1/ 🧵This graph shows X posts by impressions in the first six hours after the Magdeburg attack. Specifically these are posts falsely attributing the attack to an Islamist terror attack or a Syrian, or using it as an opportunity to attack immigration or muslims #disinformation
2/ The usual suspects are there - that is, the anti-Islam disinfluencers (routine spreaders of disinformation). As you can see, one of the most widely viewed is @visegrad24 - who shared at least 6 posts falsely claiming the attacker was an Islamist
3/ The posts falsely claiming that the attacker was a Muslim or Islamist gained at least 38,000,000 views. False claims that he was Syrian resulted in around 8.4million views (remember this is just an approx 6 hour period).
4/ If you include dogwhistle or slightly ambiguous racist or anti-immigrant statements then you can see how many impressions @nigel_farage got. He used the Magdeberg attack as an opportunity for a dogwhistle attack on Muslim immigrants
5/ People like Andrew Tate also got a lot of impressions, although not clear what he is trying to say here, implying the attacker was a Muslim or that he believes in 'Islamic-style' punishment?
6/ Then a lot of the usual suspects either giving false information about the attacker or using at as an opportunity to promote anti-Muslim and anti-Immigration sentiment @DaveAtherton20 @RadioGenoa @goldingbf etc
7/ It's important to note that with disinfluencers like this on soc media platforms - no amount of good journalism will stop this. The reflex of some ppl is to spread hate speech or faleshoods regardless of facts. With no platform accountability it will continue to get worse
8/ And just as a reminder the perpetrator was a Saudi-born man living legally in Germany as a doctor, who according to Germany’s minister of the interior held Islamophobic views.
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1/ THREAD: On populist gaslighting and the war on truth-tellers 🧵
2/ Something concerning is happening in our information ecosystem: populists aren't just spreading misinfo, they're systematically trying to undermine the very concept of verifiable truth
3/ When fact-checkers or experts present evidence contradicting false claims, they get labeled as "elitist manipulators" or 'censors' - effectively inverting reality
🧵 THREAD: Meta's disturbing new "free speech" announcement is a masterclass in how platforms enable digital harm under the guise of freedom 1/9 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Meta announces it's getting rid of factcheckers & "restrictions" on gender/immigration content. This isn't about free speech - it's about platforming hate & disinformation under the guise of "mainstream discourse" 2/9
Key red flags: ❗️❗️❗️
Moving content teams to Texas "for less bias" (read: political motivation)
Replacing factcheckers with "community notes"
Framing basic content moderation as "censorship" 3/9
🧵1/ I analysed the headline and lead paragraph of 536 English news articles including the terms "Maccabi" + "Amsterdam" and classified them using Claude 3.5 Sonnet to determine how many framed Israelis as victims or non-Israelis as primary victims (as well as both).
2/ The results are fairly striking. 65% of articles frame Israelis as the victim, while only 5% frame Non-Israelis as victims. 24% are neutral while 9% framed both groups as victims. Quite clear the media emphasised violence as anti-Israeli and antisemitic, especially early on
3/ There isn't much evidence too of corrective framing at this point, although a small increase in neutral framing a week after the incident. Israeli victimhood was categorised as emphasis of violence initiated by non-Israelis, and focus on anti-Israeli or antisemitic violence
🧵 1/ Part of understanding what is going on in Amsterdam is also to understand the coordinated anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant campaigns run with huge amounts of money targeting Europe. Here's a short private Eye article about an investigation I did with @SohanDsouza
2/ Here's a write-up by @karamballes on the campaign in @BylineTimes "Disinformation Campaign on Social Media Reached More Than 40 Million People – but Meta ‘Alarmingly’ Hasn't Revealed the Culprits' bylinetimes.com/2024/08/30/qat…
@karamballes @BylineTimes 3/ ...How a covert influence campaign helped Europe’s far right
Our findings about the shadowy multi-platform operation attacking Qatar and stoking Islamophobia to further its far-right agenda in Europe and beyond call for immediate action. aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/…
🧵🚨1/ This is nuts. After mysteriously deleting a package covering the Amsterdam protests, Sky News have put up a new version. The new version completely changes the thrust to emphasise that the violence was antisemitic. See the opening screenshot change below
2/Even the tweet accompanying the video has changed. It has explicitly shifted from mentioning anti-Arab slogans to removing the phrase "anti-Arab" and using antisemitism. It also removes mention of vandalism by Israeli fans. An extremely clear editorial shift!
3/ They have also inserted into the video, right after the opening footage of Dutch Prime Minister condemning antisemitsm. This was not in the original video.
1/ If you break down the BBC's live reporting of what happened in Amsterdam, you can see the disproportionate attention it pays to Maccabi fans and Israelis as victims, with far less attention paid to the actions of Maccabi fans. Here are the sources interviewed.
2/ In terms of mentions of Arab, Dutch or other Ajax fans, there is very little emphasis on Arab safety, with the majority of coverage focused on Maccabi fans as victims. There are vox pops with fans, but very little interaction with non-Maccabi people.
3/ The language used to describe the attacks on the Maccabi fans is also much stronger, ranging from pogroms to brutal and shocking. Similar terms aren't use for the anti-Arab racism.