The design of social media platforms doesnt help either. Its all fast, as fast as possible. You scroll through stories and photos, you like and reshare stories in an instant. Accuracy, of course, fades in the background. Most people who see something they like (or hate) share it without a second thought and this is where the problems start.

We begin with the confusion-based account, in which people share misinformation because they mistakenly believe that it is accurate (for example, owing to media or digital illiteracy or politically motivated reasoning), the authors of a new study write.

The study was led by Gordon Pennycook, assistant professor in Behavioural Science at the University of Regina in Canada. Pennycook and colleagues carried out four survey experiments and a Twitter experiment. In the initial experiments, they presented participants with real news stories (half of which were untrue), asking them to judge the accuracy of these titles and whether theyd consider sharing them.

People rated true headlines as accurate more often than the false ones, and most participants stated that it was extremely important to share only accurate information on social media so presumably, they dont intentionally share misleading information. But theres a catch: people were also twice as likely to consider false stories that fit with their political beliefs.

At first glance, this seems to suggest that people value partisanship over accuracy. But while misinformation can exacerbate partisan behavior, researchers note that their results challenge the popular claim that people value partisanship over accuracy because when researchers prompted study volunteers to consider the accuracy of what theyre sharing, they shared fewer false stories.

In other words, people just arent paying attention, which is normal internet behavior. If they were prompted to pay more attention, they would avoid spreading falsehoods more often.

Our data indicate that social media companies could prompt people to think about accuracy in various ways. For example, by literally asking people questions about accuracy help inform what we show people do you think this headline is accurate. Or perhaps just open-ended questions like do you think its important to only share accurate content (most people do). Its possible that information campaigns, such as the one here, may be effective as well, Pennycook tells ZME Science.

This is good news it offers a simple way to cut down on online misinformation. Researchers emphasize that social media platforms could easily implement to counter misinformation online.

The results are perhaps even more relevant because the study participants are savvier than the average user. Researchers gathered participants from the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) a crowdsourcing marketplace whose users likely spend more time on social media than the average person.

On MTurk, weve done similar studies with various samples (although, all are from polling firms of one form or another) and our results are very consistent. In any case, what were interested in here is, in essence, internet behavior. And, so, our samples are people who spend more time on the internet than the average person but that fits with the phenomenon that were interested in, Pennycook adds.

This is a good reminder for when youre surfing social media: take a moment to consider whether what youre sharing is accurate. But expecting people to do this on a large scale is probably unrealistic its companies that need to take action.

Twitter is already trialing some options. When users are sharing an article without actually opening the link, they can see a warning like the one above and given that most people dont even read the articles they share, this is a useful first step. But much more is needed.

Researchers conclude that periodic reminders to users to rate the accuracy of information could reduce the spread of misinformation online, along with all the problems it causes.

Together, these studies suggest that when deciding what to share on social media, people are often distracted from considering the accuracy of the content. Therefore, shifting attention to the concept of accuracy can cause people to improve the quality of the news that they share, the study sums up.

The study was published in Nature.

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Want people to stop sharing fake news? Just make them reflect on what theyre sharing - ZME Science