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Disinformation threatens humanity’s ability to tackle the key issues of our time. Climate change, pandemics, human rights, biodiversity, and helping expand democracy across the world all require protecting our communities against disinformation designed to polarize us and silence the facts.
As anti-democratic governments and other actors weaponize social media to harm us, it is on us to protect freedom of expression and our information ecosystem. Clear, transparent regulations are needed now more than ever. This conference is designed for us to find the best ways to do that.
One of our most recent reports has shown how, one year after the start of the pandemic, Facebook is still failing to protect Europeans from dangerous COVID-related disinformation (Politico, Vice, Forbes, Le Figaro, El País, Repubblica, Estadão). Our work has contributed to convince the EU of the need for more ambitious action.
But now we need to make sure that these proposals are not watered down. The Avaaz Webinar on Thursday will show them that citizens are watching!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/towards-a-paris-agreement-for-disinformation-tickets-158408503097?aff=AvaazMembers
I agree Mr T!
Agreed Mr T. I think it is good time for people to review where and how they get their information. A lot of it is misinformation, ...poorly informed, has remarkably little scientific veracity or input...etc... The covid related reporting has been a case in point. In Australia people watching the TV are now on a fever pitch form of hysteria (the mass media is really little more than the mass hysteria here) about the virus 24/7, not realising that more people are dying from the "normal flu" and pneumonia, or in fact the vaccine of choice (which our politicians do not take?) for the over 50's or over 60's as it is now.
Following the above, one of the more informative sites for covid related is below
https://thebulletin.org/2021/06/caltechs-david-baltimore-discusses-the-debate-over-origins-of-sars-cov-2/
Why is there not more infromative discussion and debate on gain in funtion research?
Its a strange worled where we can have access to so much information at the touch of the screen, yet so much is useless, life drianing, life wasting and dare I mention manipulative. I feel for the Lemmings
best
the gnome
Hi MrGnome,
"When the history books are written, will Boris Johnson still get away with it?"
This was asked by a woman in the Q and A at the Wimbledon Book Festival.
There have been 55 prime ministers since Robert Walpole became the first around three hundred years ago, and all are to greater and lesser extents ‘historical’ figures. Like it or not, Johnson, even if he left tomorrow, is already on the ‘greater extent’ side of the ledger, the Brexit in which he has played such a key role being an event of genuinely historic import, however it plays out in the future.
As to how history will see him, that depends on what happens as post-Brexit Britain unfolds, and what happens in the rest of Johnson’s career and life
"Will he still get away with it?"
Her ‘still’ carried with it a hint of exasperation, that a man could tell so many lies, make so many mistakes, display so many character flaws, but ‘get away with it’. The lies and false promises, helped deliver the biggest constitutional change to our country of recent times, with consequences both foreseen and unforeseen that have done damage to our economy, our trading arrangements, our ability to travel and do business, the Northern Ireland peace process, our power, our rights, and our standing in the world.
Yet the scale of his Brexit getting away with it was such that he was elevated to the highest elected office in the land on the back of it. Then Covid-19 provided a perfect breeding ground for the character flaws and mistakes to come together and deliver one of the worst pandemic mismanagement's anywhere in the world, his getting away with it largely down to a successful vaccination programme, one good thing serving, with the pro Tory media’s help, to drown out so much that was bad!
So ‘still’ he is well ahead in the polls and grandstanding on the world stage, with much of our media, print and broadcast, coming over as a cross between a BoJo advertorial and a Cornwall Tourist Board promotional campaign.
Cornwall is a lovely holiday destination, at a time when thanks to the mistakes, travel guidance chaos and PCR-test rip-off-ology, more and more people are looking to holiday at home, is beyond doubt.
That the Johnson we know – and that includes the journalists reporting on him – bears any real resemblance to the Johnson they were describing in reports that could have been written and edited in Number 10 or Tory HQ – is less certain!
Cont
There seems little doubt that the nature of the Westminster media is a big part in the public perception that standards in public life are not what they were.
Two recent all too typical examples. Vote Leave and Tory Party donor Peter Cruddas, elevated to the House of Lords 1
Blatant toadyism when Johnson overruled the Appointments Commission which sought to block the peerage over allegations from his time as Tory treasurer, made a £500,000 donation three days after taking his seat!
Disinformation, barely a murmur in the media. Just not, so far as most of them are concerned, a big deal?
When did this kind of lack of interest by the fourth estate become normal?
This is what happens when the majority pro-Johnson papers decide to ignore a big story is that all too often the broadcasters follow suit and, unless the opposition makes news on the issue, it tends to die!
Mr Tibbles
I certainly agree with you about Boris Johnson and his cronies, but I have to say that you write about him and his government as if they started all this corruption when the truth is I can't name you a government and its members that haven't fallen short of morals and decent public office standards, in any era.
Mandelson, John Prescott, Patricia Hewitt (her husband's dealings with Berlussconi), Cecil Parkinson, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathon Aitken and John Major to name a few in recent years. Then there's Lloyd George who told his secretary, Frances Stephenson, if she didn't sleep with him she was out of a job. Asquith and his affair with Venetia Stanley when there was the small matter of WW1 going on, and the most useless Christamas present you could give Lord Palmerstone was a pair of underpants!
Boris Johnson is a useless git, and it's so unfortunate he is around when we need someone who is diligent and has a brain. When was it ever so?
I think we need to bring back King Alfred the Great - he's the only leader that comes to mind that could really lead and had vision.
Hi Red,
oh I agree wit your comments that this is'nt the first corrupt government, but possibly one of the most untruthful and deceitful ever!
Even King Athelstan saw the sense of good relations and trading and with Europe!
On 27 October 939 Athelstan – the first and perhaps the greatest King of England – died in Gloucester at the age of 47. This man was remembered as a famous warrior who defeated the Danes and the Scots and forged the Kingdom we now call England. However, he was also a gifted statesman who introduced legal and social reform, founded churches across his new land, and brought England into contact with mainland Europe more than any ruler who came before him.
After helping the Norwegians he was known for a long time as “Athelstan the good.” A wise King, fine warrior and one of the greatest men of an entire continent, Athelstan should be remembered and celebrated.
King Athelstan 'The summit of the Western world!"
How many of our politicians and leaders today will be referred to in such a manner?
Another brilliant episode about Alfred the Great's grandson, King Athelstan (924-39) from UK historian Michael Wood's legendary 1979-81 BBC TV series 'In Search of the Dark Ages'.
In 934 he led a huge fleet and land army to Scotland to subdue the Scots as far as the rock at Dunnotar.
In 937 he gathered a huge Wessex-Mercian army to face a large alliance of invading Scots/Dublin Norsemen at Brunanburh (unidentified, probably either near Sheffield in the region between Mercia/Northumbria Wood called a ''Dark Age Vietnam'', or the Vale of York) in a ferocious pitched battle, in which the English prevailed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG7ar1FBfqY
https://www.historyhit.com/death-athelstan-first-king-england/
A brilliant series, Mr Tibbles.
King Alfred's eldest daughter, Aethelflaed, set up the show though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelfl%C3%A6d