All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Egyptian Health Minister Volunteers for COVID-19 Vaccine Trial — Egyptian Streets – (Will Trump take Russian or US test vaccine?)

The Health Minister Hala Zayed volunteering for the COVID-19 vaccine trial. Photo courtesy of the official Facebook Page of the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population. Egyptian Health Minister Hala Zayed has received the injection for the Chinese-made vaccine candidate. In a bid to display scientific leadership in the region, she volunteered to be among…

Egyptian Health Minister Volunteers for COVID-19 Vaccine Trial — Egyptian Streets

Turkish Tuesdays, and Being an American when it hurts — ShiraDest: Education, Cooperation, and The 4 Freedoms for ALL Human Beings

The Turkish book I’m currently reading is mentioned below the short incident on Judging on the Side of Merit. —   I was thinking of an episode of a show, Magnificent Century, from Turkey that has been quite popular in many Spanish-speaking countries, and how much I love an early episode showing the entry of […]

Turkish Tuesdays, and Being an American when it hurts — ShiraDest: Education, Cooperation, and The 4 Freedoms for ALL Human Beings

5 of the Most Delectable Street Foods in Cairo — Egyptian Streets

Egyptian Koshary (photo: Wikipedia) Cairo is famous for many things, but bland food isn’t one of them. Like its bustling and boisterous streets, its crazy traffic and maddening noise, Cairo’s food is just as lively, bold and intense. Forget subtle flavors, Cairo’s street food will hit you like an explosion of herbs, spices and textures…

5 of the Most Delectable Street Foods in Cairo — Egyptian Streets

Biden Disinformation Is Ripping Across Facebook the Same Day It Brushed Him Off

Facebook – do your job!!!

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In advance of the first presidential debate, disinformation about Joe Biden is going massively viral on social media, just one day after the former vice president sent Facebook a letter laying out his campaign’s concerns about political disinformation being spread on its platform.

“Report: Joe Biden Has Been Given Tonight’s Debate Questions In Advance” reads a headline on arch-paranoiac Alex Jones’ site, Infowars, a notorious peddler of right-wing disinformation. The “report” Infowars cited was from former Fox host Todd Starnes, who was just citing Jerome Corsi, a right-wing conspiracy theorist with a history of spreading outright lies. Corsi offered no proof that Biden had been given the questions, but Starnes’ story on the baseless allegation reached over 1 million followers on Facebook and another million on Twitter, according to CrowdTangle, a social media analytics tool owned by Facebook.

Lots of disinfo ahead of tonight’s debate. One case: InfoWars says Biden got questions in advance, citing former Fox host Todd Starnes. Starnes himself just heard it on local radio. And the radio station got it from conspiracy theory king and ex InfoWars employee Jerome Corsi. pic.twitter.com/O9g8OgZde6

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) September 29, 2020

Infowars published its story around noon. By later that afternoon, more Biden disinformation was hurtling out of control on Facebook. A New York Post story with a single anonymous source from the Trump campaign claimed Biden had agreed to be inspected for an earpiece before the debate, which the Biden campaign denied. Regardless the story spread across Facebook, amplified by right-wing sites and posters.

NBC’s Ben Collins noticed that the claim predated the New York Post story; it had been floating around online for weeks before the online poster at the center of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a user claiming to be Q, posted the theory on 8kun, the successor website to the 8chan forum.

The Biden earpiece conspiracy theory (which originated in a tweet from a single anonymous source to a NYPost reporter, and was instantly denied by the campaign) is everywhere on Facebook. Absolutely everywhere. pic.twitter.com/AIdXoy4ZIi

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 29, 2020

Breitbart‘s story on the claim reached 5 million accounts on Facebook and 3 million on Twitter.

The massive spread of disinformation about Biden came just hours after Facebook essentially blew off Biden’s concerns about disinformation being spread about him.

On Monday, the Biden campaign sent a letter to Facebook calling it “the nation’s foremost propagator of disinformation about the voting process,” and saying that “Rather than seeing progress, we have seen regression,” according to a copy of the letter published by Axios.

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone responded vaguely, saying that the company has received criticism from both Republicans and Democrats and added that “we have rules in place to protect the integrity of the election and free expression, and we will continue to apply them impartially.”

Here’s what Facebook is saying back, “While many Republicans think we should take one course, many Democrats think we should do the exact opposite.”

Statement from @andymstone pic.twitter.com/i8StwVv29p

— Donie O’Sullivan (@donie) September 29, 2020