Category Archives: Fake News

On 27 May 2021, the Chief of the Tkemlps te Secwepemc a First Nations government in British Columbia announced that ground penetrating radar (GPR) had located the remains of 215 missing children. These were allegedly undocumented deaths from the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which had closed 52 years ago.

The young anthropologist who conducted the GPR search later added a note of caution: only a forensic investigation could confirm that these were indeed burials. But a moral panic had already beenunleashed. Politicians and the media immediately seized on the first announcement, and burials of missing children was the storyline that ricocheted around Canada and much of the world. Meanwhile, several other First Nations that had at one time hosted residential schools hired their own anthropologists armed with GPR and announced similar discoveries. Weeks later, almost exactly a year ago, in June 2021, the Cowessess First Nation announced the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of another former residential school in Saskatchewan.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set the tone of the public response on 30 May by ordering Canadian flags to be flown at half-mast on all federal building to honour the 215 children whose lives were taken at the Kamloops residential school, thus elevating the possible burials to the status of murder victims and making Canada sound like a charnel house of murdered children. Unprecedented in Canadian history, flags remained at half-mast until Remembrance Day, 11 November, and were returned to normal height only after the Assembly of First Nations gave its OK.

In spite of this ostentatious virtue-signalling, Trudeau got into trouble when he skipped an event in Kamloops on 30 September to commemorate the missing children. Apparently, our surfer dude prime minister preferred to ride the waves at Tofino on the Pacific coast rather than attend a commemorative ceremony. To make up for his faux pas, he had to go to Kamloops on 18 October for another memorial ceremony, at which he was harangued for several hours.

But not all the events in the wake of the Kamloops announcement were so amusing. Sixty-eight Christian churches, mostly Roman Catholic, were vandalised or even burned to the ground. Many of these were historical church buildings still used and revered by native people. The pretext for arson and vandalism was that the Kamloops Indian Residential School had been run by a Catholic religious order, as had 43% of all residential schools. Imagine the outrage if 68 synagogues or mosques had been vandalised and burned. Yet the attacks on 68 Catholic churches passed with only mild criticism.

An article in the New York Times was typical of media commentary about the unmarked graves. It was first published under the headline Horrible History: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada on 28 May and updated on 5 October under the same title. It asserted that: For decades, most Indigenous children in Canadawere taken from their families and forced into boarding schools. A large number never returned home, their families given only vague explanations, or none at all.

Because the corporate press take their cue from the New York Times, its perspective echoed widely. The discovery of the so-called unmarked graves was chosen by Canadian newspaper editors as the news story of the year. And the World Press Photo of the Year award went to a haunting image of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside, with a rainbow in the background, commemorating children who died at a residential school created to assimilate Indigenous children in Canada.

But the award this news report should have won is for fake news of the year. All the major elements of the story are either false or highly exaggerated.

First, no unmarked graves have been discovered at Kamloops or elsewhere. GPR has located hundreds of soil disturbances, but none of these has been excavated, so it is not known whether they are burial sites, let alone childrens graves. At her original press conference, the Chief of the Kamloops Indian Band called these findings unmarked graves, and the media, politicians, and even Pope Francis ran with the story without waiting for proof.

Similar claims from the chiefs of other Indian reserves ran into grave difficulty (no pun intended) because the GPR research was conducted in whole or in part on community cemeteries located near the sites of residential schools. It would hardly be surprising to find burial sites in a cemetery! But again, since no excavations have been conducted, it is not known whether these unmarked graves contain the bodies of children.

North American Indians did not conduct burials; they usually exposed the bodies of the dead to be worn away by predators and the elements. Christian missionaries introduced the practice of burial. But Indian graves were usually marked by simple wooden crosses that could not long withstand the rigours of Canadian weather. Thus Indian reserves today contain probably tens of thousands of forgotten unmarked graves of both adults and children. To discover these with ground-penetrating radar proves nothing without excavation.

Second, there are no missing children. This concept was invented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), whose members spoke at various times of 2,800 or 4,200 Indian children who were sent to residential schools but never returned to their parents. Indeed, some children died at residential schools of diseases such as tuberculosis, just as they did in their home communities. But the legend of missing students arose from a failure of TRC researchers to cross-reference the vast number of historical documents about residential schools and the children who attended them.

In the fake news stories, the unmarked graves are presumed to be populated by the missing children, who died at residential school. Lurid tales of torture and murder, of babies thrown into the furnace and hanging from meat hooks, make the stories more colourful. However, the notion of missing children cannot stand up to critical scrutiny. Indian parents, like other parents, loved their children and certainly would have noticed if they went away to school and never came back. But no inquiries about missing Indian children were ever filed with the police. Moreover, children were carefully tracked in the residential school system. Similar to boarding schools all over the world, each child received a number upon admission for keeping track of clothing and other possessions.

The federal Department of Indian Affairs also recorded students because it paid a per capita subsidy to the schools. It reviewed admission records meticulously because it didnt want to pay for the white and Mtis students who sometimes got into the residential schools, even though they were supposed to be only for Indians. On the other side, the residential schools were equally motivated to keep track of students because their income depended on the per capita subsidies. If students disappeared, their subsidy would have decreased.

Third, stories about Indian residential schools are almost always accompanied by the frightening claim that 150,000 students were forced to attend these schools, but the claim is misleading at best. Scholars generally agree that more students attended day schools on Indian reserves than went away to residential schools. Moreover, a large number didnt go to any school at all. It wasnt until 1920 that school attendance was made compulsory for Indian children, and enforcement was often lax. It was estimated in 1944 that upwards of 40% of Indian children were not in any kind of school.

For students who did attend residential school, there had to be an application form signed by a parent or other guardian. Many of these forms still exist and can be seen in online government archives. The simple truth is that, despite allegations of physical and sexual abuse, many Indian parents saw the residential schools as the best option available for their children. Cree artist Kent Monkmans famous painting The Scream, showing missionaries and mounted policemen snatching infants from the arms of their Indian mothers, is a fever dream of the imagination. It is not even close to an accurate depiction of historical reality, not even if taken metaphorically.

*

How could the fake news story of unmarked graves, with its attendant legends of missing children ripped from the arms of their mothers, have gained such wide currency among political and media elites? The short answer is that it fits perfectly into the progressive narrative of white supremacy, of the white majority in Canada oppressing racial minorities. But there is also a specific etiology of the unmarked grave story.

Prior to 1990, residential schools enjoyed largely favourable coverage in the media, with many positive testimonials from students who had attended them. Indeed, alumni of the residential schools made up most of the emerging First Nations elite. Then Manitoba regional chief Phil Fontaine spoke on a popular Canadian Broadcasting Company radio show about how he had suffered sexual abuse at a residential school. After that things went south quickly. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples wrote critically about the schools; two historians wrote influential books; and lawyers launched multiple class actions on behalf of residential school survivors, claiming damages for physical and sexual abuse, as well as loss of language and culture at the schools.

Rather than contest these lawsuits in court, the Liberal government of Paul Martin negotiated a settlement in 2005, which was accepted shortly afterwards by the newly elected Conservative government of Stephen Harper. Ultimately about $5 billion in compensation was paid to about 80,000 claimants, and Prime Minister Harper gave a public apology for the existence of residential schools in 2008.

Harper might have thought that the compensation payments and his apology would be the end of the story, but it was only the beginning. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he appointed took off in its own direction after the initial set of commissioners resigned and had to be replaced on fairly short notice. The TRC held emotional public hearings around the country at which survivors were invited to tell their stories without fact-checking or cross-examination. Most had already made claims for financial compensation in which the amount paid was proportional to the degree of sexual and physical abuse suffered, again without fact-checking or cross-examination. The TRC concluded that the residential schools amounted to cultural genocide.

While this was going on, lawyers were bringing more class actions for other forms of Indian education, such as day schools on reserves, or boarding in town to attend public schools. Harpers government offered some resistance in court, but the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, elected in 2015, preferred to settle out of court. Billions of dollars more are being paid out as a result.

Against this background, the claims of unmarked graves are a new money-maker. In August 2021, the federal government announced $321 million in special grants to First Nations for research about unmarked graves, and Canadas 2022 budget pledged $275 million for addressing the shameful legacy of residential schools. Meanwhile indigenous leaders are pursuing claims for financial compensation from the Catholic Church.

Fake news does not arise and thrive in a political vacuum. While progressive ideology makes academia and the Liberal government a receptive audience, the indigenous industry has an obvious financial stake in driving the story. As long as the dollars flow, expect more stories about unmarked graves, yet no excavations to test the truth of the stories.

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The truth about Canada's Indian graves - UnHerd

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Charles Nii Armah Mensah, popularly known as Shatta Wale, has been slapped with a GHc 2000 fine after he retracted his initial 'not guilty' plea regarding his death hoax in 2021.

This judgment was made by a Circuit Court judge, Emmanuel Essandoh, on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, after the defendant, Shatta Wale, pleaded guilty to spreading fake news that he had been attacked by armed assailants in October 2021.

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Shatta initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in an earlier court session but changed the plea during Wednesday's sitting.

Should the dancehall king fail to pay the GHc 2000 fine, he would serve a three-month jail term.

On Monday, October 18, 2021, Shatta Wale's personal assistant confirm rumours that the 'Gringo' hitmaker had been shot several times by armed attackers and left in critical condition at an undisclosed health centre.

A thorough investigation by the Ghana police revealed that the entire reportage was a hoax by Shatta with the aim of drawing people's attention to a prophecy by Jesus Ahuofe that Shatta would be shot dead on the said date.

Shatta argued that the cybercrime department of the police service acted nonchalant towards the prophecy by the founder of New Life Kingdom Chapel International, thus the hoax to draw their attention to it.

Still on Shatta Wale, YEN.com.gh reported earlier that Nigerian singer Naira Marley had let slip that he and Shatta Wale worked on the 'Papi' song for the yet-to-be-released Gift of God (G.O.G) album two years ago.

Naira Marley said he and Wale got talking on Instagram and he received the song from Wale, listened to it, liked it and decided to hop on to it. He added that he had no idea why Shatta refused to release the song and suggested that the dancehall musician might have wanted to release it as a single but decided against that to add it to the G.O.G track list.

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Shatta Wale Admits To Spreading Falsehood, Charged With GHc 2,000 Fine - YEN.COM.GH - Yen.com.gh

Hoaxes about US politics were among the top-performing fake news content on Facebook in 2016, according to an analysis by BuzzFeed News.

Twenty-three of the 50 top-performing fake news hoaxes we found on Facebook were focused on US politics. Overall, fake news about US politics accounted for 10.6 million of the 21.5 million total shares, reactions, and comments these English-language stories generated on Facebook this year, according to the analysis.

The top-performing fake news story identified in the analysis is a hoax from October that claimed President Obama had banned reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. It was published by ABCNews.com.co, a fake site made to look like ABC News that scored six hits in the top 50. The Obama hoax generated more than 2.1 million shares, comments, and reactions on Facebook in just two months. (A counter on the article page suggests the story has been viewed more than 110,000 times.)

BuzzFeed News used BuzzSumo to identify the top-performing Facebook content from 96 fake news websites, including the network of more than 40 sites exposed in a recent investigation. This list of English-language fake sites has been built up over the past two years of covering this topic, and was compared to this chart from the creators of Hoaxy to compile a more comprehensive list of pure fake news sites. Click here to view the top 50 hoaxes, and to see the list of fake news sites.

In order to examine the performance of pure fake news on Facebook in 2016, this analysis focused exclusively on stories that were 100% false and that originated on fake news websites it did not include misreported news or partisan misrepresentations of real events.

Along with the Obama pledge ban hoax, other fake news about US politics that hit big on Facebook this year included Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement," "Trump Offering Free One-Way Tickets to Africa & Mexico for Those Who Wanna Leave America," ISIS Leader Calls for American Muslim Voters to Support Hillary Clinton," and "FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide."

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Here Are 50 Of The Biggest Fake News Hits On Facebook From 2016

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump sent a mob of his supporters to the U.S. Capitol and then sat there cheering them on in private while they ransacked the place. It wasnt a mystery what was going on even in the moment. These people were telling us exactly why they were attacking the Capitol, on multiple social media platforms, as they were doing it: they were trying to invalidate the results of a democratic election through violence so that Trump could remain president.

Although a lot more detail would come out following the riot, by January 7, anyone who hadnt spent the past four years learning to ignore what their eyes and ears were telling them in favor of whatever spewed out of Trumps mouth knew the essential elements of the situation. As for everyone else, well, if watching the Capitol insurrection itself didnt snap them back into reality, it is difficult to imagine what could.

Which is why I didnt have high hopes for the investigatory committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and the public hearings about January 6 that we are now in the midst of. A great many things have happened since 2016 which I would think would have been more effective at dislodging a reflexive defense of Trump as a personality trait.

Im starting to come around though. It doesnt hurt that the hearings are being conducted skillfully.

Maybe the January 6 hearings dont really have to change any minds or even tantalizingly dangle the prospect of further criminal proceedings to have an important impact. Perhaps these hearings will give everyone else social permission to shame Trump-loving holdouts into silence.

Trump has turned ambiguity into an art form. He vomits a bunch of vague insinuations from which we can all gather what he really means but which also leave him enough room to backpedal and claim bias and misinterpretation as needed.

The January 6 committee hearings, however, are discrediting Trump using sworn testimony of those closest to him. The first hearing revealed videotaped deposition testimony of Ivanka Trump, his own daughter, who was with him in the White House on January 6. Ivanka testified that she accepted the fact that her father lost and that there had been no fraud which could have overturned the election of Joe Biden. Trump responded to his daughters sworn testimony a day after it was released (on his sad Twitter knockoff Truth Social) in his roundabout strategically ambiguous way, by more or less calling her an ignorant liar.

We were also treated to taped testimony from Trumps pet attorney general, Bill Barr. Bar testified that he told Trump that the latters claim of massive election fraud was complete nonsense. Under oath, Barr said he told the president that his false claims about the 2020 election being stolen were bullshit. Following the release of this testimony, Trump lashed out at Barr (who, remember, he appointed) by calling him weak and frightened and by doubling down on those false claims of election fraud that have now been smacked down by dozens of courts across the country.

Trump apparently said to a number of his staff who were with him on January 6 that his supporters who were chanting Hang Mike Pence had the right idea, and that Pence deserved it for failing to support Trumps bogus election lies. Trump now says this is FAKE NEWS.

Trump has gotten a ton of mileage out of the fake news phrase since he appropriated it to refer to anything unfavorable. But videotaped testimony offered under penalty of perjury from your own family members, supporters, and appointees is not even news. Thats primary source material.

There is no spin on just rolling the tape. Anyone who brushes off what is being said under oath by Trumps own inner circle as fake news is an idiot.

These hearings might not change any minds. The January 6 hearings will still be a win though if they can get people who continue to believe Trumps bullshit to feel a little shame about openly admitting it. Even if these people dont have the capacity to understand that Trump is lying, everyone else sure does.

Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author ofYour Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldnt want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached atjon_wolf@hotmail.com.

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Testimony Of Trump's Own Appointees, Family Members, Is 'Fake News' Only To Very Stupid People - Above the Law

'Fake news': Twitter trolls economist Steve Hanke after he says BJP office in Bihar torched in protest of rising poverty | Video Screengrab

Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University, recently took to Twitter and tweeted a video of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in Bihar's Madhepura. The double-storey office was set on fire during the protests against the Agnipath military recruitment scheme. However, the economist claimed the office was set ablaze in protest of "rising poverty and an inability to buy food in PM Modi's reign".

Taking to Twitter, Hanke wrote, "Demonstrators in Bihar, India have torched the BJPs office in protest of rising poverty and an inability to buy food under PM Modis reign."

Meanwhile, Twitter users trolled the economist over the fake claim.

"Hullo 'Economist' Ji @JohnsHopkins, Food is free for nearly three quarters of India's citizenry by way of free ration provided by PM @narendramodi. Poverty has declined 12.3 % points in Modi era (per World Bank). India is fastest growing economy. PS: Sri Lanka is not in Bihar (sic)," a Twitter user wrote.

"Probably this fake news economist doesnt know that Modi govt has been giving FREE RATION every month to 80 million people in India since Covid times (sic)," wrote another Twitter user.

Check out a few tweets below:

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Fake news: Twitter trolls economist Steve Hanke after he says BJP office in Bihar torched in protest of - Free Press Journal

Teel off the mark on Brunswick student protest criticism

On June 8, The Times Record ran a story about the Brunswick Junior High School student walk-out protesting in-school gun violence against children (Uvalde school massacre prompts Brunswick Junior High gun violence protest). A Republican candidate for the Maine Senate, Brogan Teel, claimed the event was political and organized by a partisan progressive group, and not a good look for Brunswick. Can we talk?

If the walk-out was political, it was legitimately so. It was a protest to encourage legislative change regarding guns, a peaceable assembly protected under the First Amendment. The school administration did not sponsor or organize the walk-out; students were the driving force. The administrators attended to assure student safety.

If Im an eighth-grader and I hear/read about Uvalde (or Columbine or Sandy Hook or Parkland or), where students are gunned down in schools, I cant help but be partisan an adherent to the cause of preventing further such events. To be otherwise would ignore the undeniable reality in this country.

In the current political environment, the term progressive has lost its meaning. For some Republicans, any politician to the left of Attila the Hun qualifies. That students, an at-risk population, desire a change in current gun laws (which facilitate mass shootings) seems pretty middle-of-the-road to me.

If the Republican Teel supports the currrent interpretation of the (ambiguous) 2nd Amendment, she supports the status quo which enables these atrocities. I dont think she belongs in the Maine Senate. And if she is enraged by peaceable protest organized by eighth-graders, she needs to read the Constitution with all of its Amendments.

Steven ZimmermanTopsham

Action needed to curb gun deaths in America

I was appalled to read of Mr. Teels remarks that demonstrating for an end to gun violence is a partisan issue (Uvalde school massacre prompts Brunswick Junior High gun violence protest). Since when is wanting to be safe, to live without fear, partisan? I applaud these students for speaking up, as we adults have basically done nothing to curb the epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings we have in this country. Gun violence is the No. 1 cause of death for American children and teens with more than 4,300 killed with guns every year. A total of 40,620 people are killed by gun violence in an average year a shocking average of 110 people every day. Americans are 26 times more likely to be killed by guns than those from other high-income countries.

We need thoughts and prayers but we also need action. Lets try some actions and see how they help. Lets ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, increase the age to buy a gun, enhance background checks, and institute red flag laws on the federal level. We should also ask the CDC to research gun violence and its causes and possible solutions, and fully fund that effort. Doing nothing in the face of all this violence is immoral. Putting limits on gun ownership does not mean everyones gun will be taken away far from it. But some use this idea to reject any laws on gun ownership and offer no solutions to the problem.

We also need to address what is behind this epidemic. There are many causes that need to be looked at so we can figure out how to help. Many of the mass shootings are linked to young men radicalized by the white power/white supremacy movement. Listening to some of the spokesmen for these groups makes me feel sick and frightened, especially for any person of color and our children, as well as anyone who might cross them. For some of our politicians to say the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol was just legitimate political discourse and should be forgotten is encouraging this violence. We need to act to save lives! Together!

Nancy Marstaller, Harpswell

Agreed: Conservative voices needed

I enthusiastically applaud Tricia Smiths recent letter to the editor, Times Record needs more conservative voices (June 7).

Yes, more conservative voices, but also more just middle of the road types of opinions, neither liberal nor conservative.

I love the local coverage, and thats why I buy the paper. During the Trump administration, we saw four years of anti-Trump political cartoons, day after day after day.

Take a look around at what else is going on in the world besides what left-leaning liberals are saying.

Paula McKenney,Woolwich

An important article on fake news

Thursdays edition featured an outstanding article in the BoomerTech Adventures column regarding the need for diligence with regard to news and facts (Due diligence and dealing with online fake news and bias, June 7). It listed a variety of sites that can be utilized for checking facts as well as our wonderful local library resources for spotting fake news. Given the amount of fake news perpetrated by friends who are trying to either enlighten or alarm me, it is wonderful to have resources to double-check info. This is one article that should not be buried on the bottom of the last page of the last section of the newspaper. It is a well-written and informative article on resources for people to use to do fact-checking, especially in light of the frequent perpetuation of incorrect fake news.

Darlene Breton,Brunswick

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Letters: Readers sound off on gun violence, conservative voices, fake news article - Press Herald

Maharashtra Cyber Cell Department on Saturday informed that it has registered 600 cases of fake news, rumours or hate speeches in the state in the past one year. Maharashtra Cyber Cell ADG Madhukar Pandey on Saturday told ANI that the state has a 'robust social media monitoring system' to keep an eye on sensitive posts instigating communal tension or Covid-related misinformation.

"We have a robust social media monitoring system where we keep a watch on hate speech, posts disturbing communal harmony, spreading rumours, COVID-related misinformation, etc. In last one year, 600 cases registered regarding fake news, rumours and hate speech over social media in Maharashtra in various units based upon these inputs," he said. According to official data provided by Maharashtra Cyber, in these offences registered, 384 accused have been arrested till now. Out of the total arrested accused, preventive action as per the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) is carried out on 145 accused.

Also, so far 138 posts are removed by issuing take-down notices to the social media platforms wherever they are not removed by the posting individual himself. The most common platforms where these types of messages are found or reported to be offensive are WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.

The Cyber department issued a warning to the author of the post and asks the author to take down the relevant post. According to a Cyber Department official, all offensive posts are not of the same gravity.

"So graded action is taken by the cyber department. In most of the cases author of the posts are gone notice to take down their post on their own but in some cases, posts are so offensive and disturbing that directly an FIR is registered. If the posts are not deleted by the author, Department contacts social media companies to take down the offensive posts," the official said. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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600 cases of fake news, rumours, hate speeches registered in one year in Maharashtra - Devdiscourse

The water collection point in Buffelsfontein Road.

The social media post made by a DA councillor that the taps at the brand new water collection point in Buffelsfontein Road have been stolen, has been dubbed as fake news by the JOC.

DA councillor, Vernon Boggenpoel, posted a picture of the collection point without any taps on Facebook yesterday, June 16, with the caption: "The brass taps at Buffelsfontein and Airport water collection points have already been stolen...who would have thought."

Joint Operations Centre spokesperson, Luvuyo Bangazi, released a media statement following the post and said that it is "disappointing and regrettable that an elected representative of Council is free to share unconfirmed and unsubstantiated fake news about stolen water taps from water collections points currently under construction."

He added that the taps have not been stolen but that the contractors are still working on the site.

Boggenpoel had in the meantime deleted his post and replaced it with the following: "The taps have not been stolen. They are plastic. Incorrect information received. My apologies." Boggenpoel later said that he had received the information from a reputable source but that it was indeed untrue. "I apologise for the mistake. I know now to double check when receiving information that might cause harm or intend to bring negativity in our community," he said.

However, Bangazi said that although the post has since been corrected, the message continues to circulate on community groups across the Bay and beyond. "This act, which sets back the communication efforts of the JOC, done by a member of council, could have been avoided had the councilor sought confirmation from the JOC or the Department of Water and Sanitation. We urge members of the public to be vigilant towards misinformation and fake news during this crunch time. All efforts, by all stakeholders, should be aimed at informing and empowering citizens."

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred

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Taps stolen at brand new water collection point dubbed as 'fake news' - News24

Want to see a picture of Jesus Christ laughing at a meme on his phone, Donald Trump as the Nevermind baby, or Karl Marx being slimed at the Nikelodeon Kids Choice awards?

If youve been on Twitter or Instagram in the past couple of weeks, its been hard to miss odd-looking formulations of these kinds of scenarios in the form of AI art.

DALL-E (and DALL-E mini), the creator of these artworks, is a neural network that can take a text phrase and transform it an image. It was trained by looking at millions of images on the internet along with accompanying text and it learned to create pictures of things youd never expect to be combined, such as an avocado armchair.

Text to image technology is proceeding at a rapid pace, and the full DALL-E model is able to produce scarily clear images based on the input you provide, while the mini version is still clunky enough to capture the weird internet style that makes them instantly meme-able. The best examples of that can be found on the r/weirddalle subreddit.

But experts say the technology poses ethical challenges.

Prof Toby Walsh, AI researcher and author of a book on the morality of AI, says the kind of technology that powers DALL-E makes it easier to create fake images.

We are seeing deep fakes being used all the time, and the technology is going to allow still images, but ultimately also video images, to be synthesised [more easily] by bad actors, he says.

DALL-E has content policy rules in place that prohibit bullying, harassment, the creation of sexual or political content, or creating images of people without their consent. And while Open AI has limited the number of people who can sign up to DALL-E, its lower-grade replica, DALL-E mini, is open access, meaning people can produce anything they want.

Its going to be very hard to ensure that people dont use them to make images that people find offensive, Walsh says.

Dr Oliver Bown , a researcher in computational creativity at the University of New South Wales, says the nature of the neural networks in the AI makes it difficult to prevent DALL-E from creating offensive imagery, but it is possible to prevent the person requesting the image from accessing and sharing it.

You can obviously just have a filter at the end that that sort of tries to filter out things that are bad.

Walsh says in addition to regulatory framework and company policies around the use of the technology, the public also needs to be educated to be more discerning about what they are seeing online.

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If I got [an image] off the BBC website, the Guardian website, I hope theyve done their homework and I could be a bit more trusting than if I got it off Twitter. [In that case] I ask all the questions as to [whether this is] a bit of fake content or not.

The other major ethical issue Walsh sees coming is the potential for text-to-image AI to replace jobs in graphic design.

You can imagine that more of us are going to be able to do graphic design because we could say paint me a picture with the specification when we want, and well get that picture. Whereas previously, there was a graphic designer who produced that picture, he says.

Graphic design isnt going to go away, it will lead to even more graphic design because all of us can access these tools, but graphic designers might have less work themselves.

But Bown says this new technology will also allow for prompt creativity, meaning the thought that goes into the image request will lead to more creativity.

This new challenge is on for creative people to think about what they want to put into a system like this, he says.

The clunky look of DALL-E mini image generations is also becoming an internet art form of its own, Bown says.

I can imagine that this would just be huge for something like Instagram or just direct messaging with your mates when youre trying to send memes.

Therell be all kinds of crazy subcultures of image generation. So if it produces these kind of hazy, slightly mangled images with peoples arms in the wrong places, thats OK, we just get used to that aesthetic.

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From Trump Nevermind babies to deep fakes: DALL-E and the ethics of AI art - The Guardian

security agencies need to re-strategise their efforts by partnering with NITDA and indigenous innovators to develop technological solutions to aid intelligence gathering and detection of fake news sources. The scourge of fake news and its attendant consequences should be tackled head-on to ensure the peaceful co-existence of all.

The rise of social media has offered numerous advantages, including the ability to make money, networking, and developing professionalism by breaking barriers, creating content, business growth, and other opportunities.

For these reasons, people around the globe have leveraged social media platforms as the most pervasive technological development in the world. Given the ease of citizen engagement, social media platforms have offered increased access to citizen participation.

Unfortunately, social media is also used for the spread of fake news and hate speech.

Fake news refers to the deliberate propagation of false information with the intent of causing harm to a persons reputation, manipulating peoples perception of real facts, inciting the populace against the government, and most disturbingly, causing mayhem in society.

There are numerous instances in which some netizens (users of the internet) have used social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to cultivate disreputable means of gaining clout by fabricating stories without verifiable sources or facts. Sometimes these stories are propaganda by users with ill intentions or satirists mischievously creating disruptions to mislead the reader and serve selfish reasons that could be detrimental to society.

The first social media uproar that generated a massive wave of fake news was the #EndSARS protest in October 2020. This witnessed a mass movement of Nigerian youths online and street protests generating about 28 million tweets within a week. The protest erupted following weeks of outrage and anger with videos and pictures showing police brutality, harassment, and extortion in Nigeria.

It started as a peaceful protest but turned violent due to fake news that threw the nation into a state of anarchy.

Although evidence of abuse by SARS personnel surfaced, a variety of misleading information was also spread via social media platforms and other means by some sections of the masses that were angry and obsessed with provoking crisis using such incidents as a trigger.

The voluminous rumours spread in the heat of the #EndSARS protest prompted award-winning journalist and media strategist, Mohammed Dahiru Lawal, to compile the book titled 101 Fake News on EndSARSto inform the public on how social media fake news can turn peaceful protests into a national crisis.

The arrest of protesters in Abuja was debunked by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Commissioner of Police Bala Chiroma, also the rumour of a Katsina woman protesting against SARS, and most disturbing the alleged killing of a young man in Ughelli by SARS, which triggered the EndSARS protests across the nation, were all discovered to be fake news by persons and groups that manipulated images for ulterior motives.

For instance, the death of Oke Obi-Enadhuze, said to be killed by a policeman was debunked by his brother who clarified that he (the victim) was attacked by thugs. The arrest of protesters in Abuja was debunked by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Commissioner of Police Bala Chiroma, also the rumour of a Katsina woman protesting against SARS, and most disturbing the alleged killing of a young man in Ughelli by SARS, which triggered the EndSARS protests across the nation, were all discovered to be fake news by persons and groups that manipulated images for ulterior motives.

The recent condemnable jungle justice meted on Deborah Samuel, the 200-level student of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto over a blasphemous statement made via her WhatsApp group chat was another violent incident that engulfed the social media.

While blasphemous statements are disrespectful, offensive, inciteful, provocative, and frowned upon in every religion, it is also prudent to seek the advice of legal counsel in protesting this, instead of resorting to jungle justice.

However, the increasing incidence of fake news has triggered many reactions and could have triggered another wave of antagonism and mayhem throughout the nation.

Still grappling with calming angry youths in the heart of Sokoto, it became a challenge for some media outlets like PRNigeria to ensure that fake news does not have a say in propagating more religious violence that could affect law and order in state affairs.

According to a PRNigeria report on fake news, one of the false reports was shared by the Catholic Broadcast Commission Nigeria on its Facebook page, which has over 90,000 followers. The CBCN posted a story that the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukahs house was set ablaze by rioters.

The post read: Carnage in Sokoto today: Aftermath of violent protest in Sokoto today. Holy Family Catholic Cathedral, Bishop Kukahs house, and Catholic Pastoral Centre which were built with over N1 billion have been burnt down by hoodlums who are protesting the arrest of those who murdered Miss Deborah Yakubu.

However, Bishop Kukah debunked the claim, stating that no life was lost in the said riot. According to him, Contrary to information in circulation, we wish to disclaim that there was no attack of any sort on the residence of Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah.

Although detecting fake news remains a challenge, considering the time factor, labour, logistics, and technological resources, it is necessary to curtail its spread before it causes more carnage to lives and national development.

Meanwhile, there was another case of a trending video that claimed that Northerners were attacking Southerners living in those parts of the country.

But PRNigerias analysis of the comments and reactions under the post indicated that the claim was not accurate. Some responses to the tweet claimed that it was an old video of a suspected child trafficker who was arrested for abducting a child.

Beyond the fake news, the medium further noted that the attendant reactions are contributing to the hate speech that is further enraging already frayed nerves. Those expressing contrary views are being disparaged, threatened, or attacked.

Fake news peddlers creating parody accounts on social media during periods of crises is another warning to Nigerians. These social media accounts are often generated by ill-minded people who are impersonating high-profile personalities to take advantage of the situation to direct traffic to their blogs and incite crises for selfish motives.

Although detecting fake news remains a challenge, considering the time factor, labour, logistics, and technological resources, it is necessary to curtail its spread before it causes more carnage to lives and national development.

Thus, the exceptional works by other media platforms to curb the spread of fake news through fact-checking are commendable and should be sustained to foster peace and unity in the country.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) through its subsidiary the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, can help to develop more simplified and user-friendly fact-checking tools to enable people to detect or verify information broadcast over social media and traditional media. Also, it can utilise artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to identify and block fake or parody accounts on social media.

In addition, security agencies need to re-strategise their efforts by partnering with NITDA and indigenous innovators to develop technological solutions to aid intelligence gathering and detection of fake news sources. The scourge of fake news and its attendant consequences should be tackled head-on to ensure the peaceful co-existence of all.

Zeenat o. Sambo writes from Abuja; Zeenatsambo@yahoo.com.

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Curbing fake news and the excesses of social media, By Zeenat O. Sambo - Premium Times