Tag: misinfomation

‘Oops! … I did it again!’ Establishment media forced into major recent retractions

Establishment media outlets, including NPR and The Washington Post, have been forced to issue major retractions in recent days, correcting misreporting on matters ranging from FBI whistleblowers to how President Joe Biden’s son Beau Biden died. 

NPR was forced to issue a correction Saturday to clarify that Beau Biden died from brain cancer in 2015, not from injuries he received while stationed with the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, as stated in the original report.

The public outlet is not the only source to misrepresent Beau Biden’s death. The president himself has previously claimed that his late son died in Iraq, not from cancer.

NPR also walked back a claim in an article last month headlined “Speaker McCarthy leads first border trip in his new role. Critics call it a photo op.” The piece inaccurately reported that no Democrats attended a hearing at a Texas border town, bolstering critics’ claims that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans were using the border visit to generate media coverage.

“In fact, some Democrats attended,” NPR later clarified.

The New York Times, the Washington Post and Rolling Stone all issued corrections to articles over the weekend about a Democrat House Judiciary Committee report criticizing Republican whistleblowers and GOP-led House investigations.

The Times admitted Saturday it had incorrectly stated that FBI whistleblower Stephen Friend worked for the Center for Renewing America, largely funded by former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows’ Conservative Partnership Institute, in an article headlined “G.O.P. Witnesses, Paid by Trump Ally, Embraced Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theories.” The Times issued a correction stating: “The center is affiliated with the institute and sustained mostly by donations; it is not largely funded by the institute.”

Rolling Stone corrected an inaccurate claim regarding former FBI analyst George Hill, whose attorney Jason Foster says retired from the agency on “good terms.”

Rolling Stone reported originally that Hill’s FBI security clearance had been “revoked” when in fact it was in good standing. The magazine said it mistook Hill for another whistleblower, Steve Friend, whose clearance had been suspended for a review but not revoked either.

“This story has been corrected to reflect that Steven Friend’s security clearance was suspended and George Hill retired of his own volition,” Rolling Stone stated.

“Obviously, they couldn’t keep the details of George Hill’s and [Stephen Friend’s] cases straight,” Foster tweeted. “So, they just blended them together with some fiction out of thin air about how Hill had to retire because his clearance was revoked and he couldn’t find work anymore.”

Rolling Stone has been called out before for media ethics issues. 

In November 2014, the magazine published an article titled “A Rape on Campus” claiming that a University of Virginia student was the victim of a fraternity gang rape. The story was retracted in April 2015, and the outlet lost a defamation lawsuit brough by a university official and settled other cases with the fraternity and some of its members. 

The Columbia Journalism Review said at the time that “Rolling Stone needs a transparency lesson” and the outlet “damaged the credibility of an important movement” bringing attention to sexual assault. 

The Washington Post, which still uses the slogan “Democracy Dies in the Darkness,” has issued an alarming number of corrections this year alone to stories dealing with conservatives.

Most recently, the outlet issued a correction to a Friday article headlined “Democrats challenge credibility of GOP witnesses who embrace false Jan. 6 claims,” stating: “An earlier version of this article erroneously said former FBI official Stephen Friend had not reported to a supervisor one of his concerns related to the use of a SWAT team in arrests related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riots. He said he did tell the supervisor, but he did not mention it in a written declaration.”

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US Gov’t Was The ‘Greatest Perpetrator Of Misinformation’ During COVID-19 Pandemic, Johns Hopkins Doctor Says

Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Marty Makary gave an impassioned speech Tuesday about how the United States government was the “greatest perpetrator of misinformation” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Makary was testifying before the House COVID subcommittee alongside other top medical experts.

“The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government,” Makary said. “Misinformation that COVID was spread through surface transmission, that vaccinated immunity was far greater than natural immunity, that masks were effective, now we have the definitive Cochran review, what do you do with that review? Cochran is the most authoritative evidence body in all of medicine, it has been for decades. Do you just ignore it? Not talk about it?”

“… that myocarditis was more common after the infection than the vaccine. Not true. It’s 4-28 times more common after the vaccine. That young people benefit from a booster, misinformation. Our two top experts on vaccines quit the FDA in protest over this particular issue — using boosters in young, healthy people. The data was never there, that’s why the CDC never disclosed hospitalization rates among boosted Americans under age 50.”

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Surprise: More Right-Wing ‘Conspiracies’ and ‘Misinformation’ Now Confirmed

Let’s begin with the important point that dangerous misinformation and conspiracy theories are, in fact, real problems that seem to be gaining momentum in American politics.  The Left flatters itself by pretending this phenomenon is, more or less, the sole or overwhelming province of the Right, all while indulging or embracing their own falsehoods.  But these things do exist, on both sides, and they really do threaten to warp our collective sense of reality by injecting poisonous forms of paranoia into our discourse and polity.  But here’s what also erodes trust in institutions, and degrades the importance of truth, within American society: Partisans and ideologues, posing as neutral arbiters, arrogantly declaring ideas or allegations with which they disagree to be “misinformation” and “conspiracy theories” — not just debatable or controversial, mind you, but factually wrong, and dangerously so.  This goes beyond dishonesty; it’s irresponsible.  

When the official Narrative shapers have aggressively attempted to disqualify something as crazy and beyond the pale, and then reality intervenes and disproves their spin, people are much less likely to believe them next time they fire up their warning sirens.  Some toxic claims truly need to be debunked and discarded, but when would-be gatekeepers’ credibility has sustained one self-inflicted blow after another, the ability for truth to win out over perilous and inaccurate nonsense is diminished.  Let’s walk through just a handful of examples that have come to light within the last few days.  First, one “conspiracy theory,” for which some on the Right were roundly denounced and ridiculed by the bien pensant ‘Consensus’ crowd, was the idea that COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese laboratory.  At some point, this possibility morphed from unspeakable, to potentially viable, to perhaps probable, including among some of the very people who’d lectured anyone who’d whispered about it even months earlier.  Over the weekend, we saw this report, as the reality trajectory continues to bend toward erstwhile right-wing “misinformation:”

The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office…The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided. The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research…The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence” and still holds to this view.

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WHO releases international pandemic treaty zero draft that targets “misinformation” and “disinformation”

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a zero draft of its international pandemic treaty which will give the unelected global health agency new powers to “tackle” anything that it deems to be “false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation” if passed.

The WHO has been pushing the treaty since December 2021 and those drafting the treaty intend to present a final report to the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s decision-making body, in May 2024.

If adopted, the treaty will be legally binding under international law and the WHO’s 194 member states (which represent 98% of all the countries in the world) would be required to comply with the treaty’s demands to target misinformation.

The zero draft is similar to previous versions of the treaty and the provisions related to misinformation are described in Article 17 (“Strengthening pandemic and public health literacy”).

This section of the treaty calls for member states to “tackle false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through promotion of international cooperation.”

It also urges member states to manage “infodemics” — a term coined by the WHO that refers to “too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak.” Specifically, member states are told to manage these so-called infodemics “through effective channels, including social media.”

The scope of this treaty also extends beyond the WHO’s member base. Article 16 (“Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches at the national level”) urges member states to collaborate with non-state actors and the private sector as part of a “whole-of-society response in decision making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, as well as effective feedback mechanisms.”

We obtained a copy of the zero draft of the WHO’s pandemic treaty for you here.

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CDC Officials Who Spread Misinformation Apologized To Source Of False Data But Not To Public: Emails

U.S. health officials who spread inflated COVID-19 child death data in public meetings apologized to the source of the false data but not to the public, newly obtained emails show.

Drs. Katherine Fleming-Dutra and Sara Oliver, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), offered the false data in 2022 while U.S. officials weighed granting emergency authorization to COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months.

The study they cited for the data was published ahead of peer review by a group comprised primarily of British authors. The study was corrected after the public meetings.

Emails obtained by The Epoch Times showed that Fleming-Dutra and Oliver were alerted that they had spread misinformation. Neither the officials nor the CDC have informed the public of the false information. Newly obtained emails showed the officials apologized to Seth Flaxman, one of the study’s authors, and even offered to see whether the study could be published in the CDC’s quasi-journal.

“I feel … that we owe you an apology,” Oliver wrote to Flaxman on June 27, about 10 days after she and Fleming-Dutra falsely said there had been at least 1,433 deaths primarily attributed to COVID-19 in America among those 19 and younger. “We draw the attention of a variety of individuals with the ACIP meetings, and apologize that you got caught in it this time.”

“I am also sorry that you got pulled into the attention around the VRBPAC and ACIP meetings,” Fleming-Dutra added. She had presented the data to the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC.

Fleming-Dutra, Oliver, and Flaxman did not respond to requests for comment.

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CDC Officials Who Spread Misinformation Apologized to Source of False Data but Not to Public

U.S. health officials who spread inflated COVID-19 child death data in public meetings apologized to the source of the false data but not to the public, newly obtained emails show.

Drs. Katherine Fleming-Dutra and Sara Oliver, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), offered the false data in 2022 while U.S. officials weighed granting emergency authorization to COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months.

The study they cited for the data was published ahead of peer review by a group comprised primarily of British authors. The study was corrected after the public meetings.

Emails obtained by The Epoch Times showed that Fleming-Dutra and Oliver were alerted that they had spread misinformation. Neither the officials nor the CDC have informed the public of the false information. Newly obtained emails showed the officials apologized to Seth Flaxman, one of the study’s authors, and even offered to see whether the study could be published in the CDC’s quasi-journal.

“I feel … that we owe you an apology,” Oliver wrote to Flaxman on June 27, about 10 days after she and Fleming-Dutra falsely said there had been at least 1,433 deaths primarily attributed to COVID-19 in America among those 19 and younger. “We draw the attention of a variety of individuals with the ACIP meetings, and apologize that you got caught in it this time.”

“I am also sorry that you got pulled into the attention around the VRBPAC and ACIP meetings,” Fleming-Dutra added. She had presented the data to the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC.

Fleming-Dutra, Oliver, and Flaxman did not respond to requests for comment.

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China proposes making “dissemination of false information” a crime in UN treaty

A new international convention on cybercrime is being negotiated at the United Nations (UN) meeting in Vienna, Austria, and China has proposed the criminalization of the “dissemination of false information.”

The proposal seems like an attempt by China to legitimize its internet controls and is likely going to be contested by Western countries, even though many of them have been copying parts of China’s playbook in recent times.

There is already an existing international convention on cybercrime that was signed in 2001. However, it was not a UN treaty and it has not been signed by Russia, China, Brazil, and India, which are some of the largest countries in the world.

In the ongoing negotiations on the new treaty, the proposals that have been suggested have been put into two categories; those with wide support and those that are contested. Proposals on controlling online content have generally fallen into the contested category and have not been part of immediate discussions.

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‘The View’ is the biggest source of misinformation in America

Barbara Walters died last week at 93, but the legendary journalist’s legacy lives on: “The View,” the daytime-TV talker she created in 1997, is the most-watched — and most-talked-about — show in its genre.

Some legacy, though: What Walters envisioned as “women of different generations, backgrounds and views” discussing “the topics of the day, mixing humor with intelligent debate,” devolved after she departed as co-host in 2014 into a four-against-one daily catfight with few laughs and even fewer smarts.

The New York Times calls it “the most important political TV show in America.” If so, America is in trouble — because “The View” is the biggest source of misinformation in the country.

More than 2.4 million people watch “The View” every day — and are less informed for it every day.

The show’s moderator is one of its worst offenders. Whoopi Goldberg made headlines last year by declaring “the Holocaust isn’t about race.” Her co-hosts gave her little pushback. Sara Haines added a “No” in agreement while Joy Behar asked her what it was about. “This is white people doing it to white people. So, this is y’all go fight amongst yourselves,” Whoopi said. Sunny Hostin remained silent, and the show’s producers — recognizing a train wreck — played exit music and broke to a commercial.

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The hypocrisy of ‘those braying the loudest about misinformation’

We live in a time when U.S. politics is not only hyper-partisan, but toxic. Party activists on both sides of the divide assign a higher value to slurring those on the other side – and covering up for those on their side – than to telling the unvarnished truth.

In this hothouse environment, some well-meaning people assert that misinformation and “disinformation” threaten the very pillars of self-government.

The most obvious and immediate problem with this approach is hypocrisy: Many of those braying the loudest about misinformation have made wildly untrue assertions and statements themselves. The long-term problem is that freedom is and always will be utterly incompatible with a society in which the government or private media monopolies control the right of people to speak or write or broadcast without being censored.

In the waning days of December 1793, Thomas Paine was arrested in Paris. This was the height of the “Reign of Terror,” and the result of being detained on political charges, as Paine was, usually meant the guillotine. Paine certainly thought that was to be his fate.

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Disinformation, Censorship, And Information Warfare In The 21st Century

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”– Sun Tzu, the Art of War

In recent years, prominent national security officials and media outlets have raised alarm about the unprecedented effects of foreign disinformation in democratic countries. In practice, what they mean is that democratic governments have fallen behind in their command of the methods of information warfare in the early 21st century. As outlined herein, while information warfare is a real and serious issue facing democratic governments in the 21st century, the war on disinformation, as currently practiced, has backfired spectacularly and done far more harm than good, as evidenced most clearly by the response to COVID-19.

We begin with the definitions and history of a few key terms: Censorship, free speech, misinformation, disinformation, and bots.

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