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Viral ‘Russian Mobile Crematorium’ Tweet is From an 8-Year-Old YouTube Video
A viral tweet that remains unchecked by “fact checkers” claims to show a Russian-operated ‘mobile crematorium’ in Mariupol, but the image is taken from an 8-year-old YouTube video.
Whoops.
The tweet was posted by news outlet NEXTA, which boasts nearly a million followers on Twitter. The tweet has received over 7,000 retweets and almost 11,000 likes.
“Mobile crematoria in #Mariupol,” states the tweet.
“Mayor of Mariupol Vadim Boychenko said today that #Russian mobile crematoria have started operating in the city.”
“According to him, tens of thousands of people could have died in Mariupol and the cremation, “covering up the traces of crimes”.
Except a simple reverse image search reveals the ‘mobile crematorium’ to be a screenshot from an 8-year-old YouTube video.
Serial Killer Known As The ‘I-65 Killer’ Identified After 30 Years
In 1987, 41-year-old Vicki Heath was working at the Super 8 Motel just off I-65 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in order to make some extra money. She had recently gotten engaged, and was looking forward to this new chapter in her life as her two kids were reaching adulthood. That all tragically ended on February 21, 1987, when police received a call about a “complete mess” in the lobby of the motel. The caller worried that the front desk clerk was missing. Police arrived and found Heath’s body behind a nearby dumpster.
Two more women – Margaret “Peggy” Gill and Jeanne Gilbert – were killed two years later, each while working at different Days Inn motels in Indiana. A final woman, referred to only as Jane Doe, was sexually assaulted at the Columbus, Indiana, Days Inn in 1990.
More than 30 years went by without police being able to charge a suspect, whom they referred to as either the “Days Inn Killer” or the “I-65 Killer,” since the motels were off the highway.
On Tuesday, however, Indiana State Police (ISP) announced that they had finally identified the serial killer as Harry Edward Greenwell, who died in 2013 at the age of 68. He had been living in New Albin, Iowa and had an “extensive criminal history ranging from 1963 to 1998,” the ISP announced.
The illusion of choice…
The FDA’s Own Experts Have No Idea Why It Approved Another COVID Booster Dose
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bypassed many of its own protocols to speed through the authorization of Pfizer’s second booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine last week.
Multiple medical experts, including some who sit on the FDA’s top vaccine advisory committee, said they had no idea why the agency skipped over its normal approval process to authorize the fourth vaccine dose for Americans aged 50 and older. The authorization was even broader than the drug company requested, which was that it be greenlit for those aged 65 and older.
That FDA vaccine panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), is meeting Wednesday, and part of the agenda will be to discuss the fourth vaccine dose and the Israeli studies which are being used to exhibit its effectiveness. Typically, the vaccine authorization process would involve a meeting and vote by VRBPAC on whether to recommend authorization, followed by the FDA head granting that authorization. Then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine committee would vote on how to recommend the vaccine, which would then be determined by the CDC director.
Dr. Paul Offit, a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and member of VRBPAC, said he couldn’t explain why the FDA didn’t present its data to the committee first before moving ahead with authorization: “The way it’s working here is that the government basically just declares that this is what they’re going to do.”
The Online Safety Bill gives the UK government unprecedented power to determine “harmful” content
The UK’s latest attempt to clamp down on free speech online, the 225 page Online Safety Bill, will give sweeping new censorship powers to the UK’s Secretary of State and its communications regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), if passed.
It gives the UK Culture Secretary the power to decide on and designate “priority content that is harmful.”
Once the Secretary of State has designated this content, social media platforms and search engines that fall under the scope of the bill’s regulations have to “use proportionate systems and processes” to prevent children from encountering this priority content.
These platforms are also required to specify in their terms of service how they’ll tackle priority content that’s deemed to be “harmful to adults” and apply these measures consistently.
Additionally, the Culture Secretary gets the power to decide the user number and feature thresholds that determine whether a company falls under the scope of these requirements to remove and tackle priority content.
Collectively, these provisions give the Culture Secretary unprecedentedly broad powers to not only choose the types of speech that is allowed but to also set the rules around which platforms have to censor content.
Under the bill, Ofcom will be granted the power to issue harsh punishments to platforms that fail to meet the Secretary’s censorship demands.
These punishments include applying for court orders that restrict access to platforms in the UK and fining platforms up to £18 million ($23.78 million) or 10% of their revenue (whichever is higher).
In another authoritarian turn, if Ofcom decides that a platform is failing to comply with any aspect of the Online Safety Bill, it can also demand information from the platform via an “information notice” and require the platform to name a senior manager who can be fined or imprisoned for up to two years if they’re found guilty of failing to comply with the requirements.
Biden administration admits to giving free cellphones to illegals
On Wednesday, the Biden administration revealed that illegal immigrants entering the United States are handed smartphones when they arrive.
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Jen Psaki about the attempt during today’s news briefing.
“Our team in Texas is saying that you guys are starting to give smartphones to border crossers, hoping that they’ll use the phones to check-in or – uh – to be tracked. Which part of that is supposed to ‘deter’ people from crossing illegally into the states?” asked Doocy.
Well,” replied Psaki, “I think you of all people – since you’ve asked me a range of questions on this topic over time – would recognize that we need to take steps to ensure that we know where individuals are and we can track – we can check in with them.”
Psaki went on to describe the three types of technology that the administration is using to track illegal immigrants: “Telephonic is one of them, which uses a participant’s voice to create a biometric voiceprint during the enrollment process. And when the participant has a check-in call, their voice is compared to the voiceprint.”
“SmartLink, which is another option, enables participant monitoring via smartphone or tablet using facial-matching technology to establish identity.”
“And Global Positioning System monitoring is of a participant’s location and movement history, using satellite technology through an ankle bracelet. This is all part of our effort, as individuals come into the United States and individuals who are entering who will proceed to immigration proceedings, to monitor and track where they are.”
Barack Obama Backs Internet Controls to Grapple with the ‘Demand for Crazy’
Government regulation and control over the internet can defeat a “demand for crazy” through the spread of incorrect messages, former President Barack Obama said Wednesday.
Obama, 60, spoke with Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg at an event hosted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and the magazine.
“I do think that there is a demand for crazy on the internet that we have to grapple with,” Obama said, before adding a mix of regulation and industry standards are needed to address the issue.
Obama lamented how misinformation plays out across the U.S., accusing those who say President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election as guilty of falling for conspiracy theories.
He called out “a systematic effort to either promote false information, to suppress true information, for the purpose of political gain, financial gain, enhancing power, suppressing others, targeting those you don’t like.”
The former president blamed smartphones for accelerating “an erosion of accountability norms and standards in political life” from 2010 onwards.
Black Lives Matter shows how liberal groups weaponize social media censorship
The talking points have apparently gone out, and it is now OK for the mainstream press to gently criticize the Black Lives Matter movement. Accordingly, New York magazine has issued a critique of BLM’s financial management — particularly, the organization’s purchase in 2020 of a $6 million, 6,500 square foot house in Southern California.
Almost exactly a year ago, the New York Post reported on the purchase of four other multi-million dollar high-end homes by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors. The story described the homes no differently than it would any other celebrity home purchase. All the information contained in the article was gleaned from public records, including the photos. No addresses were listed.
But within days, users on Facebook were banned from sharing the story — on the platform itself, on Facebook messenger, and on Instagram, which Facebook owns. Despite the fact that all the information discussed was a matter of public record, Facebook flagged the article for violating their community standards, specifically the “privacy and personal information policy.”
A year later, Facebook (now Meta) still classifies the story as “abusive” and prevents it from being shared on its platforms.
Now we know why.
Buried in New York magazine’s reporting is this little nugget: “Other conversations on the BLM Security Hub chat show efforts to monitor social media for negative mentions of [the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation], with members using their influence with the platforms to have such remarks removed.”
US Officials Admit They’re Literally Just Lying To The Public About Russia
NBC News has a new report out citing multiple anonymous US officials, humorously titled “In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn’t rock solid“.
The officials say the Biden administration has been rapidly pushing out “intelligence” about Russia’s plans in Ukraine that is “low-confidence” or “based more on analysis than hard evidence”, or even just plain false, in order to fight an information war against Putin.
The report says that toward this end the US government has deliberately circulated false or poorly evidenced claims about impending chemical weapons attacks, about Russian plans to orchestrate a false flag attack in the Donbass to justify an invasion, about Putin’s advisors misinforming him, and about Russia seeking arms supplies from China.
It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine.
President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.
It’s one of a string of examples of the Biden administration’s breaking with recent precedent by deploying declassified intelligence as part of an information war against Russia. The administration has done so even when the intelligence wasn’t rock solid, officials said, to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin off balance.
So they lied. They may hold that they lied for a noble reason, but they lied. They knowingly circulated information they had no reason to believe was true, and that lie was amplified by all the most influential media outlets in the western world.
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