Category Archives: Fake News

Coronavirus misinformation on social media has resulted inpeople injecting themselves with bleach, a senior MP has revealed as he urged the Government to bring forward the Duty of Care Bill.

Julian Knight, the chairman of Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media andSport select committee, warned that if online fake news was not tackled it could affect the take-up of an eventual coronavirusvaccine, causing "very great harm to society".

Mr Knight said he wanted to see Ofcom named as the new online regulator and given powers to fine or even prosecute social media companies, as well as the resources to investigate the secretive algorithms tech companies use to determine what their users see.

His comments came as the culture committee released a report saying the UK's lack of online regulation had allowed coronavirus misinformation to spread "virulently" on social media.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Knight said: "Healthcare professionals told us they even saw people injecting themselves with bleach or taking liquids that were harmful.

"They also said that on a more subtle level but probably even more damaging in terms of numbers many people were not presenting at hospital because they had seen misinformation and disinformation out there that was effectively saying that hospitals were completely overwhelmed and unsafe places."

See the original post here:

People are injecting themselves with bleach because of fake news, says senior MP - Telegraph.co.uk

Recently I stopped buying the other local paper in our area because it hadbecomeconsumed withpropaganda, losingperspective. That paper has become a full-time publication attacking one particular political party. Itsgoal is to completely destroy that party and all those who identify with itsviewpoint.

I knew that most of the major news organizations havebeen trained to destroy a certain point of view and make it look like their's was the only way and the other views are not acceptable. Their main effort is to steer public opinion their way, without the public realizing what is happening.

And now it quiteobvious to me that The Day has joined the chorus,as their writers are also playing the same tune. It is a shame that we no longer can trust our newspapers to report the news, as they now are creating the news their way. They are using fake polls thatpoll mostly people of one particular party. So,of course you do not get a true picture. Andthey also slant political cartoons.

America is now being betrayed by our news organizations and the big question is, will the American public wake up in time?

Tony Petros

Norwich

Go here to read the rest:

Wake up, America; discount the fake news - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

July 29th, 2020

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM PDT

Greenberg Glusker and Farrer & Co are delighted to present a joint webinar during which reputation management and media specialists from both firms will discuss:

On both sides of the Atlantic, the role of social media and search engines has been dominating the news agenda.

The debate over the extent to which Big Tech should be policing content on its platforms is one that has been bubbling for some time, but has recently exploded into the open with Donald Trumps decision to sign an executive order aimed at removing protections for social media platforms and the UK governments plans to introduce legislation to address Online Harms.

Set alongside that is the decision of a number of multinational corporations to cease advertising on Facebook and other platforms in protest at the perceived failure to do enough to remove racist, hateful and knowingly false content.

All this takes place in the context of a global pandemic (where conspiracy theories have abounded), the Black Lives Matter movement and, of course, a forthcoming Presidential election in the United States.

Read more:

[Webinar] #FreeSpeech: Perspectives from the UK and the US on Social Media Liability for Fake News, Damaging Content and Censorship - July 29th, 9:00...