Fake News

[Vrede too]

Jan. 6 committee to seek criminal charges after Bannon defies subpoena

Lock him up!

More Bannon info and discussion:
viewtopic.php?p=145928#p145928

[Vrede too]

NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week

A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

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NASA hasn’t hired theologians to study reaction to alien life

CLAIM: “NASA just hired 24 theologians to assess how the world would react if we discovered alien life.” ...

There's the vaguest kernel of truth here and I don't perceive a left-right aspect to the fakery.

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Using water on COVID-19 tests produces inaccurate results

CLAIM: Pouring water on home COVID-19 tests gives a positive result, evidence that they are unreliable or that they are detecting the disease in tap water....

COVIDiocy is more likely to be a con thing.

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Posts mislead on Anderson Cooper interview

CLAIM: CNN journalist Anderson Cooper wants Social Security payments to be withheld from those who are unvaccinated.

THE FACTS: In an Aug. 4 interview, Cooper asked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates his position on whether the federal government should enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates by withholding Social Security or other federal benefits from people who don’t comply. Cooper did not say he personally supports such mandates....

Dishonest con paranoia.

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Image falsely attributes quotes on inflation to Psaki

CLAIM: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “If you don’t buy anything, you won’t experience inflation.” ...

Con lie.

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Chris Wallace’s show on CNN streaming service hasn’t premiered

CLAIM: Former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace’s “first show on CNN received the lowest ratings in cable news history.” ...

Con lie.

Cons are sooo dishonest and gullible.

[Vrede too]

Fox News Doctored Clips of Obama’s Visit to the White House to Make It Seem Like Biden Was Lost
Conservative media couldn’t resist deceptively editing video of the former president to make it seem like the current president is unfit for office

... The Republican National Committee shared two clips of the visit that quickly went viral. The first shows an ostensibly confused Biden ambling around the stage as Obama holds court behind him. The second is similar, with Biden standing on the periphery as Obama greets well wishers....

Biden’s effectiveness as a president is up for debate, but conservative media feeling the need to doctor video clips of the president proves there isn’t as much evidence that he can’t do the job as they’d like there to be.

Idiots and assholes piling on:
Laura Ingraham
Tucker Carlson
Newsmax

Who needs Russians?

[neoplacebo]

What's pathetic is they play stupid for money. And what's funny is that a lot of them don't even have to pretend. And what's dangerous is they make other people stupid.

[Vrede too]

What's pathetic is they play stupid for money. And what's funny is that a lot of them don't even have to pretend. And what's dangerous is they make other people stupid.

NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week

A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
___

Experts: Mars ‘doorway’ just small crevice on barren terrain

CLAIM: NASA’s Mars rover has captured images of a doorway cut into a mountainside of the red planet, suggesting the presence of extraterrestrial life....

SciFi nerds are so gullible.

WHO health regulations don’t infringe on US decision-making

CLAIM: The Biden administration is proposing amendments to the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations that would transfer U.S. sovereign authority over health care decisions to the WHO director-general....

___

Trump misleads on Afghanistan casualties

CLAIM: When former President Donald Trump was in charge, 18 months went by in Afghanistan when “we didn’t lose one American soldier.” ...

___

Tech leader investments in biotech startup didn’t cause formula shortage

CLAIM: The current baby formula shortage was created by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates because he invested in a company that makes artificial breast milk....

RWNJs are so gullible and stupid.

[Vrede too]

What's pathetic is they play stupid for money. And what's funny is that a lot of them don't even have to pretend. And what's dangerous is they make other people stupid.

They also make other people silent:

Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks

Academics, universities and government agencies are overhauling or ending research programs designed to counter the spread of online misinformation amid a legal campaign from conservative politicians and activists who accuse them of colluding with tech companies to censor right-wing views.

The escalating campaign - led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other Republicans in Congress and state government - has cast a pall over programs that study not just political falsehoods but also the quality of medical information online.

Examples:
Stanford University
National Institutes of Health, many more

... "In the name of protecting free speech, the scientific community is not allowed to speak," said Dean Schillinger, a health communication scientist who planned to apply to the NIH program to collaborate with a Tagalog-language newspaper to share accurate health information with Filipinos. "Science is being halted in its tracks."

... The Election Integrity Partnership may also curtail its scope following lawsuits questioning the validity of its work, including the Missouri v. Biden case.

Led by the Stanford Internet Observatory and the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, the coalition of researchers was formed in the middle of the 2020 presidential campaign to alert tech companies in real time about viral election-related conspiracies on their platforms. The posts, for example, falsely claimed Dominion Voting Systems' software switched votes in favor of President Biden, an allegation that also was at the center of a defamation case that Fox News settled for $787 million.

In March 2021, the group released a nearly 300-page report documenting how false election fraud claims rippled across the internet, coalescing into the #StopTheSteal movement that fomented the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol. In its final report, the coalition noted that Meta, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and YouTube labeled, removed or suppressed just over a third of the posts the researchers flagged.

But by 2022, the partnership was engulfed in controversy. Right-wing media outlets, advocacy groups and influencers such as the Foundation for Freedom Online, Just the News and far-right provocateur Jack Posobiec argued that the Election Integrity Partnership was part of a coalition with government and industry working to censor Americans' speech online. (Posobiec didn't respond to a request for comment, but after this story was published online he posted the request on X with the comment: "Every one of these programs will be penniless and powerless by the time I am done.")

... The probe prompted members of the Election Integrity Partnership to reevaluate their participation in the coalition altogether. Stanford Internet Observatory founder Alex Stamos, whose group helps lead the coalition, told Jordan's staff earlier this year that he would have to talk with Stanford's leadership about the university's continued involvement, according to a partial transcript filed in court.

"Since this investigation has cost the university now approaching seven [figure] legal fees, it's been pretty successful I think in discouraging us from making it worthwhile for us to do a study in 2024," Stamos said.

We're screwed.

Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, declined to elaborate on specific plans to monitor the upcoming presidential race but said her group aims to put together a "similar coalition . . . to rapidly address harmful false rumors about the 2024 election."

She added, "It's clear to me that researchers and their institutions won't be deterred by conspiracy theorists and those seeking to smear and silence this line of research for entirely political reasons."

Heroes, but there's a cost:

... Some NSF grant recipients who have not received requests from Jordan's committee say they are facing a barrage of online threats over their work, which has prompted some to buy services that make it harder to find their addresses, such as DeleteMe.

Hacks/Hackers, a nonprofit coalition of journalists and technologists, received an NSF grant to develop tools to help people share accurate information about controversial topics, such as vaccine efficacy. The group has faced political scrutiny from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who tweeted they had received $5 million from President Biden to create "a naughty & nice list to police the content posted by family & friends" with her usual slogan "MakeEmSqueal."

Connie Moon Sehat, a researcher-at-large for the group, said she and other researchers have faced online attacks including threats to reveal personal information and veiled death threats. She says members of her team are at times under high levels of stress and having ongoing conversations about how to elevate accurate information on social media, as some platforms become increasingly toxic.

"We are double- and triple-checking what we write, above what we used to, to try to communicate our good intentions - in the face of efforts that willfully misconstrue our work and desire to serve the public," Sehat said. "And I worry more broadly that we researchers may self-censor our inquiry, or that some will drop out altogether, to stay safe."

... "This whole area of research has become radioactive," the person said.

Sigh.

[neoplacebo]

Yeah, I saw that story either this morning or yesterday. As soon as I saw Gym Jordan's name in it I knew it was gonna be a big load of bullshit in some way. Somebody should grapple him into submission on a wrestling mat and deliver repeated hard fish slaps to him. He sucks.

[O Really]

So various news outlets are reporting, loudly, that Target is closing 9 (count 'em) stores nationally because of "theft and organized crime."

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/business ... index.html

Well, not to dispute that crime is a problem in some places and the new method of stealing a car and crashing it into a store is destructive and expensive, but this seems more editorializing than reporting.

Target has 2,000 stores nationwide and the 9 were not in good areas to start with, and are located in East Harlem, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Oakland.

But here's where the story gets fuzzy: "Target had warned in May that the company was bracing to lose half a billion dollars this year because of rising theft." That's a lot of money, eh? Sure, but they don't mention that Target gross profit for the twelve months ending July 31, 2023 was $28.198B, so their theft "loss" is about 1.7% of gross profit or a minuscule amount of the $109 Billion revenue. Average retail "shrinkage" is 1.4% of revenue, with about a quarter of stores reporting 2% or up. So the articles didn't say the "half billion" dollars was for all stores or just the nine, but it couldn't be for just the nine because that would be about equal to the stores' total revenue.

So Target is tired of dealing with the challenges of urban retail or maybe the stores aren't performing well (which wasn't covered). But let's just blame crime and further find a way to blame the "soft on crime" damgummints.

From the article:

One factor that police believe is a driver of organized retail crime more recently is the fact that under new criminal justice reform laws and local district attorney’s policies to reduce mass incarceration, grand theft — the law that covers shoplifting — is a crime that judges can no longer jail a person or even require bail, no matter how many times the same individual is caught.

Anybody say where this is? Anybody see a cite so we could actually read the "new criminal justice reform laws" mentioned? But it sounded pretty authentic, right? Well I'm not going to try to research every city or county to see how they're enforcing shoplifting laws (or not), but what the article said about grand theft/shoplifting not being something a judge can jail someone for is simply not accurate. At least not in Washington, California, or Oregon (which just passed some tougher enforcement laws on theft) Further, shoplifting may be broadly grouped under "grand theft" but there's a difference based on value of items stolen and as far as I can tell none of these cities is ignoring the big crash-ins.

Anyway, in the list of misleading news this is pretty minor and not really relevant to my life but it adds to a years-long right wing story line that cities run by Democrats are crumbling crime ridden Gomorrahs. It looks like that constant chant has grown mainstream legs and repeated as settled fact.

[GoCubsGo]

FWIW, the headline looks to be part of Target's spin.

https://abc7chicago.com/target-store-cl ... /13831524/

[Vrede too]

The preceding messages were brought to you by the FOP. Feed the prison-industrial complex, nothing else matters.

[O Really]

The preceding messages were brought to you by the FOP. Feed the prison-industrial complex, nothing else matters.

Partially agree, except for the "nothing else matters" part. A lot of people are pushing the "overrun by crime" story, not all with the same priorities and agendas. The white supremists and other racists probably have no idea what a prison-industrial complex is, nor care. But if they can tie crime to Black people, they're happy. Republicans in general have long pushed the "law and order" theme along with "Dems are soft on crime," even while they're conveniently overlooking the crime within their own ranks as well as white-collar crime in general. Opposition to current city leadership likes to point at crime incidents so as to say "if we were in charge that wouldn't happen." Which is all well and good if they ever came up with a practical solution, but they don't. In Seattle, as in many other places, police forces are down like 40% and recruitment is tough not because the pay is bad but because they're trying to be selective and not get all the rejected bad apples running around out there looking for cop jobs.

The people who believe as that article implied should be told "OK, we'll let you be in charge if you can answer these questions:
1. Jails are currently full. Do you want to build more jails and fund it with a significant tax increase or bond referendum, or do you want to prioritize the types of crimes that get into jail?

2. If available jail space is full and you've arrested a murderer, a domestic violence perp, a drug dealer, a drug user, an armed robber and a shoplifter, who are you going to jail?

3. If your city has $50million to spend on local improvements, do you think the citizens would vote to spend it on a stadium, a new arena, a new performance arts auditorium, a new park, or a new jail?

[Vrede too]

The preceding messages were brought to you by the FOP. Feed the prison-industrial complex, nothing else matters.

Partially agree, except for the "nothing else matters" part. A lot of people are pushing the "overrun by crime" story, not all with the same priorities and agendas. The white supremists and other racists probably have no idea what a prison-industrial complex is, nor care. But if they can tie crime to Black people, they're happy. Republicans in general have long pushed the "law and order" theme along with "Dems are soft on crime," even while they're conveniently overlooking the crime within their own ranks as well as white-collar crime in general. Opposition to current city leadership likes to point at crime incidents so as to say "if we were in charge that wouldn't happen." Which is all well and good if they ever came up with a practical solution, but they don't. In Seattle, as in many other places, police forces are down like 40% and recruitment is tough not because the pay is bad but because they're trying to be selective and not get all the rejected bad apples running around out there looking for cop jobs.

The people who believe as that article implied should be told "OK, we'll let you be in charge if you can answer these questions:
1. Jails are currently full. Do you want to build more jails and fund it with a significant tax increase or bond referendum, or do you want to prioritize the types of crimes that get into jail?

2. If available jail space is full and you've arrested a murderer, a domestic violence perp, a drug dealer, a drug user, an armed robber and a shoplifter, who are you going to jail?

3. If your city has $50million to spend on local improvements, do you think the citizens would vote to spend it on a stadium, a new arena, a new performance arts auditorium, a new park, or a new jail?

Agree with everything, it's hyperbole. My catch phrase will variously be -
Feed the prison-industrial complex/Pentagon and merchants of death/fat cats/polluters/White supremacists/etc, nothing else matters.
It's a cry of anguish, not one that's meant to be consistent or comprehensive.

[O Really]

A lot of the problem is that everybody wants a quick easy fix for everything and because they'd rather use any issue as a weapon instead of contributing to it's solution.

[Vrede too]

A lot of the problem is that everybody wants a quick easy fix for everything and because they'd rather use any issue as a weapon instead of contributing to it's solution.

Or, they just invent "issues" out of thin air:

AOC Became a Multi-Millionaire After Serving Four Years in Congress?
A post from Elon Musk about U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led a number of users to make a big claim about the congresswoman's finances.


False

RepuQs are sooo gullible!

[Vrede too]

Fact Check: Ukraine's First Lady Goes on $1.1M Cartier Spending Spree During September 2023 NYC Trip?



Russian trolls are as busy as ever.
US social media, particularly X and YouTube, are perpetually complicit.
RWers are uber-gullible, as usual.

[Vrede too]

Leaving aside my jingoism over these Russian successes, I don't like the NWO of disinformation, fake news, astroturf, malicious hacking, internet manipulation, etc and public gullibility, no matter who is "winning".
Too much

Spy vs. spy: How Israelis tried to stop Russia's information war in Africa

It's good to be old.

[Vrede too]

Another example:

Did ESPN really think nobody would care that they deepfaked a Damian Lillard interview?
The network’s latest gaffe is terrifying, and likely only the beginning

[Vrede too]

Wellness influencers fueled pandemic misinformation. Now they’re targeting another crisis

Now climate change fake news. Weird.

[Vrede too]

TikTok is the boogeyman of the week. I don't feel informed enough to have a solid opinion on the threat or what should be done, especially with closed door national security briefings going on.

One concern is over fake news being used to spread Chinese propaganda or disrupt America. This seems theoretically valid to me. We've seen how Russia messes with our elections. Turns out that we've been doing it to China:

Exclusive-Trump launched CIA covert influence operation against China

If TikTok is shutdown, won't nefarious Chinese just use other avenues?

MAGAt Steven Mnuchin is supposedly putting together a group to buy TikTok. I don't have any faith that his propaganda will be a lick superior to China's.

The other chief concern is Chinese data mining. IMO we need strong privacy laws covering all players, not just China. What are they going to do, spam me with CCP pillow ads so I don't buy "patriotic" MyPillows?

Have any of you been following this kerfuffle closer than I have? Opinions?

[Vrede too]

Misinformation took over social media after the Key Bridge collapse. Why is this now a regular occurrence — and what can be done to stop it?
Conspiracy theories used to be confined to dark corners of the internet. Now, they muddy conversations around news events on mainstream social media platforms.

Summary: We're screwed.