Category: Misinformation

CorruptionLedger commentary in red.   Twitter has pulled out of the European Union’s voluntary code to fight disinformation, the EU has said. Thierry Breton, who is the EU’s internal market commissioner, announced the news on Twitter – but warned the firm new laws would force compliance. “Obligations remain. You can run but you can’t hide,” he said. Twitter will be legally required to fight disinformation in the EU from 25 August, he said, adding: “Our teams will be ready for…

Covid showed us how corrupt the medical establishment has become not only in America but worldwide. Doctors know where their bread is buttered and rarely speak out of school or provide advice based on their own independent research. They will support almost any government health narrative if that’s what it takes to make sure the money continues to flow, even if it means violating their oath to “do no harm.” Next in line for top honors in terms of corruption,…

In March, Der Spiegel claimed a yacht called ‘Andromeda’ had allegedly been used by a team of divers to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines. The publication cited the discovery of traces of explosives in the cabin of the vessel and fake identification documents that were used in the hiring of the boat.  The outlet’s most recent report indicates that metadata from an email sent to enquire about the renting of the yacht “leads to Ukraine.” The president of a presumed…

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russian forces weren’t occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow’s insistence that the eastern Ukrainian city had fallen. Responding to a reporter’s question about the status of the city at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, Zelenskyy said: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.” “We are not throwing people (away) to die,” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian through an interpreter. “People are the treasure. I clearly…

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the Russian private army Wagner claimed Saturday that his forces have taken control of the city of Bakhmut after the longest and most grinding battle of the Russia-Ukraine war, but Ukrainian defense officials denied it. In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke flanked by about half a dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and…

NEW YORK – Dozens of fringe news websites, content farms and fake reviewers are using artificial intelligence to create inauthentic content online, according to two reports released on Friday. The misleading AI content included fabricated events, medical advice and celebrity death hoaxes, the reports said, raising fresh concerns that the transformative technology could rapidly reshape the misinformation landscape online. The two reports were released separately by NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, and ShadowDragon, a company that provides resources…

Shenderovich then confirmed on Facebook he was “barred from his own performance in London” but still did not explain the reasons behind the incident. He also mockingly thanked “all the idiots” responsible “for such an incredible promotion.”  The author eventually moved to nearby Regent’s Park together with his would-be audience, where he held an impromptu performance “in the natural setting,” Shenderovich himself said in his Facebook statement. The author called the event “one of his best performances” and said that…

  ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking that a federal judge be disqualified from the First Amendment lawsuit filed by Disney against the Florida governor and his appointees, claiming the jurist’s prior statements in other cases have raised questions about his impartiality on the state’s efforts to take over Disney World’s governing body. DeSantis ‘ attorney filed a motion in federal court in Tallahassee on Friday seeking to disqualify Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker from overseeing…

NEW YORK – When Ms Raegan Zelaya and Mr Shua Wilmot decided to include their pronouns at the end of their work e-mails, they thought they were doing a good thing: following what they viewed as an emerging professional standard and also sending a message of inclusivity at the Christian university where they worked. But their bosses at Houghton University, in upstate New York, saw the matter very differently. Administrators at Houghton, which was founded and is now owned by…

Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the U.S., has sued a Florida county school board over its decisions to ban and restrict access to books. Joining the lawsuit are five authors, two parents of students and the advocacy group PEN America. A new federal lawsuit alleges that recent decisions by officials in a Florida county to ban and restrict access to books in school libraries violates constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection under the law. Over the…

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu accused the US of using the western media to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkiye. “The plan by the US intensifies actively. The reason of [the] Western media’s interference is the realization of the US’s plan,” Soylu told reporters. In the months leading up to the14 May elections, several US and European media outlets published stories describing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a “dictator and tyrant.” On 3 May,…

WASHINGTON —Indian authorities have arrested Vivek Raghuvanshi, a defense journalist and longtime correspondent for Defense News, and accused him of espionage, according to reports in the Indian press. Raghuvanshi’s arrest drew a condemnation from Sightline Media Group, the publisher of Defense News and Military Times. “We call for the immediate release of freelance reporter Vivek Raghuvanshi following his arrest in India,” said Mike Gruss, Sightline’s editor-in-chief. “Vivek has written about the Indian defense industry for Sightline publications for more than…

The roughly 30-page report detailed what lawmakers say are various companies and financial records tied to family members of Mr Biden, including his son, Hunter Biden, and daughter-in-law, Hallie Biden.

It contains records of bank transactions, obtained through subpoena, that Republican lawmakers say are linked to Romania and China.

The bank records show the receipt of money from a foreign company connected to Gabriel Popoviciu, who was prosecuted for corruption in Romania, reports the New York Times.

“We believe that the president has been involved in this from the very beginning. Obviously, we’re going to continue to look,” Mr Comer told reporters Wednesday.

The Kentucky lawmaker also acknowledged there had been “a pattern for a long time” of questionable financial dealings by relatives of presidents from both parties.

In October, reports indicated that the FBI believed it had enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes. The Justice Department reportedly ordered the team’s removal, according to the New York Post. An IRS criminal supervisory special agent came forward to Congress in April seeking whistleblower protection to share with lawmakers information that allegedly showed the investigation into potential tax crimes by the younger Biden was being mishandled. Now, the whistleblower’s attorneys claim the team’s removal from the investigation…

The platform’s Global Government Affairs account issued a statement on Monday outlining its recent decisions in light of the Turkish court orders, saying it was forced to take action against four accounts and 409 individual tweets.  “We received what we believed to be a final threat to throttle the service – after several such warnings,” it said, adding that it deleted the accounts and posts “in order to keep Twitter available over the election weekend.”