Fediverse vs Disinformation

As Israel bombs Iran, and the threat of U.S. military escalation grows by the hour, the world’s attention is being pulled into yet another war that Israel started and the West manufactured. After flattening Gaza and locking down the West Bank Israel has now dragged Iran into open confrontation — and is calling on the U.S. to finish the job.

In this News Brief, we break down the insta-talking points to sell war with Iran––from Ticking Time Bomb '24' plots to cherry-picked, dubious anecdotes of Iranians supposedly begging for Israeli bombs.

Comprehensive new research finds the BBC coverage of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is systematically biased against Palestinians and fails to reach standards of impartiality.

Analysis of more than 35,000 pieces of BBC content by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) shows Israeli deaths are given 33 times more coverage per fatality, and both broadcast segments and articles included clear double standards. BBC content was found to consistently shut down allegations of genocide.

These findings directly contradict claims by authors of a September 2024 report on BBC impartiality. Led by Israel-based British lawyer and Zionist Trevor Asserson, the Asserson report’s authors alleged their study across a four-month period revealed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel. The Asserton report was funded in part by an anonymous “Israeli businessman based in London” and carried out by Israeli lawyers as part of an opaque group called Research for Impartial Media (RIMe). It received tech support from AI company Blueskai, which describes itself as “fortified by strategic roots in Israel’s prime minister’s office”.

The CfMM research found that the BBC used emotive terms – “brutal”, “atrocities”, “slaughter”, “barbaric”, “deadly” – four times more often for Israeli victims. It applied the term “massacre” 18 times more to Israeli casualties, and used the word “murder” 220 times for Israeli deaths compared to just once for Palestinians. The words “butchered”, “butcher” and “butchering” were found to be used exclusively for Israeli victims by BBC correspondents and presenters.

Despite Gaza suffering 34 times more casualties than Israel, the BBC ran almost equal numbers of humanising victim profiles. It was also found to have attached “Hamas-run health ministry” to Palestinian casualty figures in 1,155 articles – almost every time the Palestinian death toll was referenced across BBC articles.

The BBC was found to consistently and repeatedly suppress allegations of genocide. BBC presenters shut down genocide claims in over 100 documented instances, while making zero mention of Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements, including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblical Amalek reference...

When reporting on attacks on Palestinians, the study found the BBC repeatedly obscured Israeli responsibility through the use of passive language in headlines. Israeli perspectives were found to be prioritised, with BBC presenters sharing the Israeli perspective 11 times more frequently than the Palestinian perspective – 2,340 times for Israeli compared to 217 times for Palestinian...

From Gaza to Tehran, Israel's expanding war is defended by the West as self-defence - just as it was in 1967, when conquest was hailed as a triumph of the civilised

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31383170

California Governor Gavin Newsom has accused the Trump administration of deliberately spreading doctored and misleading images of recent protests in Los Angeles.

On X, formerly Twitter, the Department of Defense's Rapid Response account posted a video that appeared to show burning, graffitied police cars during protests in Los Angeles this week.

However, the fact-checking website Snopes said the image showed protests in Los Angeles following the death of George Floyd in May 2020.

After Israel launched airstrikes at Iranian nuclear and residential infrastructure on June 12, right-wing media figures rushed to fearmonger that supposed Democratic “open border” policies allowed Iranian “sleeper cells” into the country that might now execute terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

Israel has launched an unprovoked assault on Iran, including strikes on nuclear facilities and assassinations of several senior military commanders and scientists. In front of the world’s media, however, the Netanyahu government is spinning the attack as “preemptive”.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0JOlh6yZg0

In this public News Brief, we detail how the NYT, Washington Post, and CNN reinforce every faulty premise of Israel's attack and how top Democrats in Congress and former Harris aides either ignore Trump and Israel's massive escalation or openly support it, showing once again the scope of debate in our politics and media ranges all the way from A to B.

Mainstream media outlets almost entirely ignored news that the Trump administration is reportedly reorganizing the State Department to include a new “Office of Remigration.” “Remigration” is a term long used by far-right extremists to describe ethnic cleansing.

The network aired at least 59 segments mentioning trans athletes in just one week

I think we all know by now that major social media platforms in the West are the target of multiple astroturfing and psyop campaigns by both private and state actors.

This post, while obvious in implication, is important as it is the first time I have seen this fact discussed on a major site without receiving a large volume of accusations of conspiratorial thought in recent memory. I think there is also an important meta-discussion to be had regarding our role in combating such campaigns as fediverse denizens.

Obviously, we don't have the manpower to oppose things like this directly. There is additionally the unfortunate reality that we are not as immune here as we might like to think. I personally believe the fediverse likely is subject to similar astroturfing and that to believe otherwise is naive. However, even if there is no major targeting of sites like Lemmy, we are still subject to a trickledown effect from the major social media sites. Popular opinion will be swayed here indirectly by these campaigns regardless of if we are targeted specifically or not.

How can we protect our communities and more importantly our societies?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66472753

It's been so crazy that I forgot all about the DHS list of jurisdictions in violation of the Trump administration's policy on sanctuary cities according to his EO released on April 28th. Apparently they published it last week and immediately took it back down.

When the EO was released, I figured my own city would be on the list, and it was, along with 36 other jurisdictions.

So can't say for sure, but it definitely has me a little nervous that all the jurisdictions on that list could soon be facing what we're seeing play out in California. The mayor said, she believes what is happening in L.A. is a test run, and I agree with her 100%

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66395730

The alleged conspiracy spanned nearly a decade and involved the domestic transport of thousands of noncitizens from Mexico and Central America, including some children, in exchange for thousands of dollars, according to the indictment.

Abrego Garcia is alleged to have participated in more than 100 such trips, according to the indictment. Among those allegedly transported were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Abrego Garcia is the only member of the alleged conspiracy charged in the indictment.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/31288698

In The Political Economy of Human Rights, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman argued that the American ruling class and corporate media regard bloodbaths as being constructive, nefarious or benign. A constructive bloodbath is typically carried out by the US or one of its proxies, and is endorsed in establishment media. The most obvious contemporary example is the genocidal US/Israeli campaign in Gaza, approved by media commentators in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

The two other approaches that Chomsky and Herman outline illuminate the corporate media’s approach to Syria. When Bashar al-Assad was in power in Syria and the US was seeking his overthrow, corporate media treated killings that his government and its allies carried out as nefarious bloodbaths: Their violence was denounced in corporate press with unambiguous language, and prompted demands that the US intervene against them.

In the months since Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa came to power, with substantial assistance from the US and its partners, his government has opened Syria’s economy to international capital, arrested Palestinian resistance fighters, indicated that it’s open to the prospect of normalizing relations with Israel, and opted not to defend Syria against Israel’s frequent bombings and ever-expanding occupation of Syrian land. In that context, Washington has embraced Damascus, with Trump praising al-Sharaa personally, and finally lifting the brutal sanctions regime on Syria.

As these developments have unfolded, US media have switched from treating bloodbaths in Syria as nefarious to treating them as benign. A benign bloodbath is one to which corporate media are largely indifferent. They may not openly cheer such killings, but the atrocities get minimal attention, and don’t elicit high-volume denunciations. There are few if any calls for perpetrators to be brought to justice or ousted from government.

I just think it's interesting. It's political theater like Fox News, but it's interesting to see it in another cultural context and with different behaviors of argumentation being modeled for the audience and different types of false conflict to keep them engaged.

Also, Tucker Carlson sure looks like hell now. He used to look vigorous and bad like an 80s comedy villain, then he got lazy and started looking like an HOA Karen, and now he's turning into a bloated prep school Mitch McConnell. He also looks super unhappy.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65322395

Looking less likely that this is just a distraction. I think the breakup is pretty official 💔

Just to be clear though, most of what Musk was doing under DOGE was planned by Thiel during Trump's first administration, when he brought Michael Kratsios in to OSTP to help Trump with technology issues.

June 2018: The president’s most senior technology advisor claims the White House is quietly pursuing an aggressive AI plan.

Speaking at EmTech Next, a conference held at MIT, Kratsios, who is deputy assistant to the president and deputy US chief technology officer, said the government is looking for ways to open up federal data to AI researchers. “Anything that we can do to unlock government data, we’re committed to,” Kratsios told MIT Technology Review. “We’d love to hear from any academic that has any insights.”

Data has been a key factor behind recent advances in artificial intelligence. For example, better voice recognition and image processing have been contingent on the availability of huge quantities of training data. The government has access to large amounts of data, and it’s possible that it could be used to train innovative algorithms to do new things. “Anything we can do to figure that out, we will work very hard on,” Kratsios added.

Elon first began to step back from government once Kratsios was confirmed to serve as Trump's Science Advisor during his second term.

Odd timing that as of yesterday, Neuralink raised $600M and is now valued at $9B. It would appear Musk at least got something out of being the official face of taking a chainsaw to American government

Whenever you follow the science, the right wing will fall to pieces.