1/ COMMENTARY ON MISINFORMATION FROM ELECTED OFFICIALS: It appears many did not read the 2018 Biodefense Strategy from the 45th administration. It's a lesson we should have learned back in 2020, if not before, since that is why the Jan 2020 travel ban failed, as we knew it would.
2/ No, it's not recall bias. Everyone was warning this had been spreading too long to control with travel restrictions. Border closures have high costs and typically help only with highly localized outbreaks that are very new.
3/ Covid is neither localized nor new. Past outbreaks have shown border closures cause more harm than they help in our situation. Weaponizing the pandemic against immigrants, which this might be given the lack of evidence, is a depraved abuse of power. bit.ly/3fingXA
1/ UPDATE ON A LIKELY ONGOING DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
In March, I recorded inauthentic activity coordinated among popular accounts, amplified by fake accounts, low reliability media outlets, and foreign disinformers. It surged again yesterday. Here's what I found.
2/ In terms of driving force, there is no competition. This was far and away, Jim Jordan.
3/ The sentiments of original tweets (not retweets) and replies was overwhelmingly negative. Text analysis of unique words shows the largest category was swear words/ad hominems.
1/ HOW THE RECENT ARREST OF THOMAS BARRACK, CONNECTS TO THE QATAR BLOCKADE, THE SAUDIS, AND HOW IT ULTIMATELY LED TO THE MASS STARVATION OF CHILDREN
2/ Kushner cultivated a friendship with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) throughout Trump's Presidency (bit.ly/3BpiO2H).
3/ The Trump administration did well over a dozen major favors for the Saudis, including vetoing congressional funding intended to prevent it from getting more weapons (nbcnews.to/3rpJ6NC)
That's interesting. So shall we take it that anything anyone supports that has the potential for harm must be assumed to have caused that harm? Let's apply that here. qctimes.com/news/local/gov…
Here we see a medical doctor being fined for not wearing a mask. In some cases small events--like the first case of Covid, go on to infect thousands and then millions. Can you explain why you would so aggressively pursue an anti-life stance that is callous to the oldest among us?
And what of this? Multiple sources in Iowa state that their mail was delayed by a full week around the election. I also found people who said they were called anonymously and told Biden wants to defund the police so they better not vote for him. coloradonewsline.com/briefs/u-s-hou…
2/ While I can't say for sure on that I can tell you as a disinformation researcher the recent revision that happened thanks to well-coordinated messaging, that isn't the answer.
3/ There's a couple of things you should know that were very strange about it. There's that puzzling @WSJ article that made wild claims based on a 'study' that was little more than a collage of information, ideas, and graphics that verge on incoherence. novelscience.substack.com/p/apocalyptic-…
1/ When I see govt officials banning topics from public education, my skin crawls. My family fled a place that banned things from school. It was to ensure the children were patriotic. I'm glad my grandparents can't see this. It's time for a lesson.
2/ Mao unleashed unprecedented violence against political rivals, academics, and intellectuals. Anyone who might expose or question him had to be silenced, but he wasn't a fool. He understood how to create an environment such that people welcome it. ozy.com/true-and-stori…
3/ This intentional limitation on education forced a kind of educational shutdown that devastated a generation and hobbled their opportunities for life. My grandfather described it once as a generation robbed of their potential and dreams, as they died with their eyes wide open.
2/ Facebook:
“At a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies.”
The administration did not choose to “blame.” This is a misleading mischaracterization.
3/ Researchers have been studying the growth of the anti-vaccine movement for years. Here is the movement by the numbers as reported in Jan 2021 (Rosalie, 2021):
1/ No evidence supports Sen Cruz's statements. Former national security officials from the Trump administration have warned that very similar rhetoric in 2018 may have contributed to mass shootings in El Paso and the Tree of Life Synagogue. @TwitterSafety
2/ @Neusummits the assistant secretary of counterterrorism and threat prevention at DHS for the Trump administration struggled to get officials to understand the danger to the public that their behavior was likely encouraging (n.pr/2USlwg4)
3/ She said:
"When you see the El Paso attacker, his manifesto was citing language and rhetoric that comes from the president’s campaign rallies about an invasion from Mexico and how we’ve got to protect our country.
1/ Lots of very concerning m/disinformation on Telegram about vaccines. Let's start with the foreign state-controlled messaging, "This is a huge psyop designed by Biden's owners to take away our rights and end our nation."
2/ RT
3/ Not all information is inaccurate. Simply highlighting everything that happens that is negative and omitting and positives can effectively influence our risk perception. We do it to ourselves sometimes but bad actors can also use this to influence us. More from RT.
1/ Anti-vaxxers received $1.5+ million in PPP loans. Mercola alone received $617,000. In exchange for forgivable fed loans that needy Americans were denied, we got disinformation. It's prolonging the pandemic and breaking communities and families. counterhate.com/pandemicprofit…
2/ It's been a banner year for spreading anti-vaccine ideology. Profiteers and violent extremist groups have sought to prey on the mental changes caused by uncertainty which make us more vulnerable. novelscience.substack.com/p/what-to-know…
3/ Anti-vaxxers generate over 1 billion per year for platforms while asserting that vaccine researchers, scientists, MDs, nurses, public health professionals, and pro-vaccine parents are financially motivated. They neglect to mention how much they make. bit.ly/3k9isHc
1/ The latest Hoaxlines Disinformation Newsletter: Delta Variant Discussion, Vaccine Disinformation, and Misleading Statements from Elected Officials novelscience.substack.com/p/delta-varian…
2/ On July 8, the global cumulative mortality surpassed 4 million deaths:
1 death to 1 million- 251 days
1 to 2 million- 114 days
2 to 3 million- 89 days
3 to 4 million- 89 days
3/ The United States is now reporting 18,489 new coronavirus cases per day, up around 75 percent since its low almost three weeks ago. This brings us variants and vaccination protection. Here's a mega-thread on that.
1/ DELTA VARIANT: HERE'S WHAT WE DO AND DO NOT KNOW
According to a new study published on Thursday in Nature, the Delta variant of the coronavirus can evade antibodies that target specific parts of the virus (go.nature.com/2VjlXAm).
2/ The findings may explain reduced protection against Delta compared to other variants. This is not necessarily proof of reduced protection against this variant, but it is a point in favor of that possibility.
3/ @JenniferNuzzo (if I had to rank the top five infectious disease experts whose opinion I want to hear, she makes the cut every time) shared this.
2/5 - increase mistrust about the findings of any investigation into the Jan 6th attack on the US Capitol, which may have involved members of Congress, cnn.com/2021/07/02/pol…
3/5 - cast doubt on serious allegations of sex trafficking of minors by Rep. Matt Gaetz, nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/…
1/13 The Alzheimer's narrative seems to partially be its own theory but its success may, in part, be due to how it fits in with the villainization of Dr Anthony Fauci. These narratives are participatory.
2/13 While claims of deaths from the vaccines were dispelled much more easily, conspiracy beliefs and rumors that purport serious side effects that would take years to appear would take at least that long to disprove. novelscience.substack.com/p/alzheimers-i…
3/13 It’s an unfortunate reality because one need not supply evidence to make such a claim. The bar for science remains high while the bar for casting doubt does not exist. novelscience.substack.com/p/americ-amnes…
2/ Fox echoed Russian narratives about the Biden-Putin summit during the summit. Then Russian-state media amplified the Fox content, using it to denigrate the US across its vast media ecosystem in and outside of Russia. tj.sputniknews.ru/20210608/putin…
3/ Increasingly Fox News content and comments are appearing on Russian-state TV and in media. The content is mostly used to mock or demean the US while painting Putin in a favorable light. A US voice praising Putin lends credibility to the claims in Russian state media.
1/9 Greetings! You may have seen on infotainment news sites that myocarditis is up in vaccinated kids by 200% 🙀 That sounds scary so let's look at what that means.
Covid causes myocarditis in a buttload of people. This is a very scientific unit of measurement.
2/9 It's a key reason why I was so worried from the very beginning.
3/9 Many viruses turn out to do unexpected things to us long-term. Chickenpox and shingles, measles and encephalitis/immune amnesia, and HPV and cancer. Gambling our nation's future was an exceptionally poor decision from so many perspectives. jneurosci.org/content/38/12/…
1/ Clarification: This report does not show Russia started the discussion, only that it was a very early contributor. In July 2020 two key events happened: 1) Daily Caller Foundation article on Jul 13 and 2) the screenshot here on Jul 15.
2/ Media coverage of CRT was marginal in Jan 2021. This is when the RT Telegram account first posted about CRT. RT first tweeted in Aug 2020 about CRT. Little activity happened around it from July to Dec 2020. Specifics about who/when is in the report. novelscience.substack.com/p/russia-ampli…
3/ This does not show it started with RT. What was noteworthy is that RT began messaging about it between the time the original stories were seeded (usually doesn't generate much activity) and the media blitz phase where it is suddenly everywhere. Could be multiple explanations.
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