on prioritising the health of our information networks.
a short blog by @manlius sketching issues (with links), "our information ecosystem cannot rely on centralized platforms owned by billionaires." https://manlius.substack.com/p/the-far-reaching-consequences-of
#RealityKremlin "Reality Kremlin"
#USAMassMindOwned "USA Mass Mind Owned" by Russian mind-fuck
#Infodemic //\\
Nov. 1 2024 Newsletter: The Irregular Voters vs. The Undecideds (TracingVRL) -
https://tracingvrl.substack.com/p/the-irregular-voters-vs-undecideds
Content warning: sparse crudeness ahead.
Oct 25 As Ohio COVID deaths near 1,000 for 2024, health director urges vigilance, vaccination (Columbus Dispatch) -
The state health department director, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, cautioned Ohioans Thursday ...
"COVID-19 has not gone away, and it remains a very real threat," Vanderhoff said in a press release "The virus continues to evolve and can cause severe illness or death, particularly among those who are unvaccinated."
Oct 20 2024 [Translated: ] Trump pal Elon Musk Public enemy number two (Der Speigel | Germany)
September 2020 Musk told Kara Swisher he wouldn't vaccinate for COVID.
[Translated: ] If Harris wins, Musk recently said, he would be "fucked" - which, conversely, can be understood as a free pass for the ex-president: Musk would not stop anything that could overthrow Harris. On the contrary.
Two days after my Oct. 11 newsletter published the anti-immigrant narratives amplified by overseas conspiracy influencers, the Lincoln Project on Oct 13 debuted their ad "Axis of Influence" naming Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk & Peter Theil as immigrants who "undermine" "our way of life."
The narration went further, calling the trio the "Axis of Evil". It's powerful, take a look:
On Oct. 11 TracingVRL documented the news artifacts showing anti-immigrant sentiment across Germany, Ireland, England and the U.S. fomented by 1) Elon Musk's platforms & tweets, and 2) Rupert Murdoch's outlets.
6/ Mark Zuckerberg whines in 2024, working men died in 2021.
Zuckerberg in his letter to House Republicans this week feels "regret" **for responding** in 2021 to President Biden's bully pulpit pleading by removing from Facebook media artifacts misleading people about the COVID vaccine.
See Oct. 2021 unpaywalled issue of TracingCOVID to decide for yourself if Zuckerberg, who earned higher-than-typical profits in 2021, should feel "regret".
https://tracingvrl.substack.com/p/tracing-brief-is-this-thing-still
5/ In late 2022, a deranged-yet--lucid man named David DePape broke into then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's house and beat her husband in the head with a hammer.
It was an attack Paul Pelosi miraculously survived.
DePape's posts to Facebook showed he amplified COVID vaccine and other conspiracy theories.
https://tracingvrl.substack.com/p/tracing-brief-is-this-thing-still
1/ Newsletter: Is This Thing Still On?
We're in a very blind election season
Two years after I started programmer-journalism work on the #infodemic our media grew *more hospitable* to laundered disinformation.
https://tracingvrl.substack.com/p/tracing-brief-is-this-thing-still
Masks get abused. Lawmakers are doing their best experimenting with mask bans
BNONews *looks* real, but cites no sources & lists no human editors.
Who or what is BNONews? Derivative genAI news that grants no credit or attribution to its training data? A sole human who types punchy things that sound true-enough alongside hand-drawn line graphs?
8/ And the misinformation looks to be much worse than usual this election cycle, due to the recent "British Invasion" 
of the U.S. 
press corps.
British editors who worked for Rupert Murdoch have been installed recently at Washington Post, CNN, New York Post, Daily Beast and another at Daily Beast. And the press is a big superorganism, one outlet influences all the others like Axios, Politico.
7/ Even worse news: NBC News aside, *all news outlets laundered misinformation".
TracingVRL labeled a clip "misinformation if a) it omitted mention of the "End Parkinson's Act" signed July 2, or b) the story contradicted the headline.
![Jul 02 [Misinformation: ] Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome (New York Times) - TracingVRL: ZERO mentions of the "End Parkinson's Act" Biden signed July 2, 2024. TWO mentions Biden may or may not have Parkinson's. “He’s inquisitive. Focused. He remembers. He’s sharp, said Neera Tanden, the presidents domestic policy adviser.”
Jul 06 [Misinformation: ] President Bidens physician met with Parkinson’s disease specialist in White House (New York Post) -](https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/787/272/713/049/395/original/829ce6dddd04704e.png "Jul 02 [Misinformation: ] Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome (New York Times) - TracingVRL: ZERO mentions of the \"End Parkinson's Act\" Biden signed July 2, 2024. TWO mentions Biden may or may not have Parkinson's. “He’s inquisitive. Focused. He remembers. He’s sharp, said Neera Tanden, the presidents domestic policy adviser.”
Jul 06 [Misinformation: ] President Bidens physician met with Parkinson’s disease specialist in White House (New York Post) -")
![Jul 08 [Misinformation: ] What we know about Parkinson’s experts visits to Biden White House (The Hill) -
Jul 08 [Misinformation: ] White House doctor offers explanation for Parkinson's expert's visits (ABC News) - TracingVRL says: ZERO mentions of the "End Parkinson's Act" Biden signed July 2, 2024 are in this story.
Jul 09 [Misinformation: ] The Biden-Parkinsons mini-controversy, explained (Washington Post) - TracingVRL: this story still omits any mention of the “End Parkinson’s Act” President Biden signed July 2nd, 2024.](https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/787/279/042/988/996/original/b30485497d185eed.png "Jul 08 [Misinformation: ] What we know about Parkinson’s experts visits to Biden White House (The Hill) -
Jul 08 [Misinformation: ] White House doctor offers explanation for Parkinson's expert's visits (ABC News) - TracingVRL says: ZERO mentions of the \"End Parkinson's Act\" Biden signed July 2, 2024 are in this story.
Jul 09 [Misinformation: ] The Biden-Parkinsons mini-controversy, explained (Washington Post) - TracingVRL: this story still omits any mention of the “End Parkinson’s Act” President Biden signed July 2nd, 2024.")
![Jul 09 [Misinformation: ] White House Admits Parkinson's Specialist Repeatedly Evaluated President Biden (Futurism via Yahoo! News) -
Jul 09 [Misinformation: ] White House releases letter from Biden's doctor after questions about Parkinson's specialist's White House visits (CBS News) - TracingVRL: This is the most accurate headline so far. Yet the story includes ZERO mentions of the “End Parkinson’s Act” President Biden signed into law July 2, 2024. "The White House released a letter from President Biden's doctor Monday night after press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced repeated questions at a briefing earlier in the day about Mr. Biden's health and whether visits to the White House by a Parkinson's disease specialist involved the president."](https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/787/281/741/367/755/original/af483944781e88fc.png "Jul 09 [Misinformation: ] White House Admits Parkinson's Specialist Repeatedly Evaluated President Biden (Futurism via Yahoo! News) -
Jul 09 [Misinformation: ] White House releases letter from Biden's doctor after questions about Parkinson's specialist's White House visits (CBS News) - TracingVRL: This is the most accurate headline so far. Yet the story includes ZERO mentions of the “End Parkinson’s Act” President Biden signed into law July 2, 2024. \"The White House released a letter from President Biden's doctor Monday night after press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced repeated questions at a briefing earlier in the day about Mr. Biden's health and whether visits to the White House by a Parkinson's disease specialist involved the president.\"")
2/ But first: COVID is still transmitting, wastewater readings show.
There is a narrative spreading that you should wait to test because testing too soon brings a false negative result.
Instead, test twice so as to utilize post-infection antivirals like Paxlovid, which must be taken within five days of testing positive.
MISINFORMATION ALERT: While we're in a COVID wavelet in many parts of the world, some are claiming that the COVID wastewater readings in the S.F. Bay Area are at an "all time high".
Nope.
Not an all-time high above 2020 pre-vaccine levels. Not even close.
May 10 There’s a new highly transmissible COVID-19 variant. Could FLiRT lead to a summer uptick? (Los Angeles Times) - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-10/could-new-covid-19-variant-flirt-lead-to-summer-surge-in-infections
“The two FLiRT subvariants combined comprised an estimated 35% of coronavirus infections nationally for the two-week period that began April 28," according to the U.S. CDC. "By contrast, JN.1 is now believed to comprise 16% of infections; in mid-winter, it was blamed for more than 80%.”
Fake accounts posted 739 identical messages to X/Twitter they're not voting for Biden. - Newsguard
https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/fake-accounts-on-x-say-theyre-not
![What happened: From May 5 to May 10, 2024, NewsGuard identified 739 nearly identical X posts with a recurring format: ”Hfim [name]. I'm [age] and live in [state] and | will NOT be voting for Biden,” each featuring a supposed personal photo.
NewsGuard's analysis found dozens of posts that were confirmed to be from legitimate users. Excluding these authentic posts, NewsGuard found 739 posts that typically showed signs of inauthenticity, such as using a photo of a https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/fake- accounts-on-x-say-theyre-not](https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/508/334/303/121/078/original/6f4c2665a0d97c58.png "What happened: From May 5 to May 10, 2024, NewsGuard identified 739 nearly identical X posts with a recurring format: ”Hfim [name]. I'm [age] and live in [state] and | will NOT be voting for Biden,” each featuring a supposed personal photo.
NewsGuard's analysis found dozens of posts that were confirmed to be from legitimate users. Excluding these authentic posts, NewsGuard found 739 posts that typically showed signs of inauthenticity, such as using a photo of a https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/fake- accounts-on-x-say-theyre-not")
May 23 John Stockton's COVID-19 lawsuit dismissed (KHQ NBC 6 Spokane WA) - http://www.khq.com/news/john-stocktons-covid-19-lawsuit-dismissed/article_f65b6b2e-188d-11ef-aaf7-c7606dcd33b4.html
"COVID-19 skeptic John Stockton’s lawsuit seeking an injunction against the Washington Medical Commission for considering disciplining doctors who spread disinformation about the virus has been dismissed in federal court."
Thread Postscript: As Futurism reported in their "Meet AdVon" investigation, the lack of BOT disclosure in written text makes people disengage from both BOT-authored and human-authored content.
It "makes the web worse for everyone"
https://futurism.com/advon-ai-content
After last week, I'll assume all outlets are publishing BOT-authored content alongside human-authored without disclosure, until they publish a policy statement indicating otherwise
