Category Archives: Fake News

Reporters Committee secures FOIA win in case to uncover details on FBI impersonation of documentary filmmakers

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled the Federal Bureau of Investigation must search for and produce records related to the agency’s impersonation of documentary filmmakers during investigations in response to a request from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press for more information about the practice.

After learning the FBI impersonated a documentary film crew to investigate Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his followers following a 2014 armed standoff between Bundy and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Reporters Committee requested access to records related to this practice under the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI issued what’s known as a Glomar response, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records responsive to the Reporters Committee’s request. The Reporters Committee challenged that response, arguing that it was improper, and the D.C. District Court agreed.

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The State of Hate | Is the Southern Poverty Law Center, judging hate fairly?

The SPLC’s definition of a hate group is “an organization that — based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities — has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” including race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. It’s a standard that is in line with the latest thinking among scholars of hate, and also one that intentionally parallels the FBI’s definition of a hate crime.

Does an alliance of lawyers with conservative Christian leanings that has won nine cases before the U.S. Supreme Court in the past seven years meet that criteria? According to Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project — which produces the hate list — the decision to put the Alliance Defending Freedom on the list for 2016 was a judgment call that went all the way up to top leadership at the SPLC.

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Inside Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech – NYT

MENLO PARK, Calif. — In a glass conference room at its California headquarters, Facebook is taking on the bonfires of hate and misinformation it has helped fuel across the world, one post at a time.

The social network has drawn criticism for undermining democracy and for provoking bloodshed in societies small and large.

But for Facebook, it’s also a business problem.

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Facebook Punishes 800+ Conservatives-

The Washington Post has reported on Thursday that Facebook is continuing it’s purge on “more than 800 U.S. publishers and accounts for flooding users with politically oriented content that violated the company’s spam policies, a move that could reignite accusations of political censorship.”

We saw many conservatives shut down this week as Facebook makes every appearance of attempting to meddle in the Mid-Term elections. This author’s personal account has been shut down again for sharing Conservative articles and viewpoints.

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Fake News? Restore FCC Fairness Doctrine? Truth In Labeling? Ideas?

It would appear that each and every time the Doctrine has been revisited in Congress and/or the FCC, it was because there was significant outrage over biased commentary presented and/or perceived as NEWS.

Although the Cambridge definition of News has nothing in it about fair and balanced or unbiased presentation of the Facts, the Cambridge definition of Commentary clearly includes things like opinion, or biased being involved in the presentation.

Anyone that has studied Journalism in any degree has been exposed to the standards and ethics of the trade. These standards were created and adopted by the Society of Professional Journalists.

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