The real victims of Fake News

[Beanz]

Conspiracy theories used to be seen as bizarre expressions of harmless eccentrics.Not any more. Gone are the days of outlandish theories about Roswell’s UFOs, the “hoax” moon landings or grassy knolls. Instead, today’s iterations have morphed into political weapons. Turbocharged by social media, they spread with astonishing speed, using death threats as currency.....


https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ruth?CMP=fb_gu

[TitoFan]

Nice article. An excerpt from it:


"Valentine’s Day 2018 was Marcel Fontaine’s day off. They slept late into the afternoon, having worked a double shift the day before. When they woke up, a wave of happiness washed over them – they were in a relationship, had a job they loved at a local concert venue. Their life was good.

By the time they roused themselves, the deadliest high school shooting in US history was already over. A 19-year-old with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle had entered the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, and opened fire. Seventeen had been killed, though Fontaine, who has no cable TV or radio, was oblivious to the tragedy.

Then they received a text from a friend. A photo of Fontaine was flying around the internet and they were being accused of carrying out the terrible Florida shooting.

Their immediate response was bewilderment. What shooting? Where? Fontaine was in Massachusetts, 1,500 miles away. It would take a four-hour flight to reach the school. They’d only visited Florida once when they were a little boy to see Mickey Mouse.

Fontaine, 25, describes themselves on Twitter as a “non-binary gay queer autistic commie that loves horror movies and metal!” They were diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum as a child and for years has struggled with anxiety and a debilitating stammer. At moments of heightened stress, they flap their hands like a bird.

In short, Fontaine is a vulnerable leftwing individual who would not harm a flea, which apparently makes them perfect fodder for the sadistic mockery of 4chan, the anonymous message board that hosts alt-right activists and other extremists.

A few days before the Parkland shooting, a photo of Fontaine wearing a T-shirt of Marx, Lenin, Mao and other communist luminaries dressed in party hats had been grabbed from his Instagram feed and posted by an anonymous user on 4chan, where they were promptly derided as a “lefty dimwit”. The T-shirt, Fontaine protests, was a joke, a pun on Communist party.

In the conspiratorial bubble of 4chan, it was but a small step from ridiculing Fontaine to casting them as the Parkland shooter. Within two hours of the massacre, the image had been reposted on the bulletin board, now saying: “Florida Shooter Was A Commie!”"



Now..... not to change the subject, and I'm very much disturbed about the explosion of Fake News nowadays.

But as soon as I started to read the first story, I became immediately confused. It starts talking about Marcel's day off, then immediately goes into "They slept late into the afternoon....", "When they woke up.....", "They were in a relationship....."



https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/72f03a7...yt3Q4-3UE.copy



THEN...... being the investigative type that I am, I began to carefully scrutinize the text until................... VOILA!! I found the hint I was looking for.

Major screwup by the author of the article, as he/she/they write(s)..... "...had been grabbed from HIS Instagram feed..."





Gotcha.



Frankly, I find this whole pronoun bullshit even more disturbing than the Fake News.


(Disclaimer: The previous post was written tongue-in-cheek, lest anyone think I actually didn't know he/she/they were talking about a (cough) "non-binary" individual.)

[Freedom]

Billionaire diamond trader dies during penis enlargement operation

https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/...08c678f66.html

[TitoFan]

Forget it Freedom. This thread died when I veered off the Fake News topic to poke fun at the narrative regarding its first subject.

I stepped on forbidden ground.

[Gandalf]

The fake news does indeed have victims. However, I don't recall Alex Jones pushing wars based on lies and the mainstream also pushes lies like with MAGA boy and how anyone with an independent thought is 'far right'. A lot of it is questionable to say the least. The Guardian is a horrible newspaper.

[Freedom]