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Media Manipulation Articles

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on media manipulation from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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Facebook’s ban on gun sales gives sellers 10 strikes before booting them
2022-06-09, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/09/facebook-gun-sellers-10-...

Facebook prohibits gun sales on its service. But buyers and sellers can violate the rule 10 times before they are kicked off the social network, according to internal guidance obtained by The Washington Post. The policy, which has not previously been reported, is much more lenient than for users who post child pornography, which is illegal, or a terrorist image, which prompts immediate removal from the platform. A separate, five-strikes policy extends even to gun sellers and purchasers who actively call for violence. Facebook’s gun policies have long been a source of contention among the company’s senior leadership and policymaking teams, who have been torn between the platform’s support of free speech and public pressure to curtail weapons sales. Gun sellers have seized on loopholes within Facebook’s policy. Journalists have repeatedly uncovered strategies sellers use to evade bans while reaching potential customers in dedicated Facebook groups or on Facebook Marketplace, the company’s classified services. One tactic is advertising gun accessories, like holsters or cases, which are permitted for sale on the platform; once a customer contacts the seller, a gun can be sold in Facebook’s private messages. After responding to several listings for gun cases, a Post reporter received three private messages with offers to purchase a gun. Joel Kaplan, vice president of global public policy ... said that banning transactions of a product that was both legal and highly popular would alienate the political right.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.


How to Fix Twitter—And All of Social Media
2022-05-26, The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/05/how-to-fix-twitter-soc...

Those debating the future of Twitter and other social-media platforms have largely fallen into two opposing camps. One supports individuals’ absolute freedom of speech; the other holds that speech must be modulated through content moderation, and by tweaking the ways in which information spreads. Both sides are peddling an equally dismal vision. My purpose here is to point out a logical third option. In this approach, a platform would require users to form groups through free association, and then to post only through those groups. This simple, powerful notion could help us escape the dilemma of supporting online speech. Platforms like Facebook and Reddit have similar structures—groups and subreddits—but those are for people who share notifications and invitations to view and post in certain places. The groups I’m talking about, sometimes called “mediators of individual data” or “data trusts,” are different: Members would share both good and bad consequences with one another, just like a group shares the benefits and responsibilities of a loan in microlending. This mechanism has emerged naturally ... on the software-development platform GitHub. Whatever its size, each group will be self-governing. Some will have a process in place for reviewing items before they are posted. Others will let members post as they see fit. It will be a repeat of the old story of people building societal institutions and dealing with unavoidable trade-offs, but people will be doing this on their own terms.

Note: This was written by Jaron Lanier, who is widely considered to be the “Father of Virtual Reality.” Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


FBI Provides Chicago Police with Fake Online Identities for "Social Media Exploitation" Team
2022-05-20, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/20/chicago-police-fbi-social-media-surveilla...

The Social Media Exploitation, or SOMEX, team ... had been set up to help the FBI find informants and intelligence using information gleaned from social sites. The Intercept and Chicago-based transparency groups obtained more than 800 pages of emails and other documents about the team through public records requests. These show that the team’s officers were given broad leeway to investigate people across platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, using fake social media accounts furnished by the FBI, in violation of some platforms’ policies. The week that followed George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer was an intense moment in Chicago’s — and U.S. — history. Thousands of people took to the city’s streets to peacefully demonstrate against police violence. Despite ample warning, the Office of Inspector General report found, Chicago’s police were unprepared. When they did react, their response was chaotic and excessively violent, with officers variously hiding their badge numbers, turning off their body cameras, blasting people with pepper spray at close range ... and telling an arrestee that they would be raped in jail. The SOMEX team’s reaction was also troubling. The team’s mission was to provide both the FBI and the CPD with useful intelligence. What the SOMEX officers did instead: flag potential damage of police cars, investigate the social media connections of people who had made threats online, and cull videos for the department’s YouTube channel.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


DHS pauses a board created to combat disinformation amid a campaign to discredit it
2022-05-18, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099848240/dhs-disinformation-group-pause

A group within the Department of Homeland Security that was set up to focus on combating disinformation has been put on pause, DHS said Wednesday, and its director Nina Jankowicz is stepping down. The decision ... comes in the midst of a coordinated ... campaign against Jankowicz. The group, called the Disinformation Governance Board, launched three weeks ago and has not met. The working group was created with the purpose of helping to develop strategies to combat disinformation while, DHS said, remaining committed to protecting Americans' freedom of speech and other rights. Republicans were quick to claim [that] the board would result in censorship, criticizing what they considered an unclear mission as well as Jankowicz as its leader. DHS says it is conducting a review and assessment on how to continue their work on combating disinformation which will last 75 days. During this time, they said the board will not operate. DHS initially decided they would shut down the board on Monday, but by Tuesday they decided the board's work would be paused. "It is deeply disappointing that mischaracterizations of the Board became a distraction from the Department's vital work, and indeed, along with recent events globally and nationally, embodies why it is necessary," Jankowicz said in a statement announcing her resignation.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.


What is DHS' Disinformation Governance Board and why is everyone so mad about it?
2022-05-06, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-dhs-disinformation-governance-board-and-...

The Department of Homeland Security's announcement of a "Disinformation Governance Board" to standardize the treatment of disinformation by the agencies it oversees has been met with an overwhelmingly negative response since it was first unveiled in April. "It's an awful idea, and you ought to disband it," Sen. Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, told Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a Senate hearing. The new board is intended to standardize the department's efforts to respond to disinformation that could be connected with violent threats to the U.S. So, if an agency under DHS — like Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) — identifies disinformation under its purview, it's the new disinformation board that would come up with the best practices for any DHS agency handling the disinformation. "There has been a lot of misinformation about your department's work to combat misinformation," said Senator Chris Murphy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Homeland Security panel, told Mayorkas. "This is not the truth police," Mayorkas declared to the Senate panel ... responding to accusations of censorship. DHS selected author and disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz to lead the board. The former Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellow previously oversaw programs for Russia and Belarus for the National Democratic Institute.

Note: 20 US Attorney Generals demanded DHS immediately disband this Disinformation Governance Board and “cease all efforts to police Americans’ protected speech.” For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Facebook's Ukraine-Russia Moderation Rules Prompt Cries of Double Standard
2022-04-13, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2022/04/13/facebook-ukraine-russia-moderation-double...

An unprecedented spree of policy changes and carveouts aimed at protecting Ukrainian civilians from Facebook’s censorship systems has earned praise from human rights groups. But a new open letter addressed to Facebook and its social media rivals questions why these companies seem to care far more about some attempts to resist foreign invasion than others. In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, rapidly changed its typically strict speech rules in order to exempt a variety of posts that would have otherwise been deleted for violating the company’s prohibition against hate speech and violent incitement. The rule change ... included a rare dispensation to call for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin, use dehumanizing language against Russian soldiers, and praise the notorious Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard, previously banned from the platform due to its neo-Nazi ideology. In a statement signed by 31 civil society and human rights groups ... criticism is directed squarely at American internet titans like Facebook. “We call for ... equal and consistent application of policies to uphold the rights of users worldwide,” reads the letter. “Once platforms began to take action in Ukraine, they took extraordinary steps that they have been unwilling to take elsewhere. From the Syrian conflict to the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar, other crisis situations have not received the same amount of support.”

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation from reliable sources.


Washington Post joins New York Times in finally admitting emails from Hunter Biden laptop are real
2022-03-30, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2022/03/30/washington-post-admits-hunter-biden-laptop-is-r...

The Washington Post on Wednesday became the second major news outlet to reverse course and admit that emails from the infamous Hunter Biden laptop are authentic — nine months after it obtained them and a year and a half after the New York Post first reported on them. The paper said two security experts used cryptographic signatures from Google and other technology companies to validate nearly 22,000 emails from 2009 to 2019. Some verified emails involved a deal President Biden’s son pursued with the CEFC China Energy conglomerate for which he was paid nearly $5 million. Other verified emails related to his work for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, for which Hunter Biden was paid as much as $83,333 or a month, or $1 million a year. In October 2020, the New York Post exclusively revealed the existence of Hunter Biden’s emails after being given a copy of the hard drive from a damaged MacBook Pro laptop that the owner of a repair shop in the Biden family’s hometown of Wilmington, Del., said was dropped off in April 2019. Following the expose, the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” feature said the paper “has not been able to verify or authenticate these emails” and said there were “fears that the emails could be part of a broader disinformation campaign” by Russia. The paper said it [made] two copies of the hard drive so they could be analyzed by Matt Green, a Johns Hopkins University security researcher, and Jake Williams, a forensics expert and former National Security Agency operative.

Note: For a detailed timeline on Biden’s laptop, see this Washington Post article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation from reliable sources.


America Has a Free Speech Problem
2022-03-18, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html

Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned. How has this happened? In large part, it’s because the political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around cancel culture. Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all. Many on the right ... have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness as a bulwark against a rapidly changing society, with laws that would ban books, stifle teachers and discourage open discussion in classrooms. In a new national poll commissioned by Times Opinion and Siena College, only 34 percent of Americans said they believed that all Americans enjoyed freedom of speech completely. The poll found that 84 percent of adults said it is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem that some Americans do not speak freely in everyday situations because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism. 46 percent of respondents said they felt less free to talk about politics compared to a decade ago. Only 21 percent of people reported feeling freer, even though in the past decade there was a vast expansion of voices in the public square through social media. At the same time, 22 percent of adults reported that they had retaliated against or were harshly critical of someone over something he or she said.

Note: While the above article focuses on individual actions and perceptions, social media companies like Facebook prioritize angry, divisive content and sometimes censor mainstream news stories. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media corruption from reliable sources.


Facebook allows war posts urging violence against Russian invaders
2022-03-10, Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily...

Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy. The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators. "As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. The calls for the leaders' deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company's rules on violence and incitement. Last week, Russia said it was banning Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform. Moscow has cracked down on tech companies, including Twitter, which said it is restricted in the country, during its invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a "special operation." Emails also showed that Meta would allow praise of the right-wing Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited.

Note: Read more about Facebook permitting praise for the neo-Nazi Azov battalion. Intrepid reporter Ben Swann gives a great, balanced view on the biolabs in the Ukraine, including efforts to scrub one particularly incriminating video from the Internet. And explore an alternative viewpoint on the Ukrainian situation from a respected source. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media corruption from reliable sources.


Canadian pipeline groups spend big to pose as Indigenous champions
2022-03-10, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/10/canadian-pipeline-groups-...

Oil and gas companies and lobby groups in Canada are heavily investing in campaigns to present themselves as defenders of Indigenous interests in the face of high-profile protests against a controversial natural gas pipeline on First Nation land. “I’m being a steward to my land and I’m being a defender,” read one of 21 ads targeting British Columbia in November 2021, quoting a Coastal GasLink worker from Nak’azdli Whut’en’ First Nation. As the ad conveying Indigenous support for the pipeline appeared on the Facebook and Instagram feeds of people in the Canadian province, 30 Wet’suwet’en Nation members and supporters were being violently evicted from their territory along the pipeline. The fossil fuel groups spent some C$122,000 (US$95,249) on more than 400 targeted Facebook and Instagram ads. The vast majority of the ads, which were shown some 21m times in total, were linked to the Coastal GasLink pipeline, the site of intense protest and violent police crackdown in recent years. The construction of the 670km pipeline through unceded Wet’suwet’en territory – land never signed away to the Canadian government – has sparked nationwide protests in recent years. Analysis of Facebook advertisements ... by Eco-Bot.Net, a research project exposing climate crisis misinformation and corporate greenwashing online, has found a steady flow of “Indigenous-washing” ad campaigns from TC Energy, the company behind the pipeline, and associated oil and gas lobby groups.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.


Ending Big Tech's Laissez-Faire Approach to Child Sexual Abuse Material
2022-02-16, Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/ending-big-techs-laissez-faire-approach-child-sexual...

The EARN IT Act [is] a bill designed to confront the explosion of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. EARN IT would help address what is, disturbingly, a common experience for young users: routine exposure to predatory targeting, grooming, sexual violence, prostitution/sex trafficking, hardcore pornography and more. A New York Times investigation revealed that 70 million CSAM images were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2019–up from 600,000 in 2008–an "almost unfathomable" increase in criminality. The EARN IT Act restores privacy to victims of child sexual abuse material and allows them to sueâ€those who cause them harm online, under federal civil law and state criminal and civil law. It also creates a new commission to issue guidelines to limit sex trafficking, grooming and sexual exploitationâ€online. CSAM still exists because tech platforms have no incentive to prevent or eliminate it, because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (passed in 1996, before social media existed) gives them near-blanket immunity from liability. While some in the technology sector [are] claiming EARN IT is a threat to encryption and user privacy, the reality is that encryption can coexist with better business practices for online child safety. We can increase security and privacy while refraining from a privacy-absolutism that unintentionally allows sexual predators to run rampant online.

Note: To understand the scope of child sex abuse worldwide, learn about other major cover-ups in revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.


Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland
2022-02-07, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin...

The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors. These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence. The convergence of the following factors has increased the volatility, unpredictability, and complexity of the threat environment: (1) the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions; (2) continued calls for violence directed at U.S. critical infrastructure; and (3) calls by foreign terrorist organizations for attacks on the United States. COVID-19 mitigation measures—particularly COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates—have been used by domestic violent extremists to justify violence since 2020 and could continue to inspire these extremists to target government, healthcare, and academic institutions that they associate with those measures. Domestic violent extremists have ... have recently aspired to disrupt U.S. electric and communications critical infrastructure, including by spreading false or misleading narratives about 5G cellular technology.

Note: Since when does questioning how much we trust our government make a person an extremist or terrorist? What ever happened to the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Our founding fathers would likely have been declared terrorists by the DHS. So sad... For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the erosion of civil liberties from reliable major media sources.


BBC faces backlash after Dershowitz analyzes Maxwell case, despite accusation from alleged Epstein victim
2021-12-20, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/12/30/alan-dershowitz-bbc-ghislaine...

The BBC says it is investigating how Alan Dershowitz was allowed on its airwaves to talk about the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell without mentioning that the constitutional lawyer is implicated in the case and accused of having sex with an alleged victim of financier Jeffrey Epstein. Shortly after Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of sex-trafficking charges for assisting Epstein in abusing young girls, BBC News brought on Dershowitz to analyze the guilty verdict of Epstein’s longtime paramour. But the network failed to mention that Dershowitz not only previously served as Epstein’s attorney but that he is accused of having sex with Virginia Roberts Giuffre when she was as young as 16. Dershowitz has denied the allegations. Dershowitz used his time on the “BBC World News” to slam Giuffre for supposedly not being a credible witness in the Maxwell case — claims that went unchallenged by the show’s anchor. He also claimed the case from Giuffre against him and Britain’s Prince Andrew, who has also been accused of sexual assault and has denied the allegations, was somehow weakened after Maxwell’s guilty verdict. Giuffre has said that Epstein and Maxwell forced her to have sex with public figures, such as Dershowitz. She asserted to the Miami Herald and the New Yorker that she had sex with Dershowitz at least six times in Epstein’s various residences. In denying her claims, Dershowitz ... called Giuffre a “prostitute” and a “bad mother” to her children.

Note: Read an excellent article on the shocking origins of Jeffrey Epstein. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.


Facebook admits the truth: ‘Fact checks’ are really just (lefty) opinion
2021-12-14, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/facebook-admits-the-truth-fact-checks-are-reall...

https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/facebook-admits-the-truth-fact-checks-are-really-just...

Facebook finally admitted the truth: The “fact checks” that social media use to police what Americans read and watch are just “opinion.” That’s thanks to a lawsuit brought by celebrated journalist John Stossel, which has exposed the left’s supposed battle against “misinformation” as a farce. Stossel posted a pair of videos that touched the third rail of liberal politics — climate change. Neither questioned whether climate change is real, but each talked about other issues, namely forest management and using technology to adapt. Yet the third party that Facebook contracts to review these pieces, Science Feedback, flagged them as “false,” or our favorite, “lacking context.” Why? Science Feedback didn’t like Stossel’s “tone.” That is, you can’t write anything about climate change unless you say it’s the worst disaster in the history of humanity and we must spend trillions to fight it. The Post has faced this same gauntlet too many times. In February 2020, we published a column by Steven W. Mosher asking if COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Lab. This was labeled “false” by Facebook’s fact-checkers. Of course, those supposed “independent” scientific reviewers relied on a group of experts who had a vested interest in dismissing that theory — including EcoHealth, which had funded the Wuhan lab. When Twitter “fact checked” and blocked The Post’s stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop as “hacked materials,” what was the basis? Nothing. It wasn’t hacked. Guess they didn’t like our tone.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.


AP seeks answers from US gov't on tracking of journalists
2021-12-13, ABC News/Associated Press
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/ap-seeks-answers-us-govt-tracking-j...

The Associated Press sought answers Monday from the Department of Homeland Security on its use of sensitive government databases for tracking international terrorists to investigate as many as 20 American journalists, including an acclaimed AP reporter. In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, AP Executive Editor Julie Pace urged the agency to explain why the name of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Martha Mendoza was run through the databases and identified as a potential confidential informant during the Trump administration, as detailed in a report by Homeland Security's inspector general. The DHS investigation of U.S. journalists, as well as congressional staff and perhaps members of Congress ... represents the latest apparent example of an agency created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks using its vast capabilities to target American citizens. The AP's letter ... called for “assurances that these improper practices and apparent abuse of power will not continue going forward.” That would be in line with recent order from Attorney General Merrick Garland prohibiting the seizing of records of journalists in leak investigations. That followed an outcry over revelations that the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump had obtained records belonging to journalists, as well as Democratic members of Congress. During the Obama administration, federal investigators secretly seized phone records for some reporters and editors at the AP.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and media manipulation from reliable major media sources.


Publisher blasts 'total media blackout' of Robert Kennedy's bestseller on Dr. Fauci
2021-12-02, Washington Times
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/2/publisher-blasts-total-media-...

Longtime vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a runaway bestseller on his hands with his blockbuster book skewering Dr. Anthony Fauci, no thanks to what his publisher calls a "total media blackout." "The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health" continued its reign Wednesday atop the Amazon and USA Today nonfiction bestseller lists and ranked fifth on The New York Times' list of top-selling books. The book is flying off the shelves even though technology platforms refuse to carry its advertising. Mainstream media outlets won't touch it, much to the frustration of Tony Lyons, president and publisher of Skyhorse Publishing. "I defy you to find a single case where the No. 1 bestselling book in America over a 16-day period has not been mentioned in one mainstream newspaper in the country," Mr. Lyons [said]. Not even the aura of the Kennedy name has tempted the mainstream media. The snub hasn't occurred in a vacuum. Mr. Kennedy became persona non grata after he launched his vaccine criticism in 2005. Dr. Fauci is a media favorite, and social media companies have cracked down on content that contests the coronavirus authorities in the name of squelching "misinformation." Among the book's claims are that the White House chief medical adviser oversaw the "disastrous mismanagement" of the 2020 pandemic and has prioritized the pharmaceutical industry over public health.

Note: If you don't have time for the whole book (rated 4.9 stars on amazon.com), you can find an engaging summary of key points on this webpage. Learn how the CIA is involved in suppressing Kennedy's book and so much more. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation and the coronavirus from reliable sources.


One year after the Great Barrington Declaration was issued, its warnings seem prudent.
2021-10-13, Boston Globe
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/13/opinion/with-covid-19-every-disagreeme...

On Oct. 4, 2020 ... a group of doctors and medical experts, most of them specialists in epidemiology, immunology, and related public health disciplines, published a statement challenging the wisdom of the widespread COVID-19 lockdowns. The primary authors of the “Great Barrington Declaration” ... were three scientists: Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard; Sunetra Gupta, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Oxford; and Jay Bhattacharya, a physician and professor at Stanford Medical School. The declaration ... was soon signed by thousands of additional public health scientists and doctors. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” [it said]. The scientists warned that “keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.” The relatively brief declaration was accompanied by a much more detailed analysis of lockdowns and their collateral damage, and of the best ways to shield the elderly and people in other high-risk groups. For a year, the three scientists have been “vilified.” Bhattacharya [said] he is worried for his safety “amid a campaign to censor him on the [Stanford] campus where he has worked for 35 years.” The Great Barrington authors were on target in doubting the advisability of sweeping lockdowns. Numerous studies have found that shutting down the economy was largely futile in preventing COVID’s spread.

Note: Explore the website of the Great Barrington Declaration. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


Revealed: Facebook's Secret Blacklist of "Dangerous Individuals and Organizations
2021-10-12, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2021/10/12/facebook-secret-blacklist-dangerous/

To ward off accusations that it helps terrorists spread propaganda, Facebook has for many years barred users from speaking freely about people and groups it says promote violence. The restrictions appear to trace back to 2012, when ... Facebook added to its Community Standards a ban on “organizations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity.” This modest rule has since ballooned into what’s known as the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, a sweeping set of restrictions on what Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users can say about an enormous and ever-growing roster of entities deemed beyond the pale. But as with other attempts to limit personal freedoms in the name of counterterrorism, Facebook’s DIO policy has become an unaccountable system that disproportionately punishes certain communities, critics say. It is built atop a blacklist of over 4,000 people and groups, including politicians, writers, charities, hospitals, hundreds of music acts, and long-dead historical figures. A range of legal scholars and civil libertarians have called on the company to publish the list so that users know when they are in danger of having a post deleted or their account suspended for praising someone on it. The company has repeatedly refused to do so, claiming it would endanger employees and permit banned entities to circumvent the policy. The Intercept has reviewed a snapshot of the full DIO list and is today publishing a reproduction of the material in its entirety.

Note: Facebook was found to be the number one platform for political disinformation campaigns in 2019. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media corruption from reliable sources.


NYT issues correction after significantly overstating COVID hospitalizations in children
2021-10-08, ABC News (South Carolina affiliate)
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/nyt-issues-correction-after-significan...

The New York Times (NYT) issued a correction to one of its stories this week, which significantly overstated the number of U.S. children who have been hospitalized for COVID-19. The article discussed how countries were moving to "revisit the one-dose strategy" due to concerns over health data suggesting myocarditis was more common in children who receive the COVID-19 vaccine than previously thought. The U.S. has not changed its guidance on the issue since June. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted that month to recommend the vaccine for children older than 12 because "the benefits far outweighed the risk." The NYT used the misstated statistic as background information meant to describe the extent of COVID-19's effect on U.S. children. The Oct. 7 correction read: "The article also misstated the number of Covid hospitalizations in U.S. children. It is more than 63,000 from August 2020 to October 2021, not 900,000 since the beginning of the pandemic." Other errors from the article were also discussed in the correction placed at the end of the article. Those errors include incorrectly describing "actions taken by regulators in Sweden and Denmark," who halted the use of pharmaceutical manufacturer Moderna's vaccine for children. The NYT reported the two countries had only halted booster shots, not the vaccine entirely. The article also misstated the timing of a Food and Drug Administration meeting on the authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children.

Note: These corrections are generally issued as a footnote, which practically no one reads. Note that the original article overstated the number of children hospitalized by nearly 1,500%. How could the respected "newspaper of record" get such important information so wrong? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and mass media from reliable sources.


Twitter slammed for fact-checking Seattle mom’s obituary that mentioned COVID vaccine
2021-10-04, New York Post
https://nypost.com/2021/10/04/twitter-criticized-for-fact-checking-seattle-mo...

Twitter has been slammed for fact-checking the obituary of a Seattle mother that attributed her death to blood clots brought on by the COVID-19 vaccine after she was forced to get the shot due to “heavy-handed” state mandates. The online obituary for 37-year-old Jessica Berg Wilson, who died Sept. 7, was marked as “misleading” by the social media giant over the weekend. The fact-check warning was removed by Twitter on Monday morning following the backlash. The tribute ... said the mother of two died from “COVID-19 Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia” — a rare blood disorder that can occur in some cases after the vaccine. Wilson had been “vehemently opposed” to getting the vaccine because she was in good health, but she eventually relented after Washington state made it mandatory for teachers and those wanting to volunteer in schools, her obituary said. “During the last weeks of her life, however, the world turned dark with heavy-handed vaccine mandates. Local and state governments were determined to strip away her right to consult her wisdom and enjoy her freedom.” The social media giant fact-checked the obituary after it was shared by Twitter user Kelly Bee alongside a tweet that read: “Jessica Berg Wilson, an ‘exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions,’ passed away from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia. She did not want to get vaccinated.”

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