Tag: Misinformation

Commentary: Keep Slandering Red States, Corporate Media and We’ll Keep Winning

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Donald Trump supporters

One of the delights of living in Montana under complete Republican governance is that even though your state can be mercilessly trashed by the arrogant blue state corporate media, they can’t do much to stop you or your neighbors from living your best lives.

I kept that in mind this week with the simultaneous appearance of not one, but two extended hit pieces on the poor, benighted, ignorant, awful, rednecks in Montana: one in Jeff Bezos’ propaganda fishwrap, the Washington Post, and the other in the failing New York Times.

I had low expectations before reading each, and in that sense the articles did not disappoint; but they are worthy of forensic examination, because both, in different ways, provide sterling examples of the arrogant ignorance that epitomizes our failing elite class, and the hysterical desperation they feel as both power and the narrative slip from their grasp.

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Another Whistleblower Files SEC Complaint Alleging Facebook Didn’t Do Enough About ‘Hate Speech’, ‘Misinformation’

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Person looking on Facebook with trending topics

Another former Facebook employee filed a whistleblower complaint Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the tech giant misled its investors by failing to combat the spread of hate and misinformation on its platform, The Washington Post reported.

The former employee, whose name is not yet public, alleged that Facebook executives chose not to pursue adequate content moderation policies related to hate speech and misinformation for the sake of maximizing profits. The complaint also alleges that Facebook did not do enough about alleged Russian misinformation on the platform for fear of upsetting former President Donald Trump.

In particular, the complaint alleges that Trump and his associates received preferential treatment, according to the Post.

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Poll: A Majority of Americans Think Misinformation Is a Problem

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The majority of Americans believe U.S. politicians and social media companies spread more misinformation than any foreign government, including adversaries like China and Russia, according to a new poll.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, released Friday, found that about 75% of Americans believed politicians in the U.S., social media companies and social media users are the biggest drivers of misinformation. Just under half of respondents, however, thought that the U.S. government was responsible for misinformation, while just over half said the same for Russia and China.

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After Backlash over NBC Interview, Fauci Tells CNN He Encourages People to Spend Christmas with Family

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Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday said that he would be spending Christmas with his family, and encouraged others to do the same, after saying over the weekend that it was too soon to tell if Americans could spend the holiday together.

“I will be spending Christmas with my family. I encourage people — to have a good, normal Christmas with your family,” he told CNN host Kate Bolduan.

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Commentary: Vaccine Hesitancy, the Medical Establishment, and the COVID Apocalypse

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"There's no planet B" sign

This month the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report. As with the previous five reports, it is bursting with dire “projections” about the future of the planet and civilization (they never say “predictions” because there is always some accountability and embarrassment when a prediction turns out to be wrong). 

I’m no climate scientist, so I can’t claim to hold a research-based opinion on “global climate change,” as it is now known. But I remember exactly when I started taking the “projections” of bodies like the IPCC with a grain of salt. It was when the “Climategate” scandal came to light in 2009, in which a hacked server resulted in a leak of internal emails from climate scientists at the prestigious Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Great Britain.

The leaked emails clearly showed that researchers were withholding important information from the public—information that would undermine the apocalyptic claims of climate scientists. For example, illustrious expert Kevin Trenberth acknowledged to his colleagues that “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty.” But rather than admit this uncertainty, researchers colluded to “hide the decline” from the public. 

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An Analytical Review of the Central Scientific Facts About the Efficacy of Face Masks and Claims They Reduce the Transmission of COVID-19

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In a terse essay titled “Science and Dictatorship,” Albert Einstein warned that “Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.” And on his deathbed, Einstein cautioned, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.”

With reckless disregard for both of those principles, powerful government officials and big tech executives have corrupted or suppressed the central scientific facts about face masks. The impacts of this extend far beyond the issue of masks and have caused widespread harm and countless deaths.

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Facebook Reportedly Considers Creating an Election Commission, Just in Time for Midterms

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Facebook is considering creating a commission to advise the tech giant on election-related issues including misinformation, The New York Times reported.

The tech company reportedly contacted several academics and policy experts to draft plans for a commission that will advise Facebook on electoral matters and potentially decide policies related to political misinformation and advertising, several people familiar with the plans told The New York Times. Facebook plans to announce the commission in the next few months to be prepared for the 2022 midterms, the Times reported.

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Twitter Enlists Users to Flag ‘Misleading’ Tweets as Part of Misinformation Crackdown

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Person holding phone up with Twitter sign up page on smart phone.

Twitter announced Tuesday it will test a feature allowing users to report tweets they believe are misleading, as the company cracks down on alleged misinformation.

Users in the U.S., South Korea, and Australia will be able to select the “It’s Misleading” option when reporting a tweet, the company announced Tuesday. The social media platform said it may not take direct action on each flagged tweet, but will use the reports to identify misinformation trends.

Twitter staff will review certain reported tweets depending on the topic or level of exposure and determine if they violate the company’s misinformation policies, a Twitter spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Associated Press and Reuters Team Up with Twitter to Patrol Political Dissent as ‘Misinformation’

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Person on phone with Twitter open

Two of the largest news publications in the country, the Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, have teamed up with one of the leading tech giants, Twitter, in a new partnership to crack down on “misinformation” and “elevate credible information,” the Daily Caller reports.

Twitter confirmed the new alliance in a blog post, saying that the two publications would be responsible for identifying “misleading” information, and to help Twitter expand its efforts to mediate trending stories, “especially where facts are in dispute.” The websites will also help Twitter staff whenever they lack “sufficient expertise or access to a high enough volume of reputable reporting.”

“This program is just part of our ongoing efforts to help people understand the conversation happening on our service,” the Twitter blog post continued. “People experience a range of public conversations on Twitter every day, and we’re committed to continuing our work to elevate credible information and context.”

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Democrats Introduce Bill Holding Tech Companies Liable for ‘Health Misinformation’

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Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Luján

Senate Democrats introduced legislation Thursday removing liability protections from online platforms that promote content deemed health misinformation.

The bill, proposed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Lujan on Thursday, seeks to carve out an exception from Section 230 liability shields enjoyed by online platforms, such as Facebook or YouTube, if those platforms boost content classified as health misinformation, Vox first reported.

The legislation, known as the Health Misinformation Act, directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create a definition of health misinformation, and strips liability protections from platforms “if the provider promotes that health misinformation through an algorithm used by the provider.” HHS defined health misinformation in an advisory last week as “information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence.”

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Minnesota Sen. Klobuchar Cosponsors Bill to Stop Spread of ‘Misinformation’ on Social Media

Peter D'Abrosca

A Minnesota senator is cosponsoring a bill that would punish social media companies for allowing the spread of “medical misinformation.” 

“These are some of the biggest, richest companies in the world and they must do more to prevent the spread of deadly vaccine misinformation,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said. “The coronavirus pandemic has shown us how lethal misinformation can be and it is our responsibility to take action.”

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Psaki Dodges On White House Revealing Which Facebook Posts It Flags As Misinformation

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During a press conference Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki dodged addressing whether the White House will reveal which Facebook posts it flags as misinformation.

Psaki said last week that the White House will flag posts deemed vaccine misinformation to Facebook. But the White House press secretary did not address Monday whether the White House will “publicly release information on posts that it considers misinformation on vaccines that it’s asked Facebook to block.”

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Psaki Doubles Down on White House’s Support for Tech Censorship

Peter D'Abrosca
Psaki Tech Censors

Just a day after White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted that the Biden administration is colluding with Facebook to censor “misinformation,” Psaki advocated for even more online censorship.

During a Friday press briefing, she advised social media companies to “create robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties and provide transparency about rules.”

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Commentary: White Liberal Control Freaks Are a Menace to Liberty

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The greatest threat America faces isn’t “white supremacy” or any foreign power, but America’s own ruling class. China understands very well that Americans have less to fear from Chinese armies than they do from their own Stasi-like informants with “In This House, We Believe . . . ” signs on their front lawns. 

The Chinese have a word for this demographic: baizuo, which literally means “white left.” It’s a political pejorative referring to narcissistic white American liberals. 

In a time of vaccine passports, “disinformation,” and make-believe insurrections, the anti-social, authoritarian tendencies of this lot have never been a clearer menace to America and its tradition of civil liberty. 

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Commentary: Florida Governor DeSantis Strikes Back Against Big Tech Censorship

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Person holding phone up in Times Square.

After months of aggressively censoring what it called “COVID-19 misinformation,” Facebook recently announced that it would no longer block user posts claiming that the coronavirus was “man-made” or “manufactured.” That’s because those posts, which typically referenced the work of scientists who supported the idea of a possible coronavirus “lab leak” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now appear to have been credible.

This entire episode should be extremely embarrassing for Facebook, a company so confident it has cornered the market on “truth” that it has made it their prerogative to “fact-check” individual user posts, banning anything that fails to comport with Silicon Valley’s extreme left-wing view of reality. Last year, Facebook banned an ad from the American Principles Project PAC claiming Joe Biden and the Democrats would destroy girls’ sports by supporting policies that allowed boys who identify as transgender to compete against girls.

Facebook said the ad was “missing context,” and so our PAC wasn’t allowed to communicate with voters. On Joe Biden’s first day as president, he signed an executive order specifically allowing these boys to compete in girls’ sports.

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Commentary: Facebook ‘Fact-Checkers’ Disagree About University COVID Vaccine Mandates

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Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook’s “fact-checkers” cannot agree on the legality of university COVID vaccine mandates.

Disagreement about the legality of the COVID vaccines is understandable — The College Fix explored this topic several weeks ago in our own article, but the problem is that a Facebook fact-check on an article can lead to reduced distribution.

And enough strikes against a page can lead to a permanent ban. The College Fix has seen this firsthand, after Facebook overlords punished us for sharing the comments of an epidemiologist who made a prediction about what would happen if lockdowns were lifted.

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Twitter Refuses to Address Whether Lebron James Tweet Violated Terms of Service

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LebBron James

Twitter is refusing to address whether a tweet by Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James violated the platform’s terms of service.

James tweeted, then deleted, a picture Wednesday of Ohio police officer Nicholas Reardon who shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant as she attempted to stab another girl, body cam footage showed.

“YOU’RE NEXT,” James tweeted to his millions of followers with the hashtag #ACCOUNTABILITY. He has since deleted the tweet.

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Florida Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump Falsely Claims Columbus Shooting Victim Was Unarmed

Grant Holcomb

Tallahassee-based civil rights attorney Ben Crump falsely claimed on Twitter yesterday the victim of the police-involved shooting in Columbus, OH was unarmed. As bodycam footage was released, it found the victim, a 16-year-old black female, Ma’Khia Bryant, was wielding a knife and threatening two other females.

Some on social media were outraged at the lethal use of force by the officer, including Crump who said on Twitter, “As we breathed a collective sigh of relief today, a community in Columbus felt the sting of another police shooting as @ColumbusPolice killed an unarmed 15yo Black girl named Makiyah Bryant. Another child lost! Another hashtag. #JusticeForMakiyahBryant.”

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‘Justice’ is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year

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Racial justice. Obstruction of justice. Social justice. The Justice Department. Merriam-Webster has chosen “justice” as its 2018 word of the year, driven by the churning news cycle over months and months. The word follows “toxic,” picked by Oxford Dictionaries, and “misinformation,” plucked by Dictonary.com. Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement that “justice” consistently bubbled into the top 20 or 30 lookups on the company’s website, spiking at times due to specific events but also skating close to the surface for much of the year. While it’s one of those common words people likely know how to spell and use correctly in a sentence, Sokolowski pointed to other reasons that drive search traffic. Among them is an attempt to focus a train of thought around a philosophical problem, or to seek aspirational motivation. Such well-known words are often among the most looked up every year, including those that are slightly abstract, including “love,” he said. The designation for “justice” came soon after President Trump’s one-time fixer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to conceal his boss’ alleged sexual affairs. He…

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James Agresti Commentary: Voters of All Parties, Ages, and Genders Are Broadly Misinformed

James Agresti

by James D. Agresti   At a recent “get-out-the-vote” rally in Las Vegas, former first lady Michelle Obama declared that people don’t have to be informed in order to vote. All they need, she said, is to “be a citizen,” “have opinions,” and want “a say in what happens.” She emphasized, “I’ve been voting since I was 18 years old—and trust me—I didn’t know nothing about nothing at 18 years old.” In contrast, James Madison—the father of the Constitution and primary author of the Bill of Rights—stressed that voters “must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Failure to do this, he said, will produce government that is “a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” The results of a new scientific survey indicate that voters of all ages, political parties, and genders are following Obama’s lead instead of Madison’s. Moreover, the survey shows that many voters are not only uninformed about major issues—they are positively misinformed. Those are the findings of an annual, national poll commissioned by Just Facts, a non-profit research and educational institute. The poll was conducted by an academic research firm that used sound methodologies to assess U.S. residents who regularly vote. While most surveys…

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MSM’s Exaggeration of School Shootings Not in Line With Reality

Julie Carr
Steve Gill

On Monday’s Gill Report – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 1510 WLAC weekdays at 7:30 am – Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill explained how the media’s overblown commentary and emotional stirring of paranoia regarding school shootings is unrealistic in comparison to the death of children in common day bike, helmet, and car wrecks.  Gill goes on to comment that “ten times more kids are killed each year walking to school than are killed in these school shootings.” He continued: A new US Department of Education study is not getting a lot of media attention. But it did get a little bit of attention from NPR. Not exactly a bastion of conservative news media. Now they examined the US Department of Education’s study and discovered that over sixty six percent of reported school shootings for the 2015 and 2016 school year, never occurred. Yet the education department claims there were nearly two hundered and forty schools which reported at least one incident involving a school reported, or school related shooting. But when NPR contacted the schools in the districts, they were able to substantiate that one hundred and sixty-one, of the  two hundred and forty incidents quote, ‘never happened’. NEVER…

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