A digital gangster destroying democracy: the damning verdict on Facebook

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Parliament’s report into fake news raises many questions, but will the government act?

Facebook is an out-of-control train wreck that is destroying democracy and must be brought under control. The final report of parliament’s inquiry into fake news and disinformation does not use this language, precisely, but it is, nonetheless, the report’s central message. And the language it does use is no less damning.

Facebook behaves like a “digital gangster”. It considers itself to be “ahead of and beyond the law”. It “misled” parliament. It gave statements that were “not true”. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has treated British lawmakers with “contempt”. It has pursued a “deliberate” strategy to deceive parliament.

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El Mozote massacre triggers passions in Washington decades later

Rep. Ilhan Omar In a recent Congressional hearing first year member of the US House of Representatives Ilhan Omar challenged Elliott Abr…

Source: El Mozote massacre triggers passions in Washington decades later

Just a final comment — there seems to be a suggestion from some on the right that to challenge Elliott Abrams as a fitting US representative for anything involving Latin American policy is the same as supporting Maduro in Venezuela.   That’s a completely specious argument.    You can be opposed (as I am) to Maduro’s ruinous rule in Venezuela and his violations of human rights without needing to support Abrams who actively acted to cover up the human rights abuses of an oppressive regime in El Salvador and elsewhere.   You have more credibility and integrity if you denounce human rights abuses wherever they exist, not just when the human rights abuses are committed by a government on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers

Clowns and Russians use YouTube like they use Facebook and Twitter!

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Conspiracy theories shown on video-sharing site persuade people to doubt Earth is round

Researchers believe they have identified the prime driver for a startling rise in the number of people who think the Earth is flat: Google’s video-sharing site, YouTube.

Their suspicion was raised when they attended the world’s largest gatherings of Flat Earthers at the movement’s annual conference in Rayleigh, North Carolina, in 2017, and then in Denver, Colorado, last year.

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Desperate teens of anti-vaxxers are turning to Reddit for vaccination advice

Hyper sensitive people duped by those who enjoy spreading misinformation. Desperate teens of anti-vaxxers are turning to Reddit for vaccination advice:

dailydot:

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As a kid, Ethan wasn’t allowed to be vaccinated. Ethan’s parents are one of the up to 10 percent of Americans who are against some form of vaccination, often believing that preventing disease in children is a government conspiracy.

But Ethan is not his parents. When he turned 18, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He wasn’t sure where else to begin, so he turned to Reddit.

“Where do I go to get vaccinated? Can I get vaccinated at my age?” Ethan asked his fellow redditors in December.

Ethan’s post flooded with over 1,000 comments from users offering their encouragement and support, along with practical advice.


Anti-vaxxers have also mastered the art of social media, where they effectively disseminate misinformation via platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Ethan said his mom is part of many online social groups, with many of them relating to “mothers against vaccines,” and he often sees her posting about how vaccines are a government conspiracy and harmful on Facebook.  

“My mom would publish and share videos, articles, and stuff like that about vaccines being bad,” Ethan said. “It’s almost as if she had been radicalized, or indoctrinated at some point. She holds that stuff as gospel.”

Ana Lucía Schmidt, a co-researcher of the seven-and-a-half-year study “Polarization of the Vaccination Debate on Facebook,” told the Daily Dot that the anti-vaxxing community’s social media usage is a classic example of confirmation bias.

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UK’s richest man moves to Monaco to ‘save £4bn in tax’

rich traitors!

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Brexiter Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s company Ineos is reportedly working with PricewaterhouseCoopers to reduce bill

Britain’s richest man, the Brexit supporter Sir Jim Ratcliffe, and two of his key lieutenants at chemicals firm Ineos have reportedly been planning to save up to £4bn in tax after moving to Monaco.

The company, which is valued at about £35bn, is working with tax experts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to create a new structure for the business to dramatically reduce the tax paid on its global revenues, according to the Sunday Times.

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Protests erupt in Brazil after death of black teenager who was restrained

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Campaigners say Black Lives Matter movement is emerging after action in five major cities

Brazilian activists have taken to the streets in five major cities after the death of a young black man who was restrained by a supermarket security guard.

Campaigners said the protests are feeding a nascent Black Lives Matter movement in Brazil, where nearly three-quarters of all homicide victims are black.

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Polish premier pulls out of Visegrad Israel summit after Nazi comments | News | DW | 17.02.2019 Autocrats have trouble cooperating, when truth gets in the way of their strategies.

Poland has downgraded its delegation to the Visegrad Group summit in Israel after premier Benjamin Netanyahu suggested “Poles cooperated with the Nazis.” The four-state group is a key element in Israel’s diplomacy.

Source: Polish premier pulls out of Visegrad Israel summit after Nazi comments | News | DW | 17.02.2019

Starting a riot

Among last year’s many stories about influenza (Flu) deaths during the 1918 pandemic, we often heard about the secondary impact of bacteria; they complicate Flu virus infections, causing pneumonia and death. But it’s worth remembering that Flu viruses can sometimes, by themselves, cause viral pneumonia, thanks to their ability to start a riot through the immune response to their presence.

Flu viruses in patients with pneumonia but no sign of bacteria.

Viral pneumonia due to Flu virus infection – not because of bacteria that take advantge of th virus infection – is not common but having it can mean severe illness.

Studies such as this one, this one and this one have shown that even when bacteria cannot be grown from sputum or bronchial samples or the blood, pneumonia can still develop.[1,3,6]

Pneumonia due to infection results from damage of the lungs leading to inflammation and fluid build-up that reduces the entry of oxygen into the blood. Seasonal and novel H1N1 Flu virus-infected patients can develop pneumonia.

Start a riot in the blood

We know a lot about what drives the host body’s response to infection; the immune system.[5] Sometimes our own defences can get a little too defensive and end up creating the sort of collateral damage you’d expect to see in a DC superhero movie.

This hyper-excited response is called a “cytokine storm”,[2] or hypercytokinemia, and involves the actions of a highly complex network of chemical messenger proteins, called cytokines, in the blood. They call in a wider arsenal of cells to combat infections, they calm that response down, they have roles in cell death and viral clearance. there are many cytokines; some make inflammation more likely, some less likely….and so on.

When looking at avian Flu virus infections of humans we tend to see such responses occur. These are very “alien” viruses and often very aggressively attack our cells. With seasonal (human-adapted) Flu virus infection, it doesn’t tend to be the same degree of over-excited response.[3]

Initial responses to infection aim to contain the virus. And at this level, we see a lot of success in virus shutdown. If we didn’t, we’d be sick due to virus infections… ALL. THE. TIME.

This innate immunity is not highly specific to a particular strain of the virus, but is still complex and is the director of a moderated inflammatory response.

Cloudy bu no cytokine storm?

Pure viral pneumonia is caused by cytokine storm, but the term and research are mostly limited to cases of infection by the more exotic viruses; animal Flu viruses that only rarely spillover and infect humans. These zoonotic infections result from A/H5N1 or A/H7N9 or the swine A/H1N1, for example.

Cytokine storm doesn’t usually refer to pneumonia that results from infection with every day, seasonally circulating human H3N2 or B/Yamagata of FluB for example.[2] Nonetheless, cytokine storm may be a relevant term to explain what happens when viral pneumonia results from seasonal Flu virus infection as well. Perhaps the lingo will evolve further.

There are also other driving factors that cause inflammation in the lungs like the presence of the optimal virus receptors on cells, how well a virus strain replicates within the cells int infects, an underlying health condition in the host or the nature of any pre-existing host immunity.[4]

The fallout from the riot is real

Bacterial pneumonia as a complication of a Flu virus infection is what we usually read about.[7] But don’t overlook the ability of some Flu viruses to cause pneumonia directly and by themselves. It may not always be labelled something headline-grabbing like “cytokine storm”, but the host immune response and the invading Flu virus can together make a potent and occasionally highly destructive team.

References

  1. Influenza pneumonia: a comparison between seasonal influenza virus and the H1N1 pandemic
    https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/1/106
  2. The advent of the cytokine storm
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17551531
  3. Influenza pneumonia among adolescents and adults: a concurrent comparison between influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 and A (H3N2) in the post-pandemic period
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204512/#b19
  4. The Role of Cytokine Storm in Influenza Pathogenesis
    https://nccid.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/04/PP_23_EN.pdf
  5. New fronts emerge in the influenza cytokine storm
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28555383
  6. Clinical Characteristics of Influenza-Associated Pneumonia of Adults: Clinical Features and Factors Contributing to Severity and Mortality
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5482296/pdf/yjbm_90_2_165.pdf
  7. Mechanisms of Severe Mortality-Associated Bacterial Co-infections Following Influenza Virus Infection
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540941/

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