10 Examples of the Mandela Effect
Good Reddit thread on thinking about the coronavirus statistically
APPARENTLY, HE ACTUALLY IS DEAD, JUST A BIT LATER THAN THE INITIAL REPORT: The Coronavirus Whistleblower Who Gave His Life.
This continuously updated global tracker identifies confirmed cases of the coronavirus by country and region – along with total deaths and total recovered – with an additional map view.
See also via Vice – ‘It’s a Moral Imperative:’ Archivists Made a Directory of 5,000 Coronavirus Studies to Bypass Paywalls – The potentially illegal archive is a ‘moral imperative,’ said one organizer.
First coronavirus death recorded outside China, as toll passes 300
The Philippines reported the first death from the virus outside China as the WHO warned other countries to prepare in case the disease spreads among their populations.
How Beijing kept the world in the dark as coronavirus spread
As the virus first began to emerge in late December, Chinese police announced they were investigating eight people for spreading rumours about the outbreak.
Everything you need to know about coronavirus in one place
Here's a rundown of all the facts about coronavirus, and how you can make sure you're protected.
Citing Coronavirus Epidemic, Boston Symphony Cancels Asia Tour
“When officials with the Shanghai Oriental Art Center informed BSO that they were canceling the concert and other events because of the outbreak, BSO followed up with their presenting partners in Seoul, Taipei and Hong Kong, and ultimately decided to shelve the tour, the orchestra’s statement said.” – Boston Classical Review
Hoaxes about coronavirus spread faster than the virus itself
Three
weeks ago, China officially reported the first
death caused by the 2019 coronavirus. But since then there has been a
distinct lack of quality data from the Chinese government about the origins of
the new disease and the official steps authorities are taking to find a cure
for it.
The
information void has led to widespread disinformation that is too much for any
one fact-checker. For this reason, last Friday, fact-checkers
from more than 30 countries decided to band together and share information.
With the coordination of the International Fact-Checking Network and the help
of simple tools like Slack and Google Sheets, members of the collaborative
started to read each other’s fact-checks, translate the content into different
languages and republish it as often as possible as a way to prevent hoaxes from
spreading.
As
of Wednesday, the community had detected 86 instances of misleading information
that deserved international attention. Many involved a false coronavirus
patent, which wasn’t hard to debunk.
False
Facebook posts claiming that the Chinese virus wasn’t really new surfaced
almost at the same time in the United States, Canada, India, France, Turkey and
Brazil. Some of these posts were accompanied by wild conspiracy theories about
the existence of biosecurity labs. Others were picked up by the
anti-vaccination movement to “prove” that the health industry is just causing
panic so it can develop and sell a vaccine.
The
World Health Organization on Monday issued a list of prevention
tips to help people avoid contracting the virus. But that didn’t keep
internet users from sharing hoaxes about how to protect themselves. A list of
ineffective substances to prevent the disease includes, so far, salty
water and a
magic spray. Others suggested remedies like grape
vinegar, steroids
and ethanol.
There will no doubt be more to come.
Fact-checkers
are also aiming to deliver their coronavirus content in formats that allow them
to reach the widest possible audience. BuzzFeed is keeping
a running list. (Poynter-owned) MediaWise is doing stories on Instagram and
republishing them on YouTube.
Meanwhile,
The Washington Post reported that the big tech platforms are themselves scrambling
to contain conspiracy theories and other misinformation about the virus.
This is a tough situation for Facebook, Twitter and Google, but perhaps even
tougher for platforms not commonly used in the West, like Line, KakaoTalk and
Weibo.
. . . technology
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is unwilling to battle the spread of disinformation and propaganda on his own company’s platform, Hillary Clinton told The Atlantic.
- “They have, in my view, contorted themselves into
making arguments about freedom of speech and censorship,” Clinton said,
“which they are hanging on to because it’s in their commercial
interests.”
- Amid WhatsApp users in India, a new study found efficacy in user-driven corrections to misinformation. Boom has a thorough account.
. . . politics
- Content on TikTok is getting more political, The Wall Street Journal’s Shelby Holliday reported in a (what else?) video story. That also means more misinformation leading into this fall’s U.S. election, she said, and experts predict the platform will face challenges as it attempts to moderate the content.
- “TikTok is in very nascent stages of doing this,” Kate Klonick, an assistant professor at St. John's University Law School, told Holliday. “I think they have their work cut out for them because they just might not have the sheer number of people, let alone the rules in place to attack disinformation.”
·
The
Washington Post’s Isaac Stanley-Becker dissected
pro-Trump smears against former National Security Advisor John Bolton after
it was reported that his new book would corroborate accounts that the president
withheld aid for Ukraine in an effort to advance a probe into the Bidens.
. . . the future of news
- Fast-breaking news is always a rich environment for hoaxers. The latest example was the death of the basketball star Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others in a helicopter crash. “Twitter became an absolute mess … filled with falsehoods and misinformation, much of which spread by verified users who were parroting unconfirmed reports,” Mic reported.
o
The
pattern was familiar, Daniel Funke and Ciara O’Rourke wrote
for PolitiFact: First there were suggestions that it was planned, then
false videos, then claims that it never happened.
- It gets worse: Some social media posts said Bryant tweeted before the crash that he had dirt on Hillary Clinton. PolitiFact promptly debunked this. And AFP debunked an old video purported to be of the crash.
As
we know from a manipulated
video that went viral last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a common
target of misinformation on social media. Now the California Democrat’s
leadership of the House’s impeachment of President Donald Trump is attracting
another kind of hoax.
This
one involves the pens she used while signing the impeachment articles the House
sent to the Senate on Jan. 15. After signing the articles, Pelosi gave the pens
as souvenirs to some of her colleagues. That made her the
target of criticism that she was turning a solemn event into some kind of
performative ceremony.
But
then came the hoaxes, most of them claiming the pens cost thousands of dollars.
At least one said they were made of 14-karat gold. One post said she used
$15,000 worth of pens for the signatures.
All
these were debunked
by FactCheck.org, which tracked down the source of the pens and learned
that they have a suggested retail value of about $20 each.
What we liked: Others had checked this claim
before,
but FactCheck.org reporter Saranac Hale Spencer went to the actual vendor,
Garland Writing Instruments in Rhode Island, and talked to its owner. He told
FactCheck.org he’s also filled orders for the Trump White House and others.
1. Anti-vaxxers are piggy-backing on
political hashtags like Joe Biden's #nomalarkey, Vice
News reported.
2. In Canada, an
anti-vaccination film was shown in some public libraries and select movie
theatres in Alberta, alarming public health advocates and doctors in the
province.
3. Angelina Jolie is teaming up with the
BBC to produce a documentary to help young people learn news literacy, Variety
reported.
4. Pinterest is
banning misinformation about the 2020 U.S. census.
5. Mike Caulfield, who heads a digital
polarization initiative at the American Democracy Project, wrote
in Nieman Lab about how a simple command — in this case CTRL-F — can help
fight against misinformation.
6. There have been lots of stories about
Finland’s vaunted news literacy education program. Here’s
a new one from The Guardian.
7. U.S. senator and presidential candidate
Elizabeth Warren has unveiled
a proposal to
impose penalties on platforms that spread disinformation about voting
locations and rules.
