EU tells Twitter 'you can run but you can't hide' from disinformation policy European Commissioner Thierry Breton told the world this weekend that Twitter had pulled out of the EU's voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation, but warned it has "obligations" anyway. "You can run but you can't hide." And when are the enforcers going to do something about it? It could be as soon as August, said the …
True, the CIA has never done anything even slightly illegal before!
People have an inherent distrust of any organisation that can audit itself. The CCP (well known for disinformation) very quickly came out with the wet market theory and along with the WHO (who peddled a fair amount of disinformation in the early days of covid) were busy defending their paymasters.
We were basically thrown back to the pre-Galilean scientific method of 'it is this way because we say it is and questioning it is heresy'.
You completely missed Graemes point.
If a new person moves into the area and someone says "Oh, he's black, he's probably a murderer".
If it turns out that the new guy *IS* a murderer, that doesn't vindicate the racist.
Baseless misinformation is misinformation whatever the outcome.
The CCP didn't come out with a wet market theory. Virologists evolved it after investigating one in Wuhan.
l
This neatly sums up the problem. According to our current international discourse the Chinese have to act as if they're plotlines in some page turner of a Cold War novel. This means that they have to be 'at fault' and doubly so because their government, who controls 1.3 billion people like so many puppets, has to preserve its veneer of omnipotence. So everything reported from there has to have a negative spin on it and anything said to counter it is just propaganda.
The point being made by this thread is 'disinformation' is a matter of opinion. There's obvious stuff, of course, but since its easy to enough to get people to swallow the most ridiculous plot lines reality becomes somewhat amorphous since a lot of what we get fed is BS or at best heavily curated (Ukraine, for example, seems to have its own style sheets, do's and don'ts to be observed when reporting from or about the area.)(Nothing new, either -- back in the Good Old Cold War days images from Eastern Europe was often in black and white or poor quality color and outdoor scenes often were selected for inclement weather. Its only after the Wall came down that the East started to look just like the west, more or less.)
Correct, but most Regites are blind to SARS facts.
But this highlights the perils of 'misinformation'.
So there was this SARS-like thing discovered doing the rounds, and we called it Covid. Initially, nobody knew much about it, but it looked pretty bad. Computer models predicted millions would die, so governments leapt into action to lockdown, gag & jab their populations.. Without knowing exactly what the risks were of the disease, or the various attempts to control it.
Then we got my favourite misinformation. Stop taking those horse pills, or the Ivermectin saga. That was a brilliant example because Ivermectin is very widely prescribed to humans as an anti-parasitic and has helped millions of people around the world. So describing it as a 'horse pill' was rather dumb, but was done by the 'experts'. Then there was the plain denial. So a small-scale trial using it off-lable may have shown evidence that it was effective. If so, it could have been a cheap treatment option. Many other drug dealers were pushing their own patent remedies at the time because politicians were desperate and dangling billions.
So we ended up with Ivermectin denial, by 'experts' who didn't really have much clue what they were talking about. To determine if it worked, it would have needed a formal clinical trial, which hadn't happened when the denial was in full swing. That then leads to trust problems, because if the 'experts' are promoting BS, why should anyone trust them?
"Many other drug dealers were pushing their own patent remedies at the time because politicians were desperate and dangling billions."
It is amazing how 'science' can be adapted to profit. How much did Pfizer and Moderna make from covid? The emergency use authorisation depended on no other treatments being available which is why nothing else was tried. Normally you would see doctors throwing the kitchen sink at unusual diseases but with covid they had to stick to the state approved protocol. Remember the early WHO guidance to put people on ventilators? How many did that kill? And maybe, just maybe, it is a conflict of interest to have the news channels telling you all this sponsored by the very same drug company making billions.
“ Remember the early WHO guidance to put people on ventilators? How many did that kill?”
Killed Precisely none. There’s more than one sort of ventilator, and the ones *originally designed for a lower level of support* were helpful in saving a few lives but not so many. Whereas the much smaller number of high support ventilators saved a lot of lives.
'China has pushed another theory, suggesting the coronavirus may have entered Wuhan in food shipments of frozen meat from elsewhere in China or South-East Asia.
The Chinese government has also pointed to research published by one of its leading virologists into samples collected from bats in a remote, abandoned mine.'
'Prof Shi Zhengli - often referred to as "China's Batwoman" - a researcher at the Wuhan Institute, published a report in 2021 revealing that her team had identified eight coronavirus strains found on bats in the mine in China in 2015. The paper says that coronaviruses from pangolins pose more of an immediate threat to human health than the ones her team found in the mine.'
'the "natural origin" theory.
This argues the virus spread naturally from animals, without the involvement of any scientists or laboratories. ......'
'The evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey is trying to bring the pandemic-origins debate back to where it started: with the notion that the coronavirus made the jump to humans at the Huanan seafood market, in Wuhan, China. Last week, he argued in Science that, contrary to official timelines of infection, the “first known” patient was a market vendor selling shrimp. For Worobey, it’s telling—to say the least—that this confirmed case, and most of the other very early ones, was linked to Huanan. In an interview with Jane Qiu, whose excellent rundown of the new analysis appeared on Friday in the MIT Technology Review, he calls a natural spillover in this spot “vastly more likely than any other scenarios based on what we now know.”
'
'A number of early cases of the outbreak in Wuhan were tied to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Later, researchers took environmental samples that suggested the virus had landed on surfaces in the market. But in the period since, tissue samples from the market's animals have revealed no trace of the virus. For the virus to jump from animals to humans, the animals have to actually be carrying it.
"None of the animals tested positive. So since January, this has not actually been particularly conclusive. But this has developed into a narrative," he said.
Carlson said his colleagues in China have been careful and precise in their work, publishing data according to international regulations that any scientist anywhere in the world can examine, and that strongly supports the conclusion that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market wasn't the source of the virus.
One reason this idea has gained such traction is that it dovetails with conservation efforts. Many wet markets sell exotic, endangered and highly trafficked animals such as pangolins. And it would be a victory for animal conservation, he said, if markets like this one were shut down after being blamed for the disease. But that doesn't mean that the evidence is there.
"This is an animal-origin virus that made the leap, maybe from bats to humans, maybe through… another animal, maybe through livestock. And we don't have the data yet to know where or how," he said. "That takes time. The study that really definitively showed the bats that SARS came from was published in 2017," roughly 15 years after the outbreak first occurred.'
Of course people are entitled to their opinions, but anyone saying "it *must* be a lab leak" without factual evidence needs educating because clearly their opinion is misinformed and has most likely been formed by listening to "fake news". If it later turns out that it *was* a lab leak, that doesn't vindicate their initial opinion formed from incorrect facts and others misleading statements. It just means they made a lucky guess.
Well that's just YOUR opinion. You seem to still be of the position that it came from a wet market (or perhaps frozen food?). Even though the only evidence for that is... something something DNA of animals who were in proximity to where positive tests were carried out.
On the other hand, if you listen to "fake news" you would be forgiven for noticing:-
There's a world renowned lab doing research on bat coronaviruses.
Eco Heath Alliance applied for a grant to do gain-of-function research (it was denied).
Their database went offline just before the outbreak due to "hacking" and never came back online.
The CCP have been extremely unhelpful.
There's ANOTHER lab a few hundred yards from the wet market.
The WHO sent Peter Daszak to investigate and he found nothing (he works for Eco Health Alliance)
There's loads more little "coincidences" none of which is a smoking gun, but I would forgive someone for speculating it *must* be a lab leak. (unless they are an official). Personally I think it's more than likely. Even the BBC seem to think it's a distinct possibility now.
It would be really good to know, and it might still be possible to find out if anyone cared to ask the right questions and dig out phone records, etc. It would be nice to avoid this happening again, as it's caused a bit of a mess!!
However, because that theory was considered "disinformation" and conspiracy theory in 2020 we'll probably never know.
Which is why it's such a bad idea to censor things which you don't like because you think they are disinformation. (unless you are really really sure)
"However, because that theory was considered "disinformation" and conspiracy theory in 2020 we'll probably never know." Nice bit of disinformation there. Those pushing the lab leak wer the ones claiming the market source was a lie, etc. iwas the problem, i.e. they disconted all evidence as fake. That was the problem, and they are still at it!
'James Wood, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Cambridge, said: “Professor Gao is an internationally respected scientist. There is strong evidence from virus genomics that the Covid-19 virus was not artificially engineered, or made by humans, but likely arose from another virus infecting wildlife.
“Science deals in probabilities and not in certainties. In reality, it may never be possible to know with confidence how the Covid-19 virus entered the human population. What is important is that lessons are learned and that live wildlife trade, a well-recognised route for zoonotic virus transmission, is reduced or banned and that laboratory safety is properly regulated.”'
The MAGAts et al strike again!
'The virus was first detected in Wuhan, a city in central China, in December 2019. Numerous studies have suggested Covid most likely emerged from a wet market in Wuhan where live animals were sold.
However, the city is also home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research facility that studies coronaviruses. That has led to the theory that the virus may have been leaked from a laboratory. The theory, initially dismissed by public health experts, was pushed by Donald Trump when he was US president. China has vigorously denied it.
'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65708746"
Yeah, at the very beginning of the article, Prof Gao says: "You can always suspect anything. That's science. Don't rule out anything."
That's science. You'll rarely hear a scientist say "that's impossible". If pushed, they may say something is improbable or even highly improbably. So no, implying as you do that this article is showing the lab leak theory is likely is not the case, it's a possibility, which evidence and facts may either show to be true or show to be very unlikely.
I think you missed the point. For a LOOONG time it was 'settled' that the source of the outbreak is, was and could only ever have been the wet market and that any discussion otherwise was 'misinformation' or 'disinformation' or 'far right nutjob tinfoil hat' conspiracy. Now people in the know have said 'don't rule out the lab leak theory', which goes against several years of media narrative.
If you go by the workings that claims 'it must be a lab leak' is disinformation then the claim 'it could only be from the wet market' is also disinformation.
"You can always suspect anything. That's science. Don't rule out anything."
Spike protein doesn't leave the injection site
menstrual cycles are not affected
Vaccine doesn't cause blood clots/heart problems
Vaccine stops the spread
Every single one proven to be incorrect.
"Now people in the know have said 'don't rule out the lab leak theory', which goes against several years of media narrative."
It may go against "media narrative", but it doesn't go against the science. Science has and continues to look at all the possibilities with varying degrees of confidence based on the data that and is being collected. Maybe you missed that word, science, in my comment and the quote I posted?
As for your other comments, marketing can always find "someone" to say what they need to be said, and then be distorted and "simplified" by "the media", eg "it must be a lab leak" is pure speculation. It *might* be a lab leak is science, where might is is a quantitative estimate based on evidence and experience. Maybe one day we'll know for sure, but if it really was a lab leak, China will sit on that for long as possible and without a major change in policy and/or regime there, long after we are all dead and gone.
"People in the know" who actually DO know what they are talking about, have not ruled out any of the possibilities. How those possibilities have been weighted has depended on available evidence, bit not ruled out. It's often a good idea to listen to an entire news report or read an entire news article because sometime "inconvenient truths" are often stated below the first couple of paragraphs because they don't match the publishers narrative. At least in most case, they actually publish the truth as far as it's known in most case, they just try to bury it far enough down that those of a short attention span will not see it.
You seem to be confusing "[social] media" with science.
Easily done. The media (including social) should be free to question The Science and hold the establishment's feet to the fire. The fourth estate, or the fourth pillar of democracy. Yet pre-Musk Twitter, the opposite happened. There was a concerted effort to eliminate opposing narratives, often for political reasons. This is unhealthy for science, or democracy in general. So we have a strange situation where Twiiter is being used to spread official misinformation (as Graham Crackers discovered), and censor inconvenient truths.. Especially when existing laws can already punish anyone who posts really harmful or misleading content.
Then again, it is amusing to watch EUrocrats threaten the free press.. Especially as they've come to rely on it. Would be funny if Musk just decided to block service in the EU for a week.
> Vaccine doesn't cause blood clots/heart problems
I seem to recall that being spotted quite early on, and widely-publicised as soon as it was known. Even in the so-called "mainstream media".
> Vaccine stops the spread
Don't recall anyone claiming that vaccines would stop the spread completely.
I recall there being a bit of a coverup about the blood clots and the AZ vaccine in the early days as some EU countries stopped using it due to the blood clot fears.
https://www.dw.com/en/astrazeneca-vaccine-germany-rejects-blood-clot-risk/a-56849749
""There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions," the statement said. "
During 2021 it was classed as 'extremely rare' and by the end of 2021/start of 2022 it was now 'rare' and the UK seemed to have phased out AZ as many of my vaxxed friends had AZ for the first shot and Pfizer for the second.
As for stopping the spread...
Dr Fauci said it on TV, CDC director Rochelle Walenski said it at a Senate hearing, Rachel Maddow said it a LOT on her show. We were told that when the virus encounters a vaccinated person it stops.
> the UK seemed to have phased out AZ as many of my vaxxed friends had AZ for the first shot and Pfizer for the second.
I seem to remember this had more to do with research that showed a combination of different types of vaccine (i.e. a vector vaccine combined with an mRNA one) gave better protection than just having a single type. I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure that's what the info I was given with my booster said. I think it even asked what my first vaccine was in order to give me the opposite as a booster.
“as some EU countries stopped using it due to the blood clot fears.”
Had they continued giving the AZ vaccine, especially to the elderly, they would have reached the reduction in death rate six months earlier. This would have saved between 200,000 and 300,000 lives. And cost roughly 100 lives to blood clots. They did it, purely as a political motive because they wanted it to be “one in the eye” over the “British vaccine”. A quarter of a million dead, just for political posturing.
> I seem to recall that being spotted quite early on, and widely-publicised as soon as it was known. Even in the so-called "mainstream media".
Yup. When I had my vaccines they even gave me a little leaflet about the risks of blood clots and heart problems, and being severe asthmatic I was in a fairly early group. So definitely spotted and publicised early.
"Diddums"
Terms like that suggest you're around 10 years old (emotionally). Shouldn't you be doing your homework instead of hanging out here?
Or are you unfamiliar with normal, polite British political discussions?
Or do you work at a troll farm in some hostile country?
Curious to know (despite normally avoiding to feed trolls). These of course are just my opinions/questions, not facts. Other opinions are available?
@H in The Hague
"Curious to know (despite normally avoiding to feed trolls). These of course are just my opinions/questions, not facts. Other opinions are available?"
Actually desht is really quite spot on when he calls it- "facetious, condescending, and a sign that the poster is a fucking twat.". Look at my original post and look at Casca's reply. Simply returning the level of his comment.
"Or are you unfamiliar with normal, polite British political discussions?"
And of course this made me laugh. What polite British political discussion. Read their comment. Not polite, not political, not discussion.
Just because he says things you don't like, that doesn't make it disinformation.
"Brexit has happened and the apocalypse didnt happen."
That will piss off a lot of remoaners, but it's true isn't it? Or at least arguable.
I only scanned the first page, but didn't spot any obvious misinformation.
And that's the whole problem, isn't it? Who gets to decide? If it's people like you, then it just becomes censorship, which then leads inevitably to Very Bad Things.
It's just people who harp on about how terrible Brexit has been. It's a perfectly good word.
I'm not sure what the word is for Brexiteers who also harp on, and are equally insufferable.
Now there's an example (Brexit) where there was an abundance of disinformation ON BOTH SIDES.
I must admit, I don't find the EU more attractive when they say that about their "voluntary" agreement "you can run but you can't hide". Sounds like a Mafia threat.
"I must admit, I don't find the EU more attractive when they say that about their "voluntary" agreement "you can run but you can't hide". Sounds like a Mafia threat."
It's SOP for a lot of government regulation. "You're getting out of hand and the bad apples are taking the piss. Rein it in and self-regulate or we'll do it for you". In the case of the EU voluntary agreement, it's failed and the date has been announced long ago that it will become compulsory. This is NOT a reaction to Twitter withdrawing from the voluntary code, it warning of them of a consequence.
It's not news that the slightest hint that you don't violently oppose Brexit will get you downvoted into oblivion on here.
Which is the key problem with a lot of disinformation policies - they quickly become policies that dampen down any voices that might be saying something a bit uncomfortable. As with some of the regulars on here giving codejunky a hard time for his posts, we rapidly get to the point that people with a difficult political view have all of their views discounted or actively opposed.
When only the bland, inoffensive middle managers can get past the judgemental hoards, we get ... well the current leaders of all of the UK political parties.
We create our own hell.
>>As with some of the regulars on here giving codejunky a hard time for his posts, we rapidly get to the point that people with a difficult political view have all of their views discounted or actively opposed.
Totally disagree with that. The reason that codejunky and certain others get a "hard time" is because s/he projects his/herself as a font of all knowledge and wisdom: Posting long diatribes on a variety of off-topic subjects from politics through economics to technology and military hardware. But when clear and obvious inaccuracies or fallacies are pointed out s/he just attacks the commentard until they get tired and just give up.
AC to avoid the disinformation blowback.
Pretty much every 'information' is disinformation of some sort. Even a list of stated facts, each of which is perfectly true, can be disinformative if other true and relevant facts are omitted, or without relevant context. Ideally people can come up with their own index of how accurate any information is, and it's always likely to be a shade of grey rather than black or white. In the end I would settle for a "do not allow propagation of blatant lies" policy, which is at least a bit more workable.
But in practice it's very much more complicated. For example (taking the covid source article)
Each of "covid definitely came from the seafood market" and "covid definitely came from the lab" is something that might be flagged but not banned. But this is also the type of article that, when coming from more authoritative sources is more accepted, even if it is wrong.
Each of "covid likely came from the seafood market" and "covid likely came from the lab" is completely fair comment, especially if supplying reasons and arguments. But it's also the type of article that can be weasel-worded into strongly implying something while having enough CYA-bull for deniability
"covid is a CIA plot" or "covid vaccines contain mind-controlling nanobots from supervillain bill gates" range from outright insane to defamatory, and most likely the type of statements that could be banned. But these are also statements of low disinformation because exactly because they are spouting outright bollocks, will likely be outright laughed off by most.
The most dangerous disinformation is that which mixes in their lies with dollops of truth and deliberately muddy the issues.
A bit like stating:
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China"
Was that a poorly worded statement by the WHO based on only a small amount of data or was that ass-covering disinformation from the CCP?
How about 'covid vaccines do not change women's menstrual cycles'?
It depends upon opinion or fact. There are two types:
Type (A): If the discussion is simply regarding opinion - i.e: "our political agenda serves purposes better than yours" - then certainly "disinformation" is only in the eye of the beholder.
Type (B): If the discussion is regarding FACT - i.e.: "global water levels are rising" - then "disinformation" is either LIE or a re-iteration of the facts.
No if's, and's, or but's. Regardless of people trying to inject their opinions into those facts in an attempt to change to discussion back to type (A), which only serves their agendas. Facts have no agendas, they exist outside the realm of human acceptance; they exist regardless if the humans acknowledge them or not. Jupiter exists, and provably so, even if you individually choose not to believe that - it only makes you foolish. "Disinformation", if played against provable physical facts, isn't "disinformation", it is a LIE and the spineless people who use the term "disinformation" so as to avoid insulting the ignorant need to STOP USING THE WORD.
But you actually try to establish a "fact" - in many cases it's very difficult, especially where modelling of what might happen in the future is involved. The problem is that the approved narrative is then pushed as "The Science" and any other viewpoint becomes "Disinformation". The internet and especially social media has caused such polarisation that a reasoned debate is often impossible.
Type (A): If the discussion is simply regarding opinion - i.e: "our political agenda serves purposes better than yours" - then certainly "disinformation" is only in the eye of the beholder.
Not really because opinions aren't really information. I think the Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. The political agenda is the troubling one given people can get arrested and jailed for going against the official narrative.
Type (B): If the discussion is regarding FACT - i.e.: "global water levels are rising" - then "disinformation" is either LIE or a re-iteration of the facts.
Kind of. But still questionable, ie what does 'global water level' mean? Some water levels are falling, eg lakes and rivers due to droughts, land use changes, policies etc. The global sea levels have been rising, but.. so what? This is expected following an ice age. The trillion dollar question is how much? How much may we be responsible for? How much could we prevent? How much would that cost? Especially when the data may not be reliable because land rises and falls (isostatic rebound) in interglacials. So a fact then easily becomes 'disinformation' when people play the attribution game. This has long been the case with Global Warming with reality deniers swift to call out 'misinformation' and demanding bans for anyone failing to adhere to the dogma.
The biggest challenge is as the first poster says.. Who gets to decide? Especially as some of the popular 'fact checking' services have frequently been wrong in the past, or in a fast moving story, it can be pretty much impossible to verify the facts immediately. So we end up with opinions masquerading as facts.
"The trillion dollar question is how much? "
That's not even a question, NOAA measures the average sea level almost daily (by satellite) and the answer is ~2 inches since middle ages (or long time ago)..
About half heat expansion and about half melting snow, they say.
Amount itself is absolutely meaningless and anyone whining about 'rising sea levels' is literally lying by omission. That is not an accident, it's about money. As usual: CO2 tax is pure profit, all of it.
"Type (B): If the discussion is regarding FACT - i.e.: "global water levels are rising" "
Yes. 2 inches since middle ages. By NOAA, it's an actual measurement which is actually a fact. *Whole fact*. Of course it is never said as it's meaningless heat expansion, only how much it *could* rise. With zero proof of any of it, naturally.
That's lying by omission and you know it. Pure propaganda or, at this point, after 3 decades, intentional misinformation. IPCC members made billions by selling "emission permits". Funny thing, isn't it? Always, *always* follow the money: *Everything* else is meaningless when money is involved. *Everything*. Science vs. money? Money wins 6-0.
Ever wondered why IPCC meeting notes aren't public anymore? I don't. The last public ones were 100% pondering what they could publish and what should be destroyed "not to give wrong picture" about CO2 and it's global effects. Literally: "How we make most money & power out of this?" Bunch of professional thieves. No more, no less. Being at CEO level makes it very natural, almost every one of them are nothing more than professional thieves.
Ask paleontologists, they know how much temperature variations has existed in the past. About 25C *more than now* is still *normal*. And ice age of course at the other end. IPCC of course knows all this, they just want you not to know: Pure disinformation is what you will get out of them. Or their puppets.
"Jupiter exists, and provably "
Sea level rising in the future is no way provable, it's literally a guess.
Also, you chose to omit it has risen about 2" since middle ages (by NOAA). So, *partial truth* streched to guess. That's disinformation if anything.
""Disinformation", if played against provable physical facts"
Which aren't either provable nor facts: They are *opinions* and *guesses*. I see you've serious problems when you can't make any difference between those.
The truth decides this. Things like 'vaccines put microchips into your body' is disinformation.
Russia has a point about certain parts of Ukraine... not disinformation. HOWEVER 'Russia is entirely justified'= disinformation.... If it's blatantly false peddled as fact, it's disinformation. Have the drink proffered, it's entirely not beer... [hides from the EU]
Disinformation is anything the "experten*" don't agree with.
Once the "experten" have spoken all discussion must cease because they are "experten", even if it is blindingly obvious, they are speaking out of their a**e.
How does one one become an "experten" ? I wish I knew, but it seems they are anointed by some authority who decides.
*I use the term "experten" deliberately, as "experten"-worship seems particularly strong in Germany.
It seems there is a lot of disagreement with my question. So for whichever polarized position you hold, pro/anti-Trump, MMCC co2 theory, Bidens sanity or his sons laptop, Ukraine, Covid, left vs right etc. Whatever your deeply held position how do you ensure that the arbiter of truth is impartial and not under the influence of the person on the opposite side of your belief?
Imagine the government having such control. As they do(or did) in China, North Korea, USSR, Nazi Germany. For the Trump haters, he became president. Musk has taken over twitter and obliterated the FBI back channel for blocking and mislabelling. Or an MMCC co2 theory sceptic labelling every bad weather event accusation on MMCC as a lie. Remember it was intelligence experts who all signed a statement that the laptop story was a lie.
@Casca
"Oh we know what camp you are in..."
You are so close to the point. I am guessing you just generally dislike my opinions in general.
So what organisation should decide what is the truth? What happens when (not if) someone with some of my opinions takes charge of the organisation? What if your opinions are flagged as misinformation because it is not the chosen narrative?
And this applies whatever your opinions, No matter what you believe. No matter the truth of your beliefs.
"Remember it was intelligence experts who all signed a statement that the laptop story was a lie."
Incorrect, Mr 'codejunky'.
The letter stated it had all the hallmarks of a Russian Info op.
This did not mean that the info was necessarily false. Just that it was released in a time and manner to extract maxium effect and damage.
The same with the Energy Department report on the lab leak in Wuhan. The report is clearly marked as "Low Confidence". The bit always omitted by those who want to muddy the waters.
Do some research. Don't just swallow red pills that grifters spoon feed you.
This did not mean that the info was necessarily false. Just that it was released in a time and manner to extract maxium effect and damage.
Indeed. The FBI had been sitting on the laptop for a while, and the MSM busily denying it's existence or veracity during the Biden-Trump election campaign. Then the infamous letter was released at a time and manner to extract maximum effect and damage. Experts say... Screw the Hatch Act, we cannot let this man win! People forget Watergate. It's not the crime, it's the cover-up that does the damage.
The media happily swallowed the blue pill and went with 'the laptop is russian disinformation'. You don't expect the plebs to actually read and understand the finer details? They just swallow what CNN feeds them. The very same people who believed everything in the now fully deboonked Steele dossier...
It also appears that some of the people who signed the letter thought that the info on the laptop was legit and they were just following directions from on high.
It seems there is a lot of disagreement with my question. So for whichever polarized position you hold, pro/anti-Trump, MMCC co2 theory, Bidens sanity or his sons laptop, Ukraine, Covid, left vs right etc. Whatever your deeply held position how do you ensure that the arbiter of truth is impartial and not under the influence of the person on the opposite side of your belief?
In some instances, it should be straightforward. Some arbiters of truth are legally bound to be impartial, so for example the Bbc by virtue of it's Royal Charter. But then it produces 'facts' like this-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30414955
Run by the extremist Patriot of Ukraine organisation, which considers Jews and other minorities "sub-human" and calls for a white, Christian crusade against them, it sports three Nazi symbols on its insignia: a modified Wolf's Hook, a black sun (or "Hakensonne") and the title Black Corps, which was used by the Waffen SS.
Azov is just one of more than 50 volunteer groups fighting in the east, the vast majority of which are not extremist, yet it seems to enjoy special backing from some top officials:
That was from 2014, and Azov still sports the wolfsangel and black sun, although it's not supposed to. A few months after the conflict escalated, Ukraine attempted to re-brand Azov. So now the Bbc says-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/64718139
Mr Putin has repeatedly made baseless claims about a "neo-Nazi regime" in Ukraine as a justification for Russia's invasion of the country.
And it regularly uses 'baseless claim' any time anyone suggests Ukraine still has a neo-Nazi problem, despite ample evidence that it does. Some of this may be out of ignorance, for example-
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/y40uts/ru_pov_ukrainian_tank_with_spray_painted/
Showing a Ukrainian tank with both a balkenkreuz and a wolfsangel. There have been a few instances of the balkenkreuz on Ukrainian vehicles, with people confused due to the similarities between that and the version the German Bundeswehr currently use. They changed from the balkenkreuz to the current tatzenkreuz, which served two purposes. One to distance themselves from the WW2-era version, and the other because it's a more subdued version that doesn't make as good an aiming marker. It doesn't address why Ukraine would be using WW2-era German insignia on a Russian tank, or giving that tank the insignia of an SS Panzer division. Or, because it's a national identifier, why it's on a Ukrainian vehicle at all given Germany is not a party to the conflict, and sporting the flags of non-beligerents can be a war crime. It's the origin of the whole 'false flag' expression after all.
Then more recently there was the Belgorod incident where the Bbc tied itself in knots to explain how a group lead by this chap-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Kapustin_(militant)
Since January 2021 he has co-hosted the Active Club podcast with Robert Rundo, leader of the American Rise Above Movement. In Ukraine he founded the Russian Volunteer Corps in August 2022, a group of volunteers fighting for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian War. According to Denis Sokolov of the Civic Council these fighters received regular salaries from the Ukrainian defence ministry in Kyiv.
They did seem to admit the RVC might be neo-Nazis, because any group lead by someone calling themselves 'White Rex' (White King) kinda looks bad. But then tried to spin it as Russian dissidents and Ukraine acting independently and the Ukraine government had nothing to do with it. Which just leaves the question of how the RVC ended up with Ukrainian uniforms and US/NATO equipment.
So it's a funny old world. The UK state broadcaster promotes misinformation, which is especially troubling given it's Royal Charter, and that promoting neo-Nazi ideology and terrorism is in itself a serious crime in the UK.
You are sassuming that there is a direct correlation between lies and 'disinformation'! There isn't - disinformation is whatever doesn't fit the narrative (often, it will be true). Lies are fine so long as they fit the narrative, as the government and media have demonstrated so well over the past few years.
Would you really like to “abolish Twitter”? Not just “avoid it like the plague, because it’s a place where weird and unpleasant people go”?
Perhaps then that’s exactly why a large number of people have formed the opinion that the EU *should* be abolished.
If we’ve really got to the point where an unelected minority (vocal bourgeoisie, in fact not even a particularly large minority numerically) get to say which other peoples opinions should be banned, can you really be that surprised that the general population are measuring you lot up for how you fit into Mme Guillotine?
"Unelected"?? It's 2023 and someone is still touting that tired old lie.
Also, tt's funny how his opinion that he'd prefer to abolish Twitter is bad, yet when people say they want to abolish the UK, you justify it?
Personally, neither opinion offends me, but I still think the guy who wants to abolish the EU because they want to tackle the fact that lies are intentionally peddled to gullible morons is a twat.
Did you know that 40% of Americans believe that Trump won the election, and Biden stole it? That figure is closer to 65% if you only consider Republican voters. Even Fox presenters have admitted it court that they know it's bollocks, yet they continue to peddle it.
Don't you think that is an affront to democracy?
You seem to think that everyone has critical thinking skills - if they did, then this sort of crap would be fine, though at the same time, the grifters online and on the TV would be out of a job.
Despite not having anything to do with my point, do you really equate one person in politics to over 100 million voters? You must really admire Hillary!
Besides, I wasn't referring to the loser politicians themselves, but if you want to open that door....
Of course, we have Trump, then a close second in the snowflake department is Kari Lake (who also cannot shut up about her election being stolen)
Then, do we need to mention Republican politician Kandiss Taylor. who lost her primary by over 70%, but still complained it was stolen from her. You may recognise the name - she's the GOP politician who runs a podcast called "Jesus, Guns, and Babys", and is a prominent flat earther..
Yes, shes not a parody. You MAGAs really vote for your best, don't you?
(just one link at random. if this site displeases you, google yourself, there are loads of hits) : https://gizmodo.com/kandiss-taylor-flat-earth-jesus-guns-babies-1850474753
Has Stacey Abrams stopped moaning about losing yet? And you forget all the 'not my president' stuff that went on after 2016. If it's good for the goose and all that.
The Arizona election would have been more interesting if there hadn't been massive voter suppression in the majority republican areas. How much planning did it take to deliver the wrong sized paper?
A lot of things will be problematic as difference of opinion could easily be regarded as disinformation if an opinion is in the minority.
e.g.
Some people say Israel is a genocidal apartheid state
Some people say the Palestinians are terrorists and deserve all they get.
Some people say trans women are men.
Some people say trans women are women.
Some people say Philip Schofield is a grooming nonce
Some people say Philip Schofield has been unfairly vilified.
Some people say Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster.
Some people say Brexit has been great.
Some people think Tesla cars are of low build quality & massively over hyped.
Some people wish their Tesla had a convenient orifice / appendage (delete as appropriate for gender / sexual preferences) as then they could show their love physically.
Very few things will be provably correct or incorrect - many things are opinion based, in other areas there may well not be enough "hard facts" to be sure e.g. people mentioned the "source" of COVID - very unlikely we will ever know for sure if it was food markets or lab screw up or some other cause(s) .
.. Even when there seem to be "hard facts" things may change, e.g. in science the latest and greatest theory in a particular area often renders some previous "truths" incorrect, and then further in the future that theory is shown to be flawed / incomplete. e.g. centuries ago physiognomy was accepted by many, with zero evidence (the idea that someone's physical appearance reflected their personality to an extent, so someone could have e.g. a "criminal look")
Although these days we assume things are a lot more rational & scientific there's still lots of things that are generally accepted by many without being scientifically testable and "provable" (things are difficult once lots of complexity is involved & often rapidly become impossible to prove, especially in the area of "social sciences" e.g. economics is basically a shouting match of competing theories all using over simplistic models that are doomed to failure when applied to the complexities of the "real world")
A few bits of BS are obviously easily disproved, a microscope and access to some vials of COVID vaccine would show no microchips in the vaccine (but the conspiracy theorists would still say "that's because Bill Gates is sneaky & only puts the chips in a small proportion of the vaccines, your samples just happened to be clean, but chips are out there")
.. but most things cannot readily be "proven" as disinformation, but disinformation legislation could lead to a scenario of stifling dissenting voices.
1) Some people (ok, a lot) think that Donald J Trump is the new Messiah
2) Some people think that Elon Musk is the new Messiah
3) Many people are blathering idiots.
What is the likelihood of 3) being larger than 1) and 2) combined?
TBH, IMHO, the first two are MAGA conspiracy theories and 3) is 99.99% true.
But if you post that Boris Johnson is not only not the Messiah, but that he is in fact a Very Naughty Boy that will now be automatic disinformation punishable by a mandatory five hundred nuyen fine and corrective bdsm session with the last politician you voted against.
Only one or two of your examples are valid. The others are not, and are demonstratively false or true.
I mean, some people say that there are Palestinian terrorists, others say they are defending their own land. That could be debated.
Saying "All Palestinians are terrorists" is a blatant line.
Also, do you think it's really OK for people to accuse someone of being a paedophile if it hasn't been proved?
Would you be so glib if it was you being accused?
"climate change" .... it would be nice topic if IPCC did't lie (by omission) so much.
Climate always changes, that's the problem, as IPCC tries to claim it wouldn't if people wouldn't change it. Which, naturally, is absurd claim.
Historians can tell climate has been changing *very fast* in the past, much faster than now. But IPCC denies that too.
Vikings were living in Greenland by farming and IPCC shuns whole thing: It doesn't exist or is explained as 'temporary, only few hundreds years' ... but *this* change is not temporary? They don't know anything about previous change.
IPCC has no idea why ice age started or ended and they definitely try to shun the reality where we recover from last ice age: Climate *should* get warmer.
Whole connection to CO2 is pure bullshit anyway: It's *weak* greenhouse gas, while water vapour is *strong* greenhouse gas and their effective difference is about 1:100. Also there' 100* more water in athmosphere than CO2, that makes 1: 10 000 ratio. What IPCC says about water vapour? Nothing; You can't tax water vapour. Follow the money.
Also, the last nail in the coffin: Every planet in Solar system gets about 2% warmer around 2000 +-10 years. On Earth, 2% is about 4K. Which isn't reached yet. IPCC tried to deny *that* as *misinformation* even it's an actual measurement by actual scientists: Astronomers.
Also they claimed it doesn't apply to Earth. These guys are lying to get more money. No more, no less.
Clear-cut disinformation cases are those foreign-sponsored AND typically involving multitude of fake accounts pretending to be grass-root opinions, while mutually boosting likes and shares. This also includes artificial pumping of opinions with back-links and other SEO techniques. They have spam properties.
Such cases may also include popular bloggers being paid by foreign intelligence to push harmful narratives - but not indicating they are state-sponsored, similar to influencers pretending to like certain products, but actually being sponsored to promote them. Certain influential bloggers can also be black-mailed to create disinformation content, meanwhile earning income from platform advertisement and getting promoted by foreign-sponsored bots.
It is different to clearly marked foreign-sponsored news channels or non-foreign personal blogs with real persons sharing those opinions and getting REAL likes.
Your message matches the narrative of the following two YouTube channels. There are too many similarities between them to be a coincidence. I believe both have hidden agenda:
https://www.youtube.com/@RussellBrand/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@RedPilledTV/videos
To tackle corrupted vloggers, the online platforms should not allow monetization of political or inflammatory content. For example if more than 20% of a channel is political, the whole channel is not allowed to monetize. Political posts or videos should not allow monetization by default. This will weed out commercial intent and let only truly politically involved persons to speak.
I think the writing is clearly on the wall, he's going to pull Twitter out of Europe.
The Fail Whale and the Saudis didn't buy Twitter to make money, they bought it to influence American political discourse. I bet he barely knows where London is. Almost all of the revenue is coming from the States, why would he spend loads of money on legal cases, GDPR fines (soon) and DSA fines (medium term) and create an even bigger money sink than it already is for a continent that isn't going to put DeSantis in the White House?
Musk is going to pull out of Europe (yes, that includes the UK because there's no way UK.GOV is going to be more lenient than the EU on this, quite the contrary), he's going to blame it on the EU who "is trying to censor him" and the Musk Militia will fall for it.
> he's going to pull Twitter out of Europe
Promises, promises
> I bet he barely knows where London is
Of course he does: Madison County, Ohio
Joking aside, I doubt he'll explicitly pull out of the EU but will just ignore the fines (aside from shouting about how "unfair" they are), as he has been ignoring other Twitter creditors, banking on there being no technical actions taken to block access to Twitter. When the bailiffs turn up it'll become "an attack on the US and its values".
From 'Nautica'. above...
"Re: Erm
Doesn't take long to smoke out the Trump PATRIOTS.
⇧6 ⇩5"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...didn't take too long to smoke out the Trump PATRIOTS with this comment, either,
The entire rest of the world considers you all to be fucking robots/zombies/borgs who haven't got a brain in your heads; who can't think for yourselves; and for whom "Critical Thinking" is some type of Commie plot. But I repeat myself.
Here's a big clue for all you who consider yourselves "Trump PATRIOTS": the rest of the world, who actually think, considers you to be seditionists.
Seditionists used to be lined up in front of a firing squad. Whatever happened to the good ol' days...?
Welcome to "doublespeak" from George Orwell's 1984.
Here's a big clue for all you who consider yourselves "Trump PATRIOTS": the rest of the world, who actually think, considers you to be seditionists.
Do you even know what that word means? Or did you just hear it on social media somewhere? So here's a definition-
conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
So there was a thing in Seattle where an angry mob attacked the police, federal buildings and other property. Then decided to seize Capitol Hill and declare independence from the United States. Oh, and demanded the removal of the sitting US President because he stole the election. This was part of a summer of love, and healing divisions, or as CNN put it 'fiery but mostly peaceful protests'.
Seditionists used to be lined up in front of a firing squad. Whatever happened to the good ol' days...?
You mean when liberals were liberals?
They were fighting for 'social justice' so they are excused. And it was all OK and legal as the democrats were encouraging them and funding their bail. (or more accurately the democrats were funnelling donations to actblue)
The side effect being the loss of many businesses and local amenities as they got burned down or looted out of existence and now a number of the remaining retailers are leaving due to the ongoing looting and refusal of local officials to enforce the basic rule of law.
There are still areas of LA that have not recovered from the riots in 1992.
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