Top Misinformation Article Attributed to Chicago Tribune

Posted On Oct 2, 2021 By admin With Comments Off

According to Facebook’s content transparency report for the first quarter of 2021, released in mid-August 2021, the most popular article shared on the programme between January 2021 and March 2021 was about a 56 -year-old Miami, Florida, obstetrician who died two weeks after his first Pfizer injection. 1

The story initially ran in the South Florida Sun Sentinel2 April 8, 2021, and was republished by the Chicago Tribune that very same day. 3 Medical doctors, Dr. Gregory Michael, received his first dose December 18, 2020.

Three days later, he developed small-scale discerns on his hands and feet, which prompted him to go to the emergency room, where they found he had an exceptionally low-spirited blood count. Platelets stop bleeding by clotting, and when platelets slip too low, internal bleeding can be produced, ensuing in what looks like blood swells on the skin.

Michael remained in intensive care for two weeks, but no matter what they did, his platelet counting refused to budge. During the night of January 3, 2021, he died of a massive stroke. According to the coroner, the COVID injection could not be ruled out as a contributing or causative factor.

In a Facebook post, Michael’s widow territory he’d been “very healthy” and that he’d been a COVID-1 9 vaccine exponent. His death motived her to question the safety of the shot, however.

“I believe that people should be borne in mind that side effects can happen, that the vaccine is not good for everyone and in such cases destroyed a beautiful lifetime, a excellent family and has affected so many people in this community.” she wrote. “Please do not let his death be in vain please save more livings my making this information news.”4

Even Viral Content Has Minor Reach

According to The New York Times, 5 Facebook braced off on publishing the first-quarter report for panic the findings and conclusions might “look bad for the company.” Ministerials decided they wanted to make some “key affixes to the system” before releasing it. That’s why it wasn’t published until August.

Interestingly, the report reveals that even when something get viral, the total number of views is still a tiny fraction of the overall content. Even the biggest chronicles even up but a small portion of overall material positions. Combined, the top 20 histories with the most contemplates in the first quarter — which included UNICEF, The Dodo and LADbible — accounted for only 1.18% of all U.S. material views.

As noted in the report, this “shows that, even though it may seem like a sheet or upright has substantial contact on the pulpit, that isn’t the case when measured against the total amount of content available on the platform.”

Facebook Calls Out CCDH for Manufacturing’ Faulty Narrative’

As you may know, an blur one-man organization funded by dark money called the Center for Countering Digital Hate( CCDH) has just published various reports, including “The Anti-Vaxx Playbook, ”6 “The Disinformation Dozen”7 and “Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel, ”8 in which the founder, Imran Ahmed — an unregistered foreign agent — claims to have identified the top most influential “anti-vaxxers” in the U.S.

In a completely unexpected turn of events, Facebook is now calling out the CCDH for having created a faulty narrative without testify against the 12 men targeted in the same report( myself included ). 9

This is important, identifying how the CCDH reports have been the primary “reference” source of power used by media and government officials to smear, threaten and infringe on American citizens’ right to free speech.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security even schedules promulgating “false narratives” around COVID-1 9 as a top national protection threat, which basically throws a “domestic terrorist” target on the backs of those of us who have been identified by the CCDH as the most prolific “superspreaders” of COVID misinformation.

[ The’ Disinformation Dozen’] are responsible for about merely 0.05% of all beliefs of vaccine-related content on Facebook. This includes all vaccine-related announces they’ve shared, whether true-blue or fraudulent, as well as URLs associated with these parties.~ Monika Bickert, vice president of Facebook content policy

As reported by GreenMed Info: 10

“Google now indicates an fabulou 84,700 search results for CCDH’s defamatory phrase’ disinformation dozen. ’Amazingly, this includes 16,000 information legends within the international press, nearly 100% of which are word-for-word amplifications of CCDH’s claims/ libelou the declarations and reported uncritically as fact.

In addition, the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and chairperson Biden all worked CCDH’s report as the sole generator for their own defamatory accusations, reaching a risky rhetorical culmination on July 20 th when Biden stated that these 12 mortals are literally “killing people”[ by spreading misinformation ]. ”

No Evidence to Support’ Misinfo Superspreader’ Claim

In an August 18, 2021, Facebook report, Monika Bickert, vice president of Facebook content policy, rectifies things straight, and in the process, dismantles the CCDH’s claims: 11

“In recent weeks, there has been a debate about whether the global problem of COVID-1 9 inoculation misinformation to be resolved simply by removing 12 parties from social media platforms. People who have advanced this narrative is argued that these 12 people are responsible for 73% of online inoculation misinformation on Facebook. There isn’t any evidence to support this claim …

That said, any quantity of COVID-1 9 inoculation misinformation that violates our policies is too much by our standards — and “were having” removed over three dozen Pages, groups and Facebook or Instagram notes linked to these 12 parties, including at least one linked to each of the 12 beings, for breach our policies.

We have also imposed sanctions on roughly two dozen additional Sheets, groups or reports linked to these 12 parties, like moving their poles lower in News Feed so fewer people examine them or not recommending them to others. We’ve exercised sanctions to some of their website disciplines as well so any posts including their website content are moved lower in News Feed.

The remaining notes associated with these individuals are not affixing content that separates our rules, has actually posted a small amount of violating content, which we’ve removed, or are simply inactive.

In fact, these 12 people have the responsibility of about really 0.05% of all sentiments of vaccine-related content on Facebook. This includes all vaccine-related poles they’ve shared, whether true or fictitiou, as well as URLs associated with these people.”

It’s worth restating the key point in this quote: Combined, the top 12 individuals and organizations identified by the CCDH as be held accountable for a whopping 73% of inoculation misinformation on Facebook, are in fact only responsible for 0.05% of vaccine-related content — 1,460 times lower than the CCDH’s outrageous contend. That’s no big discrepancy.

CCDH Claims Blasted as Unjustified and Biased

Bickert goes on to refer directly to the CCDH report “The Disinformation Dozen, ”1 2 territory 😛 TAGEND

“The report1 3 upon which the faulty narration is located analyzed only a restrict decide of 483 articles of content over six weeks from merely 30 radicals, some of which are as small-time as 2,500 users.

They are in no way representative of the hundreds of millions of announces that people have shared about COVID-1 9 inoculations in the past months on Facebook.

Further, there is no explanation for how “the organizations activities” behind the report marked the contents they describe as’ anti-vax’ or how they opt for the 30 groups they included in their analysis. There is no justification for their declaration that their data constitute a’ representative sample’ of the content shared across our apps.”

CCDH Meet Definition of’ Hateful Extremists’

Ironically, while the CCDH claims to “counter hate” online, and Ahmed sits on the Steering committee of the U.K. Commission on Countering Extremism, CCDH itself actually gratifies the Commission’s definition of abhorrent fanatics. 14 In the 2019 “Commissions document”, “Challenging Hateful Extremism, ” the term is defined as: 15

“Behaviours that can incite and amplify hate, or engage in persistent hatred, or equivocate about and induce the moral bag for brutality; And that draw on abominable, hostile or supremacist notions placed at an out-group who are perceived as a threat to the wellbeing, existence or success of an in-group; And that lawsuit, or are likely to cause, harm to individuals, communities or wider society.”

In addition, in the forward of review reports, contribute commissioner Sara Khan notes that “Hateful militants seek to restrict individual immunities and diminish the fundamental freedoms that specifies our country.”

All of these definitions and explanations of what repugnant extremism is fit the CCDH to a T. Ahmed created data to create a false narrative that 12 men pose a threat to the well-being and survival of the whole world, and then used that narrative to motivate hate against us and curtail our freedom of speech.

josh hawley tweet

Who Fact Checks the Fact Checkers?

In associated information, the self-appointed arbiter of circumstantial truths, NewsGuard, has had to backpedal in recent months and controversy dozens of corrections to “fact checks” in which they’ve labeled the Wuhan lab leak theory as a discredited scheme philosophy with no basis in fact.

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, NewsGuard has incorrectly down-rated 225 websites for essays mentioning the lab leak theory. 16 In reality, there’s far better manifestation to support the lab leak theory than any other theory, but it took over a year before the heavines of this evidence became too obvious for the media to ignore.

NewsGuard’s inaccurate fact checks were recently highlighted in an August 11, 2021, report by the American Institute for Economic Research( AIER ). 17

AIER decided to take a closer look at NewsGuard after receiving a request for comments on a NewsGuard fact check article involving AIER and the Great Barrington Declaration — a statement written by public health experts from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford that calls on government to implement focused defence rather than lockdowns and self-isolation. AIERS investigation found that: 18

“ … NewsGuard falls far short of the very same criteria for accuracy and opennes that it claims to apply to other websites. Most of the company’s fact checkers need basic aptitudes in the scientific and social-scientific studies that they purport to arbitrate.

NewsGuard’s own track record of commentary — particularly on the Covid-1 9 pandemic — exposes a motif of inaccurate and misinforming claims that required subsequent adjustments, and analysis that regularly conflates fact with opinion journalism in return a judgement on a website’s content.

Furthermore, the company’s own traditions fall far short of the transparency and revealing standards it regularly to be applied in other websites … NewsGuard’s staff mainly assesses scientific assertions by pleading to the authority of public figures who they designate as’ experts’ on the subject in question.

Their approach generally escapes direct examination of the evidence smothering contested asserts, and instead cherry-picks a digit to treat as an definitive final word … many of their favor arbiters are political officeholders rather than beings trained in technical or social-scientific methods.

By selectively curating cherry-picked political officials rather than assessing attest immediately, NewsGuard’s approach to fact-checking effectively sidesteps the scientific programme. This policy is rendered even more problematic by the general lack of scientific expertise within NewsGuard’s team of writers.

We examined the educational credentials, including the highest degree rostered, for 28 publicly marked staff members on NewsGuard’s website. The company’s staff page exposes shockingly little knowledge in either the hard sciences such as medicine or social sciences such as public policy, financials, and related fields …

Most NewsGuard articles on Covid-1 9 topics and policies are written by[ NewsGuard Deputy Editor for Health, John] Gregory, whose simply linked aptitude is a bachelor’s degree in Media Arts … Gregory would not qualify as an expert in most of the fields he is responsible for fact-checking …

Of course , non-experts have every right to offer minds on scientific and social-scientific questions. Whether or not they should be taken seriously as actuality checkers or act as adjudicators of scientific contraventions is another question entirely.”

NewsGuard Staff by Field and Highest Degree Attained

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NewsGuard Apologizes for Erroneous Fact Checks

After being confronted about its spurious reality checks on the lab leak theory, NewsGuard offered the following apology in a statement sent to AIER: 19

“NewsGuard either mischaracterized the sites’ claims about the lab leak theory, referred to the lab leak as a’ scheme speculation, ’ or erroneously grouped together unproven claims about the lab leak with the separate, false allegation that the COVID-1 9 virus was man-made without explaining that one claim was unsubstantiated, and the other was false.

NewsGuard rationalizes for these lapses. We have shaped the appropriate adjustment on each of the 21 labels.”

AIER commented on the apology: 20

“Gregory and his colleagues appear to have simply decided that their own premature dismissal of the lab leak hypothesis equated to’ fact’ and proceeded to penalize other websites not for factual lapses, but very for differing from NewsGuard’s own editorial sentiment on the same subject.

When this position turned out to be mistaken, NewsGuard rotated to remove the errors — albeit in non-transparent ways that downplay the significance or pervasiveness of their mistake.”

NewsGuard Fails to Fulfill Its Own Credibility Criteria

In their report, AIER goes on to apply the criteria NewsGuard uses to evaluate a website’s credibility to NewsGuard itself. It’s ranking? A insignificant 36.25 out of 100. Harmonizing to AIER: 21

“This website fails to adhere to various basic journalistic standards, and should be used with extreme caution as information sources for validating the reliability of the websites it claims to frequency …

When we visualize knowledge checkers like NewsGuard, who is not merely fail to uphold their high-sounding principles but even publicly support working with the government to suppress speech, we should foster red flags.”

The NewsGuard ratings are meant to influence the reader, instructing them to disregard content with cautionary pigments and urges. That it would serve as the estimation police of the technocratic foundation that seeks to silence dissent and hide information that doesn’t help move the Great Reset agenda forward is no surprise.

Especially considering its primary startup uppercase came from Publicis Groupe, 22 a PR group that represents most of Big Pharma, including vaccine makers, and Big Tech. NewsGuard is also backed by Microsoft2 3 and Google.

The Publicis Groupe has been influencing what people think about commercial-grade commodities for nearly a century. Over that century, this advertising and communications firm bought or partnered with targeted pushing boulevards, is starting newspapers, followed by radio, TV, cinema and the internet.

With revenue streets self-assured, Publicis’ clients and collaborators built a world proximity that reigned the advertising world. Be it tobacco or sugar, Publicis Groupe witnessed a way to promote and strengthen big manufactures. Publicis was recently sued2 4 for its deadly and illegal marketing of Purdue Pharma’s opioid products.

When you consider that Publicis describes its business simulate approaching as putting clients and their needs and objectives at the center of all they do so their clients can “win and change, ” it’s easy to see what’s driving NewsGuard.

Overall, NewsGuard is just another big business aimed at continue the chemical, medicine and food industries, as well as mainstream media, intact by discrediting and eliminating unwanted entrants and advisers who empower you with information that runs counter to any given industry’s agenda.

If you’re as disturbed by censorship as I am, be sure to contact your local library today to find out if they’re one of the more than 700 libraries using NewsGuard. If then there, then asking questions if they’re aware of NewsGuard’s censorship of candid report that is now encroaching on scientific freedom and threatening the very roots of our democracy.

If your local library is using NewsGuard, it would be helpful to start a campaign to get it removed. Contact your neighbors and make them know what is happening so they can kick out this public health threat. Likewise, when you are understand person referencing reports by the CCDH, call them out on it.