Originally posted by Dave2002
View Post
-
Whatever the reasons, what an extraordinary upturned version of the "Zinoviev Letter"! -
Reading about the Zinoviev letter - fascinating stuff. Considerable dirty dealings in those days. So what's changed?Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View PostComment
-
DCMS Cttee of House of Commons: just published this online:
The Misinformation in the COVID-19 Infodemic report finds:
Online misinformation about Covid-19 was allowed to spread virulently across social media as a result of delays to online harms legislation
Evidence that tech companies benefited from the monetisation of misinformation and allowed others to do so
Light touch approach advocated by Government ‘insufficient’ to tackle tide of misinformation
Legislation must go beyond requiring platforms to enforce policies that are not fit for purpose
Efforts by tech companies to tackle misinformation through warning labels or tools to correct the record have fallen short
Key recommendations:
· Government should publish draft legislation - in part or in full - alongside the full consultation response to the White Paper this autumn if a finalised Bill is not ready
· Urges the Government to finalise the Regulator now. Notes Ofcom’s expedited work on misinformation in other areas of its remit in this time of crisis as arguments in its favour
New regulator should be empowered to examine the role of user verification in the spread of misinformation and other online harms
· Ministers should set out a comprehensive list of harms in scope for online harms legislation, rather than allowing companies to do so themselves or to set what they deem acceptable through their terms and conditions. The Regulator should have the power instead to judge where these policies are inadequate and make recommendations accordingly against these harms
· Government must empower the Regulator to go beyond ensuring that tech companies enforce their own policies, community standards and terms of service, but also ensure that these policies themselves are adequate in addressing the harms faced by society
· The Regulator should be empowered to hand out significant fines for non-compliance. It should also have the ability to disrupt the activities of businesses that are not complying, and ultimately to ensure that custodial sentences are available as a sanction where required
· Government not the Regulator should bring forward evidence-led process to decide which harms would be covered by legislation. Clearly differentiated expectations of tech companies for illegal content and ‘legal but harmful’ content should also be established
· Call for Government to urgently develop voluntary code of practice to protect citizens from harmful impacts of misinformation and disinformation prior to legislationComment
-
... and in some cases seemingly done deliberately or pointlessly by Potus.Originally posted by DracoM View PostComment
-
If you have 40 minutes to spare, the Fox News interview between Trump and Wallace is a historical document. Wallace pretty much the only real Fox journalist (their figleaf of journalism with integrity?). Wallace certainly throws out the punches, but the Trump method of deflecting them very much in evidence. I don't know what effect this would have on the average Trump viewer, but then, they probably don't watch Wallace. His patience and good humour to be admired, but how effective is it?Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post
Not for the apoplectic!It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
-
I've updated the chart in the following post to include today's weekly ONS report, taking the ONS data to 10th July.
Comment
-
You are tempted to say unbelievable but not really ..... I am sure that even if they watched it his supporters will swear that Biden wants to defund the police .......Originally posted by french frank View PostIf you have 40 minutes to spare, the Fox News interview between Trump and Wallace is a historical document. Wallace pretty much the only real Fox journalist (their figleaf of journalism with integrity?). Wallace certainly throws out the punches, but the Trump method of deflecting them very much in evidence. I don't know what effect this would have on the average Trump viewer, but then, they probably don't watch Wallace. His patience and good humour to be admired, but how effective is it?
Not for the apoplectic!Comment
-
Originally posted by antongould View Post
The interesting thing is that Trump is beginning to say that he 'doesn't like' Fox. And their edited interview has slotted in some of his coronavirus quotes which contradict what he says in the interview. Fox still has Hannity and Ingraham, but it seems he's moving over to the unabashedly pro-Trump OAN (One America News Network) to boost himself.
It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
-
Thanks for the link - very interesting.Originally posted by french frank View PostIf you have 40 minutes to spare, the Fox News interview between Trump and Wallace is a historical document. Wallace pretty much the only real Fox journalist (their figleaf of journalism with integrity?). Wallace certainly throws out the punches, but the Trump method of deflecting them very much in evidence. I don't know what effect this would have on the average Trump viewer, but then, they probably don't watch Wallace. His patience and good humour to be admired, but how effective is it?
Not for the apoplectic!
I admit that my hackles were raised by the first confrontation when both the interviewer and Trump were using crap (aka highly selective) statistics to make their point to the extent that both of the charts were wildly misleading. (Let's ignore that the Case Fatality Ratios are not the best metric in any case.)
Grrrr
Comment
-
Haha. Well, one was a journalist and the other was Trump, so I suppose neither could really be on top of the statistics (look at the UK's record on that). On fatality ratios, Wallace was responding to Trump's claim that the US record was better than any other country's, which even by an unsatisfactory metric isn't true.Originally posted by johnb View PostThanks for the link - very interesting.
I admit that my hackles were raised by the first confrontation when both the interviewer and Trump were using crap (aka highly selective) statistics to make their point to the extent that both of the charts were wildly misleading. (Let's ignore that the Case Fatality Ratios are not the best metric in any case.)
GrrrrIt isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
-
Fascinating clip, f f. And not in a good way. Did you say 'apoplectic'? Strangely enough, the more I watch and listen to the President the less I engage. I have to hand it to those American commentators and reporters who persist in 'calling him out', no doubt attempting to chip away at his appeal.Originally posted by french frank View Post
And you're right about the 'lies, damned lies...' too.Comment
-
Is this the only person suggesting that we actually change how we live and expect to live, in order to cope with the virus problem for years to come? https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...quo-only-worse
Why not employ more teachers, more of other essential workers, and generally slow down? Doesn't have to be "business as usual as before"?
One reason might be that ramping up a supply of new teachers appropriately trained fast enough might be rather hard, but the idea isn't fundamentally flawed. It doesn't work so well in a country where many services have been cut back hard - funded badly - in the interests of - well what, exactly - saving money?
People don't have to go back to the same jobs and activities that they did before, though many who may be "redeployed" will feel cheated if they effectively take a large pay cut, and what they are expected to pay for remain at the same costs as before. Some people may have really enjoyed what they did before, and would not find alternative employment or activities anything like as rewarding. I can't solve all these problems - probably nobody can.
There should be more flexibility, but I guess it's not going to happen.
Why should rigid adherence to payment rules set in more "normal" times be enforced, when everything else is going to have to change? Too much leeway won't work, as those people and organisations demanding payment will probably also have to pay others, but surely there could be some flexibility - perhaps a bit like putting capacitors to decouple parts of electrical circuits and provide buffer sources of energy.
I guess that the Chancellor is trying to do some things to help, but are the solutions proposed flexible and long lasting enough?Comment
-
Knowledge changes the basis of our definitions of 'normal'.
Until very recently we rarely have had to interrogate ourselves about what we meant by 'normal'.
We have a lot to learn from those who have had catastrophic physical or mental upheavals, and ask THEM what was and now is 'normal 'for them, and, more particularly, how they navigated the path from one to the other.Comment
-
Why? Simply because the enormous amounts of money now needed for taxation purposes to fund non-profitable activities without which civilisation would be over would not be there! Economic shrinkage, meltdown, call it what you may, would concomitantly lead to massive de-valuation - euphemism for burning huge bundles of banknotes no longer worth anything in order to "re-balance" the finances. This would not mean prices going down - on the contrary, the scarcity in consumables attendant on closing down sections of productive indstry thereby rendered unprofiable and bankrupt would mean more being paid for less by ordinary folks whose wages would either not increase to make up for it, or would be cut in order to keep them in what jobs remained. In the meantime the rich ruling classes will either already be in possession of their hoardes, built up "for a rainy day" or would have sequestered them away in tax havens. Things that would equalise out in a fairer more rational world just don't under the capitalist mode of production - it really is as simple as that!Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostComment
-
I should stress that I don't attribute the virus outbreak to the present state of capitalism, which has been in decline on many levels for a long time - longer than since the 2007 collapse. Any economic system, however good, would have been confronted with inordinate problems in trying to clear it up. Under the existing criteria as set out in my previous message it is going to take enormous amounts of money out of the system which could otherwise have been allocated more positively elsewhere. Normally the classes revert to their own survivalism. If anything salutary is to be learned it it will come from the rare coincidence of interests between the richest and the poorest sections of society - to spell it out, existential survival - which comes rarely, the last occasion afforded in history being World War II.Comment
Comment