Monthly Archives: May 2023

Identifying fake news requires actively open-minded thinking, new … – Concordia University News

Posted: May 31, 2023 at 7:51 pm

Same results across the political spectrum

The researchers conducted two experiments.

The first compared the two frameworks to see if they could predict behaviour based on profile and brain activity when exposed to news headlines.

Thirty participants were shown 80 headlines in a style consistent with those seen on Facebook. Twenty were easily determined to be either true or false and another 20 pertained to current events or pop culture but were not politically divisive. The remaining 40 were politically polarizing, with 15 Liberal-consistent, 15 Conservative-consistent and 10 deemed general. Half the headlines were true; half were false across all categories. The headlines were all approximately eight words long, give or take two words.

Participants were asked questions to identify their political ideology and equipped with an EEG headset to measure brain activity in the prefrontal cortex. They were then asked to identify the headlines as true or false.

We found that people who actually spent cognitive effort, measured by the EEGs brain activity recording, were more likely to have a better performance independent of their political beliefs, Mirhoseini says. This suggests that classical reasoning is more powerful than motivated reasoning.

The second study investigated whether people could be motivated to think critically and therefore improve their performance.

We know from the literature and from our own studies that people are very overconfident about their ability to identify misinformation, he notes. If you ask them, they will say they are correct 90 per cent of the time. But in fact, it is closer to 50 per cent basically random.

The researchers believed that if the participants could measure their performance when identifying fake headlines, they would increase their cognitive effort to improve their performance.

Halfway through the headline test, the researchers displayed their performance score up to that point. Their actual score was often well below what was expected, triggering a reduction in confidence in their own ability to identify fake headlines.

That triggered an increase in critical thinking, and we saw a 14 per cent increase in performance immediately following the intervention.

Mirhoseini suggests that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and others could create automated interventions alerting users to the frequency with which they interact with fake news, but more studies are needed to find the most effective way of providing feedback.

The context here is very important, Mirhoseini adds. People generally go onto social media to have fun. If we did the study in another context, the results may be different.

Read the cited paper: Actively open-minded thinking is key to combating fake news: A multimethod study"

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Binance’s Changpeng Zhao complains of fake news and hints at … – CoinGeek

Posted: at 7:51 pm

Appearing on aMay 29 episode of the Bankless Podcast, CEO of Binance Changpeng CZ Zhao spoke on various topics in the digital asset space, from the controversies of 2022 to privacy, regulation, and banking.

During the hour-long podcast episode, CZ extolled the financial access virtues of digital assets, spoke on the FTX collapse, market downturns, and spent a significant portion of the discussion railing against fake news and negative propaganda campaigns.

The Binance chief was keen to reassure listeners who may have been influenced by these so-called FUD campaigns (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), which he claimed were excessively targeted against Binance and Tether due to their relative size and importance.

If you write a negative article about a small exchange nobody cares, you dont get clicks. Whatever article, if you put Binances name in the title and something negative, people click more, he said.

This is, of course, a variation of the old people hate successful people schtick and a very convenient way to dismiss stories such as thecommingling of customer funds with operating capital,being probed for helping Russia dodge economic sanctions, andfacilitating transactions by Islamic terror groups.

Ironically, this discussion of fake news was used as a springboard for CZ to pitch Binance as a transparent platform, noting the proof of reserves that the company has instituted in the past yearnofake newshere.

He went on to explain that a commitment to privacy prevents the company from being more transparent: As a private company we need to make sure our privacy is protected, if we publish all of our wallet addresses that we use and make it very clear which vendors we use, those vendors may be attacked by hackers.

Outside of his noble concerns for vendor security, another key topic of discussion for CZ was banking.

The subject came up when hosts David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams asked him the listener question, Can you please, buy a bank and make it crypto-friendly? To which the Binance chief responded, we did look at that.

A backdoor into banks

This question came from the tech bank collapses of early 2023, notably Signature, Silvergate, and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The failures of some of the few crypto-friendly banks in the U.S. market precipitated discussions around the future of banking in the digital asset industry, with some suggesting it wouldpush companies further into the arms of the less regulated Shadow Banking space.

Hence, the idea of Binance setting up or buying its own crypto-friendly bank might appeal to some market participants. However, while CZ did admit the thought had crossed his mind, he indicated it was not really a practical solution:

The reality is much more complex than the concept. You buy one bank, it only works in one country, and you still have to deal with the banking regulators of that country. It doesnt mean you can buy a bank and do whatever you wanna do. If the banking regulators say, look you cant work with crypto then they can take your license away if you do. So buying a bank doesnt prevent regulators from telling you no you cant touch crypto.'

This sentiment seems to echo complaints aired in the light of the tech-bank collapses, which pinned the blame on increased regulatory scrutiny, particularly from the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and a weaponizing of FTX and the 2022 crypto winter to squeeze digital assets out.

CZ also argued that running a bank would not be financially viable or profitable, stating:

Banks are not cheap. Banks are very expensive for very little business revenueThe amount of capital required is quite high, and the regulatory approval for buying a bank is the same or more as setting up a new bank, which is very onerous.

An alternative route that does seem to be in Binances thoughts is becoming minority investors in banks.

We may make small investments into banks, become minority investors, so hopefully that influences them to be more crypto-friendly, CZ remarked.

This possible way around the onerous regulatory approvals of setting up or buying outright a bank would make a lot of sense for the regulation-shy CEO, who elaborated on his opinions around current regulatory regimes in another section of the podcast episode.

On regulation

Discussing which jurisdictions are doing regulation well, CZ pointed to the Middle East and Europe, specifically mentioning the EUs Markets in Crypto Asset (MiCA) regulation, whichpassed its final vote this April and should come into force in 2024.

Were working quite closely with France, CZ said, MiCA is still restrictive, but its not too bad, its pretty good.

The inference here is that for CZ, restrictive is a byword for bad. In this vein, he also complimented an easing of regulation in Japan, but did not reserve any praise for the U.S. current regulatory efforts.

This is perhaps unsurprising, as the SEC has recently ramped up its enforcement actions, and Binance iscurrently being suedby the other major financial market regulator, like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), for a calculated, phased approach to violating U.S. commodities regulations.

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The Long Afterlife of Libertarianism – The New Yorker

Posted: at 7:51 pm

In 2001, the libertarian anti-tax activist Grover Norquist gave a memorable interview on NPR about his intentions. He said, I dont want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I could drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. Everything about the line was designed to provoke: the selection of a bookish and easily horrified audience, the unapologetic violence of drag and drown, the porcelain specificity of bathtub.

As propaganda, it worked magnificently. When I arrived in Washington, two years later, as a novice political reporter, the image still reverberated; to many it seemed a helpfully blunt depiction of what conservatives in power must really want. Republicans were preparing to privatize Social Security andMedicare, the President had campaigned on expanding school choice, and, everywhere you looked, public services were being reimagined as for-profit ones. Norquist himselfan intense, gleeful, ideologicalfigure with the requisite libertarian beardhad managed to get more than two hundred members of Congress to sign a pledge never to raise taxes, for any reason at all. The Republicans of the George W. Bush era were generally smooth operators, having moved from a boom-time economy to the seat of an empire, confident, at every step, that they had the support of a popular majority. Their broader vision could be a little tricky for reporters to decode. Maybe Norquist was the one guy among them too weird to keep the plans for the revolution a secret.

But, as the Bush Administration unfolded, it became harder to see the Republicans as true believers. Government just didnt seem to be shrinking. On the contrary, all around us in Washingtonin the majestic agency buildings along the Mall and in the rooftop bars crowded with management consultants flown in to aid in outsourcing, and especially in the vast, mirrored, gated complexes along the highway to Dulles, from which the war on terror was being cordinated and suppliedthe government was very obviously growing.

However much the Republicans had wanted to downsize government, they turned out to want other things morelike operating an overseas empire and maintaining a winning political coalition. Bushs proposal for privatizing Medicare was watered down until, in 2003, it became an expensive drug benefit for seniors, evidently meant to help him win relection. After beating John Kerry, in 2004, Bush announced that Social Security reform would be one of his Administrations top priorities (Ive earned capital in this election, and Im going to spend it), but within just a few months that plan had run aground, too. House Republicans saw how terribly the policy was polling and lost their nerve. Meanwhile, more drones and private military contractors and Meals Ready-to-Eat flowed to Iraq and Afghanistan and points beyond. New programs offset cuts to old ones. Norquist was going to need a bigger bathtub.

Self-identified libertarians have always been tiny in numbera handful of economists, political activists, technologists, and true believers. But, in the decades after Ronald Reagan was elected President, they came to exert enormous political influence, in part because their prescription of prosperity through deregulation appeared to be working, and in part because they provided conservatism with a long-term agenda and a vision of a better future. To the usual right-wing mixture of social traditionalism and hierarchical nationalism, the libertarians had added an especially American sort of optimism: if the government would only step back and allow the market to organize society, we would truly flourish. When Bill Clinton pronounced the era of big government over, in his 1996 State of the Union address, it operated as an ideological concession: Democrats would not aggressively defend the welfare state; they would accept that an era of small government had already begun. It almost seemedas in the famous bathtub drowning scene in the movie Les Diaboliquesas if the Democrats and the Republicans had joined together in an effort to dispatch a shared problem.

Had you written a history of the libertarian movement fifteen years ago, it would have been a tale of improbable success. A small cadre of intellectually intense oddballs who inhabited a Manhattanish atmosphere of late-night living-room debates and barbed book reviews had somehow managed to impose their beliefs on a political party, then the country. A sympathetic historian might have emphasized the mass appeal of the ideals of free minds and free markets (as the libertarian writer Brian Doherty did in his comprehensive, still definitive work Radicals for Capitalism, published in 2007), and a skeptical one might have focussed on the convenient way that the ideology advanced the business interests of billionaire backers such as the Koch brothers. But the story would have concerned a thriving idea.

The situation is no longer so simple. At first, the Republican backlash against Bushs heresies (the expensive prescription-drug benefit, the lack of progress against the national debt) cohered into the Tea Party andonce the G.O.P. establishment made its peace with the movementinto Paul Ryans stint as Speaker, with its scolding fixation on debt reduction. But that period scarcely outlasted Ryans Speakership. It was brought to an end by Barack Obamas crafty (and somewhat under-celebrated) relection campaign, in 2012, in which he effectively cast Romney-Ryan libertarianism as a stalking horse for plutocracy, rather than a leg up for small business, as Republicans claimed.

Doctrinal libertarianism hasnt disappeared from the political scene: its easy enough to find right-of-center politicians insisting that government is too big. But, between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, libertarianism has given way to culture war as the rights dominant mode. To some libertariansand liberals friendly to the causethis is a development to lament, because it has stripped the American right of much of its idealism. Documenting the history of the libertarian movement now requires writing in the shadow of Trump, as two new books do. Together, they suggest that, since the end of the Cold War, libertarianism has remade American politics twicefirst through its success and then through its failure.

In The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism (Princeton), Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi argue that things didnt have to turn out this way. Zwolinski, a philosopher at the University of San Diego, and Tomasi, a political theorist at Brown, are both committed libertarians who are appalled at the movements turn toward a harder-edged conservatism. (They are prominent figures in a faction called bleeding-heart libertarianism.) Their book is a deep plunge into the archives, in search of a primordial libertarianism that preceded the Cold War. They contend that the profound skepticism toward government and the political absolutism that characterize libertarians have animated movements across the political spectrum, and have, in the past, sometimes led adherents in progressive directions rather than conservative ones. (In the call to defund the police, for instance, the authors identify a healthy skepticism of too much centralized government.) As they see it, libertarianism once had a left-of-center valenceand could still reclaimit.

If this sounds a little optimistic, it does make for an interesting historical account. The first thinker to self-identify as libertarian, the authors point out, was the French anarcho-communist Joseph Djacque, who argued that private property and the state were simply two different ways in which social relationships could become infused with hierarchy and repression. Better to abolish both. The social Darwinist Herbert Spencer denounced imperialisms deeds of blood and rapine; the abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Lysander Spooner condemned slavery as an instance of the governments usurping natural rights. In the history of resistance to the modern state, Zwolinski and Tomasi see libertarians everywhere. This approach can sometimes come off as a land grab; my eyebrows went up when they claimed the abolitionist John Brown as a libertarian hero. Then again, Brown was a fiercely anti-government radical who sought to seize a federal armory to provision slaves for an uprising, so maybe its not much of a stretch.

All this genealogy can seem a little notional, but certain suggestive rhythms recur: Zwolinski and Tomasi show how many thinkers return to personal liberty and the right to private property as bedrocks. That isnt only an American grammarit comes from Locke and Mill, and, as The Individualists stresses, from some French sources, toobut its the one in which the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are written. Why do so many Americans own guns? Probably in part because gun ownership is protected in the Constitution. Such choices by the Founders dont make America a libertarian country, but they do insure that libertarians will be around for as long as the Constitution is.

Zwolinski and Tomasi emphasize the contingencies in libertarianisms history, but the most consequential contingency was the Cold War, which closely followed the publication, in 1944, of a core libertarian text, Friedrich Hayeks The Road to Serfdom. An austere Austrian economist who taught at the London School of Economics, Hayek had become alarmed that so many left-of-center English thinkers were convinced that economic central planning ought to outlast the Second World War, becoming a permanent feature of government. Back in Vienna, Hayek and his mentors had studied central planning, and he believed that the English were being hopelessly nave. His economic insight was that, when it came to information, no government planner, no matter how many studies he commissioned, could hope to match the markets efficiency in determining what people wanted. How much bread was needed, how many tires? Best to let the market work it out. The price system, Hayek wrote, enables entrepreneurs, by watching the movement of comparatively few prices, as an engineer watches the hands of a few dials, to adjust their activities to those of their fellows. He coupled this insight with a warning: Few are ready to recognize that the rise of fascism and naziism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.

The Road to Serfdom, a text that relied on Austro-Hungarian historical experience to make a point about wartime English policy, was initially rejected by American publishers. But once it saw print, and won a rave in the Times, Hayek became a phenomenon. Anxious and unprepared, he was pushed by his publisher onto the stage at Town Hall, in New York City, to address an eager audience of American industrialists who were sick to death of Roosevelt. An abridged version was published by the Readers Digest in the spring of 1945, and was then made available as a five-cent reprint through the Book-of-the-Month Club, which distributed more than half a million copies.

And heres what one of the worlds greatest songs sounds like when I sing it.

Cartoon by Jon Adams

Hayeks work more or less invented libertarianism in twentieth-century America. As the Cold War wore on, his warnings about the perils of central planning gained urgency. Small libertarian think tanks, newspapers, and philanthropies appeared across the country through the nineteen-fifties.

Hayeks mentor, Ludwig von Mises, arrived in America and began teaching a seminar in Austrian economics, at N.Y.U., underwritten by a businessmans fund. The movement was insular, fractious, New Yorkish. On West Eighty-eighth Street, a late-night salon convened in the apartment of Murray Rothbard, a student of von Misess who had become the chief propagandist of libertarianisms extreme wing. (Robert Nozick, who became libertarianisms most important philosopher, dropped by.) In Murray Hill, Ayn Rand held post-midnight sessions with her own circle, which, at different times, included Alan Greenspan and Martin Anderson, who would become a leading domestic-policy adviser to Presidents Nixon and Reagan. Even to ideological allies, the Rand circlein which everyone seemed to be in psychotherapy with the novelists lover, Nathaniel Brandenappeared to be a cult. What if, as so often happens, one didnt like, even couldnt stand, these people? Rothbard asked.

Libertarian thinkers, on the page, tend to be prickly, disputatious, and drawn to absolutes, which is why they make for good copy. Those traits were deepened by an isolation from real power; they lorded over some small-circulation journals and a couple of budding think tanks, but that was basically it. Von Mises, among the crankiest of the originals, was once summoned to a small conference in Switzerland with a handful of libertarian grandeesthe few other people on earth who actually agreed with himand stormed out because they didnt agree with him enough. Youre all a bunch of socialists, he said. When Milton Friedman, the most urbane of the libertarian greats, published a pamphlet, in 1946, denouncing rent control, Rand fumed that he didnt go far enough: Not one word about the inalienable right of landlords and property owners.

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DISINFORMATION, MISINFORMATION AND FAKE NEWS – The Star Online

Posted: at 7:51 pm

MEDIA literacy has never been more important in an era where anyone and everyone can share their voice online.

The Internet is a double-edged sword; knowledge and information has never been so easily and readily accessed, but with that ease comes malicious individuals looking to create discord.

Misinformation is rampant and anyone can be susceptible to it, especially if the news is sensational and emotionally charged.

How many times have you seen an article or news piece shared on social media that you thought was true at that moment only to later discover it contained falsities or even outdated information.

And while both disinformation and misinformation can mislead audiences or readers, the key difference is that disinformation is intentionally and maliciously deceptive.

In a report by The Star (Oct 11, 2020), the top five most prevalent fake news topics cover areas of governance, crime, health, consumerism and security.

Whats the difference?

Understanding the various ways in which false information is spread, as well as the motivations and appeal behind them, is critical for avoiding and combating it.

Heres a quick breakdown of the definitions on the type of false information:

> Misinformation is false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead.

> Disinformation is deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or facts; propaganda.

> Fake news is purposefully crafted, sensational, emotionally charged, misleading or totally fabricated information that mimics the form of mainstream news.

Whether or not the person sharing is aware of the inaccuracies, all forms frequently involve widespread dissemination.

For instance, there was a slew of conspiracy theories claiming that 5G networks cause cancer and even Covid-19. The false claim was based on the idea that the radio waves cause health problems despite the lack of scientific evidence.

MCMC commission member and professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysias School of Electrical Engineering Dr Tharek Abd Rahman had debunked this, saying that the assumption that headaches, depression, anxiety and fatigue are caused by exposure to low-level EMF (electromagnetic field) is inaccurate.

EMF is categorised as non-ionising radiation which is different from harmful ionising radiation. In actuality, the only effect is heat and it isnt enough to cause long-term damage to human tissues.

This example presents incorrect and out-of-context information as fact so in this case, this is an example of misinformation.

At the same time, misinformation can become disinformation when it is shared by individuals or groups who are aware that the info is inaccurate or false but intentionally spread it to cast doubt or cause division.

Disinformation can be classified into four types:

> Clickbait

> Hate speech

> Political interference

> Foreign interference

Research institute Asia Centre which also holds a special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council identified five types of political information that would feature in our GE15 in their latest 2022 report Youth and Disinformation in Malaysia: Strengthening Electoral Integrity.

Disinformation becomes more prominent during political seasons. For instance, Asia Centre found that the main initiators of disinformation are government agencies, political parties or campaign managers who use local content companies, private contractors and civil society organisations to downstream disinformation campaigns by producing text, graphics and videos which are pushed out by bots as well as by paid or volunteer cybertroopers and diehard supporters.

Truth matters

In an age when spreading fake news is common, its critical to rely on trustworthy and tenacious fact-checking services to vet information, which is where fact-checking websites like Sebenarnya.my come into play.

First introduced by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on March 14, 2017, the portal was designed as a one-stop centre for Malaysians to verify authenticity of news shared online.

The website is a proactive strategy to curb the spread of false news and ensure that netizens receive genuine content. You can also report any fake news on Sebenarnya.my so that the relevant authorities can take action.

There are a number of things every digital citizen should consider on suspicious information:

> Its too good to be true.

> It invokes extreme positive or negative emotions.

> Its not properly sourced or citations are out of date.

The best way to verify a source for yourself is to check the author, organisation, publish date and what the evidence says. Then crosscheck with other sources to see if there are any discrepancies.

Recognising fake news is part of being a responsible digital citizen. Slowing down to do a quick search to see if you can find other sources that might verify sensationalised news goes a long way. Remember, if youre not sure, dont share it.

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McCarthy-Biden Debt Limit Deal Clears First Hurdle in Key House … – The New York Sun

Posted: at 7:51 pm

The debt limit deal negotiated by President Biden and Speaker McCarthy has cleared its first hurdle as Congress prepares to vote on the measure before the June 5 default date.

The House Rules Committee advanced the legislation to the House floor in a vote late Tuesday evening. All four Democrats and two Republicans voted against the measure, with seven other Republicans voting in the affirmative.

The two GOP dissenters Congressmen Chip Roy and Ralph Norman have called the legislation not a good deal with no substantive policy reforms and insanity respectively.

Congressman Thomas Massie a libertarian who often votes against key spending priorities of Congressional leadership kept his cards close to his chest as the hearing kicked off, but eventually offered his blessing to the legislation.

Im reluctant to disclose how I might vote on this rule at this moment because then all the cameras leave, Mr. Massie said, which elicited a laugh from the crowd.

Mr. Massie did support advancing the bill to the House floor so that every member could express their opinions on the legislation, though he himself did not commit to voting for the bill on final passage.

If we want to control the overall amount of spending and if there are policies or things that we dont see happening that need to happen, or things that shouldnt be happening in the administrative branch, then that is our opportunity, to cut spending Mr. Massie said of budget negotiations that will happen later this year. I dont like the process that led to this bill, Im not going to lie.

Mr. Massies equivocation is a reminder that Mr. McCarthy will likely have to rely on Democrats on the House floor if he hopes to pass the bill. A center-left caucus in the House, the New Democrat Coalition, publicly endorsed the bill Monday, buoying hopes that Mr. McCarthy can count on a substantial number of Democrats.

Messrs. Biden and McCarthy have achieved a bipartisan agreement that will save our country from default until 2025 and protect our nation from economic collapse, the group said in a statement. There are 94 members of the New Democrat Coalition serving in the House.

So far, there are dozens of Republicans who have denounced the legislation. The conservative Freedom Caucus has said they are trying to have less than half of the House Republican conference vote for the final measure.

That a deal had been reached in principle was announced by Messrs. Biden and McCarthy late Saturday evening. The Fiscal Responsibility Act, as it is known, is 99 pages long and includes a number of modest changes to federal spending and regulations.

The two men agreed that the debt limit must be pushed high enough so that this level of brinksmanship does not occur in the shadow of the 2024 elections. The bill will raise the debt limit by more than $2 trillion pushing the next debt limit fight to January 2025 at the current pace of spending.

The only two spending areas to see year-over-year increases are the Pentagon and veterans services. All other discretionary spending from healthcare, education and research to green energy investments will be capped at a level that will result in hundreds of billions of dollars in savings over the next six years.

Mr. McCarthys team also won a victory by slashing the budget of the Internal Revenue Service. In total, more than $20 billion will be cut from the agency responsible for collecting taxes a 25 percent cut to its total budget.

Republicans took aim at the IRS early in this Congress, passing a bill that would rescind funding for the more than 80,000 new IRS agents who were hired as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act last year.

The Biden administration agrees with the conservative House members that the deal does not represent a significant change in federal spending. Its flat, one White House source told NBC News of the deal. Its a difference of about $1 billion. In a divided government, were not going to get the spending levels Democrats want.

Appeasing his right flank is a key priority for Mr. McCarthy. Congressman Eli Crane a Freedom Caucus member who believed the original Republican debt limit proposal did not go far enough told CNN that he has had conversations with some of his Freedom Caucus colleagues about calling for a vote of no confidence in the speaker, which could lead to another seemingly endless voting process to either retain Mr. McCarthy or choose a new leader.

It does come up from time to time, Mr. Crane said of the possibility of removing Mr. McCarthy. We look at all of the alternatives and contingency plans that could play out over the next two years.

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Can McCarthy Pass the Debt Deal and Keep His Job? – The New York Times

Posted: at 7:51 pm

Hard-right lawmakers who have for years resisted increasing the nations borrowing limit did not mince words about how they thought Speaker Kevin McCarthy fared during negotiations with President Biden over averting a federal default.

Nobody could have done a worse job, said Representative Dan Bishop of North Carolina, who said he was fed up with what he said were Mr. McCarthys lies about the deal he was going to get.

Representative Bob Good of Virginia openly marveled at how our own leadership caved to Democrats on major tenets of the debt limit bill that Republicans passed last month. Representative Chip Roy of Texas claimed the deal had torn the conference asunder and promised Republican leaders would face a reckoning.

But for all the fury about the deal by far the biggest test of Mr. McCarthys leadership since he became speaker in January few far-right Republicans have yet to seriously entertain the notion of ousting him over it.

A movement to depose Mr. McCarthy as speaker could still bubble up, particularly if he is forced to rely on Democrats to win a procedural vote to get the debt-limit deal to the floor or to lean more on Democratic votes than Republicans to pass the measure. So far, though, there has been little appetite for such a move among even the most conservative lawmakers in his conference.

Mr. McCarthy negotiated the compromise with that threat in mind, attempting to strike a careful balance: he could and likely would lose conservatives votes, but could not afford to reach a deal that so infuriated the far right that they would move to oust him. When asked on Tuesday by reporters if he was worried about whether the hard-right flank of his conference would try to remove him, Mr. McCarthy replied: No.

Under the rules House Republicans adopted at the beginning of the year that helped Mr. McCarthy become speaker, any single lawmaker could call for a snap vote to remove him from that role, something that would take a majority of the House.

One hard-right Republican so far Mr. Bishop has publicly said that he considered the debt and spending deal grounds for ousting Mr. McCarthy from his post.

Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, said on NBCs Meet the Press Now that he had discussed the issue with the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania. Lets get through this battle and decide if we want another battle, Mr. Buck said was the response.

And in what has become a hallmark of his leadership style, Mr. McCarthy has rallied the support of an influential conservative whose opposition to the deal could have doomed the bill: Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, an influential libertarian who sits on the powerful Rules Committee.

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Can McCarthy Pass the Debt Deal and Keep His Job? - The New York Times

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Sedition Not Ruled Out For Spreading Fake News, Misinformation On Manipur – NDTV

Posted: at 7:51 pm

Security forces have been working round the clock to bring normalcy in Manipur

The Manipur government has warned people against spreading fake news and misinformation on social media amid the sensitive law and order situation in the state. In an order today, the Manipur government said "generation or spreading of wrong information will amount to sedition."

The government said no one will be "immune to prosecution under the laws of the country" if found spreading or generating fake news, lies, rumours or misinformation.

The government's warning comes as Home Minister Amit Shah reached state capital Imphal tonight to review the situation and hold peace talks with all communities.

"A number of individuals in responsible positions having many followers on social media have been observed to be directly involved in generating and/or sharing information in connection with the ongoing law and order situation in Manipur... Many such information has been found to be fake news, lies, rumours or misinformation," Manipur Chief Secretary Vineet Joshi said in an order today, allowing the government to act against those who spread misinformation.

The government said misinformation and fake news can - even as the authorities try to bring peace and normalcy - worsen the situation by "misguiding public opinion, instigating violence and rebelling against the authority of the state with or without use of arms."

"... Such generation or spreading of wrong information will amount to sedition... and is sought to be curtailed," the government said in the order. "Every person, acting individually or on behalf of any group of people, based in Manipur or outside, shall verify any information before sharing or publishing..." the government said.

A Manipur MLA's home was vandalised by a mob yesterday after they got upset for not being allowed them to meet him as they wanted to submit a memorandum over the law and order problem. The group had been submitting memorandums to every MLA they could meet. The authorities have said fake information on social media gave the incident a religious angle. They said this was one example of the kind of misinformation that has been doing the rounds on social media on the Manipur crisis.

Manipur has been without internet for nearly a month. The ethnic violence between the Meiteis, who live in and around Imphal valley, and the Kuki tribe, who are settled in the hills, over the Meiteis' demand to be included under the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category has claimed over 80 lives since clashed started on May 3.

The authorities have identified several social media accounts from both the communities that have been spreading misinformation, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told NDTV, asking not to be identified.

"We are aware that many social media accounts based abroad and in India have been spreading fake news and misinformation on the Manipur crisis. Some of them are verified handles. We are not taking it lightly. If not now because of the law and order problem, action will happen sooner than anyone would expect. We are certain about that," the person told NDTV.

Chief Minister N Biren Singh told reporters yesterday they have got reports that "40 terrorists" have been shot dead.

The Chief Minister said the spurt in violent attacks on civilians on the outskirts of Imphal valley in the past two days seemed well-planned and is strongly condemnable, especially when Minister of State Nityanand Rai is in Manipur on a peace mission.

Over 25 Kuki insurgent groups have signed the tripartite "suspension of operations" (SoO) agreement with the centre and the state government. Under the SoO rules, the insurgents are to be confined in designated camps identified by the government and the weapons kept under locks, regularly monitored.

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Sedition Not Ruled Out For Spreading Fake News, Misinformation On Manipur - NDTV

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Will Brazil’s ‘Fake News Bill’ regulate disinformation or stifle free … – The World

Posted: at 7:51 pm

A couple of weeks ago, millions of Brazilians received a text from messaging application Telegram saying thatBrazil was about to pass a law that would "end freedom of expression."

The app also claimed thatthe bill would give the government "censorship powers without prior judicial oversight."

The legislation requires internet companies, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material themselves, or face heavy fines.

Brazils Congress is debating the proposed law, which if passed, would be one of the worlds harshest laws against fake news. The bill has already been approved by the Senate and its now awaiting a vote in the lower house. But the Fake News Bill, as its being called, is extremely controversial.

Congressional leaders attacked the Telegram message on the floor of the lower house.

"They are spreading lies saying that the Brazilian parliament wants to approve censorship. That [it wants] to end democracy. This is scandalous, saidOrlando Silva, the sponsor of Bill 2630. "Its a scandal that a multinational corporation wants to push the national Congress onto its knees.

Silva added that lawmakers had specifically invited Telegram many times to participate in the debate over the legislation, but the company had declined.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes then threatened to take Telegram offlinefor 72 hours if it didnt delete the message.

The platform finally complied. But it was a sign of just how heated the debate over this bill has become in recent weeks.

Analyst Alan Ghani, of theconservative news outlet Jovem Pan, has called the forced removal of the Telegram message: Censorship, pure and simple.

He added: Would we punish a newspaper editorial, when many outlets have come out against the fake news bill in their editorials? Its the same thing.

But the head of the government coalition in the Senate, Randolfe Rodrigues,told the media that the platforms are very different. He said there are government regulations for TV and news outlets, and that the same is needed for social media firms.

To the heads of the big tech companies and their shareholders anywhere in the world, Brazil will not be no-mans-land, he said. You will not be permitted to do what you want here without punishment.

David Nemer, a Brazilian media studies professor at the University of Virginia, has researched social media platforms for years.

"These platforms are not neutral, he said."These platforms are not just publishers. They are part of the message. And they curate the message."

Fake news has been a major issue for Brazil in recent years.

"[Fake news] has harmed public debate, saidLuciana Santana, a political scientist at the Federal University of Alagoas. "[Its] gotten in the way of serious discussions over public policies, and influenced political races in Brazil.

Experts say it played a decisive role in the 2018 election of former President Jair Bolsonaro. During the pandemic, he told Brazilians that getting COVID-19 vaccines could turn them into crocodiles.

But, this bill isn't just about fake news.

"Its more about bringing transparency, from the big techs in terms of access to the algorithm, access to reports about the algorithm, understanding how these platforms behave, so we have a more transparent way of understanding the role of these platforms in everyday life, Nemer said.

Brazilian journalism professorRogerio Christofoletti said this bill is also about holding social media firms accountable when dangerous, hateful or misleading content is shared on their platforms.

"These digital platforms have the means to reduce the reach, to adjust their algorithms, to not promote specific content, Christofoletti said. "The platforms can do more than they have. And a law like this can force these platforms to use their technical power to combat disinformation.

Nemer added that these companies are pushing back for a reason.

This is why the big techs are playing hardball in Brazil, Nemer said. Because they know that if Brazil passes this bill, then it sets the precedent and the other countries will follow as well. So, they're trying to close the gate as much as they can so other countries will not follow suit and pass their own internet laws.

Nemer is concerned that the bill may not find the votes it needs to pass, in part, because many politicians elected to Congress ran campaigns based on disinformation, and actually benefited from an unregulated social media.

And although the bill has already been approved by the Senate, the vote in the lower house has been postponed several times in recent weeks, as the governing coalition pushes to shore up more votes.

Related:The future of Bolsonaro in Brazil remains uncertain

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Journalists at the front lines battling fake news – The Star Online

Posted: at 7:51 pm

KUALA LUMPUR: Journalists play a superhero-like role in combating the spread of fake news in cyberspace, which is becoming more rampant with the advancement of technology, says Deputy Communications and Digital Minister Teo Nie Ching.

She said the importance of journalists as a source of reliable information will remain unchanged despite shifts in information delivery following the digital revolution, which includes artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Journalists are on the front lines of disseminating accurate information, she said when flagging off the National Journalists Day (Hawana) 2023 Media Hunt participants at Wisma Bernama here yesterday.

According to Teo, 49 cases of fake news recorded by the Communications and Digital Ministry between January and April this year were investigated.

Bernama reported that she expressed her gratitude to journalists for their contributions to ensuring the continued progress of Malaysia Madani development plans, including through their constructive criticism, so that the government can provide the best service to the people.

On the Hawana 2023 celebration, Teo expressed her appreciation to the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama), as the implementing agency, for working hard to ensure the events success with the support of local and international media organisations and sponsors.

Earlier, Teo flagged off 30 vehicles carrying 120 participants from media agencies, who will be taken to heritage sites in Perak.

The three-day Hawana 2023 celebration, with the theme Media Bebas, Tunjang Demokrasi (Free Media, Pillar of Democracy), which aims to re-emphasise the issue of media freedom for journalists, began yesterday.

Anwar is scheduled to grace the highlight of the celebration today.

The date May 29 was gazetted as National Journalists Day in conjunction with the publication of the first edition of the Malay newspaper, Utusan Melayu, on May 29, 1939.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is expected to make several important announcements regarding the direction of the countrys media industry in Ipoh today.

Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil said the government has been discussing the direction of the media industry, which is currently facing pressures including in terms of business and the impact of technology that are driving changes.

Economic pressure and this development have affected the sustainability of the media industry, and the welfare of media practitioners, and all these aspects are being given attention by the government, he said.

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‘Fake news’ — Dele Alake debunks reports of appointment as … – TheCable

Posted: at 7:51 pm

Dele Alake, a former Lagos commissioner of information and strategy, says he has not been appointed as the spokesperson of President Bola Tinubu.

Hours after the inauguration on Monday, Femi Fani-Kayode, former minister of aviation, announced on his Twitter handle that Alake has been appointed as the presidents spokesperson.

But speaking on the issue with TheCable, the former director of strategic communication of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign, said the news of his appointment was fake.

It was fake news. Im always surprised when news people failed to recognise fake unsigned stories, Alake said.

Alake was the commissioner for information and strategy in Lagos between 1999 and 2007 when Tinubu was the governor of the state.

In 2014, he was appointed as the director of media and communication of the Buhari campaign organisation his return to national politics after a brief hiatus from public roles.

As a journalist, Alake worked with Concord Press publishers as a writer and editor. After a year, he became a columnist in the National Concord and served in that capacity until 1989.

He was appointed editor of Sunday Concord in the same year and held the position till 1995 before becoming the editor of the National Concord.

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