Fediverse vs Disinformation

The Instagram account of a well known anti-Zionist Jewish comedian was deleted after Meta’s Public Policy Director for Israel and the Jewish Diaspora viewed one of his stories. This is just one example of the anti-Palestinian bias across Big Tech.

• Michael Schirtzer
• Tadhg Hickey

At a panel hosted by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) in London on Saturday, experts accused mainstream Western media of contributing to the denial and distortion of atrocities unfolding in Gaza.

Omar al-Ghazzi, Associate Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, called the trend “a war on history.” He warned that the use of media narratives as future historical sources could shape how upcoming generations understand the events in Gaza.

The panel also pointed to specific language patterns in coverage. Hanif noted that the term “massacre” appeared 18 times more often when referring to Hamas attacks than to Israeli attacks on Palestinians. He said this imbalance reflected a wider rhetorical bias and an uncritical acceptance of Israeli government claims—particularly those targeting local journalists in Gaza.

British-Israeli journalist Rachel Shabi said Israel has consistently framed its ban on international reporters entering Gaza as a safety measure, while accusing Palestinian journalists of links to Hamas. She criticised international media outlets for accepting these narratives without challenge. Historian Avi Shlaim described Israel’s media strategy as an aggressive propaganda campaign designed to suppress criticism by labelling opponents as antisemitic.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/32644220

More than a hundred BBC employees have written a letter to the director general, Tim Davie, complaining that the Corporation has become a mouthpiece for Israel. It was also signed by 300 other journalists and media professionals: one of them was yours truly. The BBC employees, as you would expect, are all anonymous, because otherwise they would face grave consequences to their careers.

The letter says:

We’re writing to express our concerns over opaque editorial decisions and censorship at the BBC on the reporting of Israel/Palestine. We believe the refusal to broadcast the documentary ‘Gaza: Medics Under Fire’ is just one in a long line of agenda driven decisions. It demonstrates, once again, that the BBC is not reporting “without fear or favour” when it comes to Israel.

It goes on to note that the decision not to broadcast the investigation was taken by BBC management despite the content being signed off in accordance with BBC guidelines and editorial policy, which it says “Appears to be a political decision”, adding that the BBC response shows the organisation “is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government.”

This is what the admins of .ml cultivate, as documented in the megathread

Credible sources removed just within the last day: https://lemmy.world/post/32298242 https://lemmy.world/post/32426343

.ml is not much different than the rest of the Triad, continued federation with them is continuing to allow them to spread toxic misinformation and behavior across the Threadiverse.

If you're an instance admin, please consider defederation.

Users, consider joining the lemmy.ml boycott today and help foster a better Lemmy-verse! No more posts, comments (except to counter their propaganda ofc!) or upvotes on any comms on the Lemmy.ml instance.

Other wonderful content, and this is just from when I looked at the local new feed a bit ago:

Classic RT I'm sure you all know and Pravda.ru "Pravda Report"

National Guard pilot Jo Ellis is suing a right-wing influencer for falsely blaming her for a DC crash that killed 67 people. A WIRED review reveals 12 similar incidents of scapegoating trans people.

This week on CounterSpin: White supremacy, Islamophobia and antisemitism are irreducible dangers in themselves. They are also tools that powerful, wealthy people take up to protect their power and wealth, and to deflect everyone’s attention from who is, actually, day to day, threatening all of our well-being. That brazenness (everything is in peril!)—and that skullduggery (you know who’s the problem? your different-looking neighbor!)—are both in evidence in corporate media’s hellbent, throw-it-all-at-the-wall campaign against democratic socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

We’ll talk about how elite news media are Trojan-horsing their hatred for any ideas that threaten their ill-gotten gains, via very deep, very serious “concerns” about Mamdani as a person, with Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, longtime political activists, writers and co-founders of the emphatically nonpartisan group RootsAction.

• National TV news networks aired a combined total of 4 hours and 20 minutes of coverage across 159 segments about the recent eastern U.S. heat dome. Of those, only 6 segments, or 4%, mentioned climate change.
• Cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC — aired 2 hours and 9 minutes across 76 segments about the record-breaking heat dome. MSNBC was the only cable news network to mention climate change, which it did in 3 segments.
• Corporate broadcast TV networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — aired a combined 2 hours and 11 minutes across 83 segments about the extreme heat event. CBS was the only broadcast network to mention climate change, which it did in 3 segments.

Americans awoke this morning to the news that the United States military had [DROPPED BOMBS AND / OR CARRIED OUT DRONE STRIKES] on [WHATEVER COUNTRY WE’RE BOMBING / DRONE STRIKING THIS TIME].

President [GUY WHO HAS COMMITTED MULTIPLE WAR CRIMES], a [REPUBLICAN / DEMOCRAT], sidestepped his [COMPLICIT / COWARDLY / TOTALLY INEPT] Congress, instead directly ordering [HIS LATEST WAR CRIME] much like his predecessor, [ANY PRESIDENT SINCE WORLD WAR II]...

The right wing media is buzzing with accusations that the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City is a communist. They're calling for his removal from not only the ballot... but the also the country. This anticommunist panic isn't new.

In this News Brief, we break down recent bad faith attacks on Zohran Mamdani, the ADL's DO YOU CONDEMN extortion racket, and the broader "antisemitism scandal" playbook to derail moderate social democratic policies and any meaningful criticism of Israel.

SBS Insight Invisible Illness – Statement by 4 Studio Participants​

Published: 23 June 2025​

Invisible, Misrepresented, and Harmed: ME/CFS Voices Demand Accountability from SBS​

A Joint Statement from Participants and Advocates in Response to the 20 May 2025 Episode of Insight​

This statement has been prepared by a group of individuals who participated in the recent SBS Insight episode on invisible illness. We are united in our deep concern over how the episode was produced, edited, and presented and the serious harm it caused by misrepresenting Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) and its impact on the wider chronic illness community.​

We believe this broadcast represents a clear breach of SBS’s own Code of Practice. The program:​

• Failed to uphold editorial integrity by platforming a participant with undisclosed commercial interests (Section 3.1: Editorial Independence and Integrity);
• Presented medically inaccurate and misleading portrayals of ME/CFS (Section 3.2: Accuracy);
• Minimised the diversity of lived experiences in favour of a single recovery narrative (Section 3.3: Diversity of Views and Perspectives);
• Caused emotional harm to participants and viewers alike (Section 4.1: Harm and Offence);

As a public broadcaster, SBS has a duty to ensure ethical, accurate, and inclusive storytelling, especially when dealing with marginalised communities.​

[…]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32131286

They tried. Oh, did the media try.

The [documentary] production company's founder, Ben de Pear, said earlier this week the BBC had "utterly failed" and that journalists were "being stymied and silenced".

BBC News understands the decision to shelve the documentary was taken on Thursday, following public comments by De Pear at the Sheffield Documentary Festival, and another of the film's directors, journalist Ramita Navai, who appeared on Radio 4's Today discussing the war in Gaza.

Navai told the programme Israel had "become a rogue state that's committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass murdering Palestinians". Israel has denied accusations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

TLDR: BBC refuses to run documentary about doctors in Gaza they comissioned because someone involved it is says Israel is committing ethnic cleansing. I think this is one of the most obvious examples on how biased the BBC is towards this situation.

In this News Brief, we are joined by Ashley Bohrer and Ben Teller of Jewish Voice for Peace Chicago to discuss media indifference to the US and Israel-imposed starvation of Palestinians, how sectarianism is central to the ADL's strategy, and why six JVP activists have decided to hunger strike to draw more attention to the Israeli and US-made famine in Gaza.

As Israel bombs Iran, and the threat of U.S. military escalation grows by the hour, the world’s attention is being pulled into yet another war that Israel started and the West manufactured. After flattening Gaza and locking down the West Bank Israel has now dragged Iran into open confrontation — and is calling on the U.S. to finish the job.

In this News Brief, we break down the insta-talking points to sell war with Iran––from Ticking Time Bomb '24' plots to cherry-picked, dubious anecdotes of Iranians supposedly begging for Israeli bombs.

Comprehensive new research finds the BBC coverage of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is systematically biased against Palestinians and fails to reach standards of impartiality.

Analysis of more than 35,000 pieces of BBC content by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) shows Israeli deaths are given 33 times more coverage per fatality, and both broadcast segments and articles included clear double standards. BBC content was found to consistently shut down allegations of genocide.

These findings directly contradict claims by authors of a September 2024 report on BBC impartiality. Led by Israel-based British lawyer and Zionist Trevor Asserson, the Asserson report’s authors alleged their study across a four-month period revealed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel. The Asserton report was funded in part by an anonymous “Israeli businessman based in London” and carried out by Israeli lawyers as part of an opaque group called Research for Impartial Media (RIMe). It received tech support from AI company Blueskai, which describes itself as “fortified by strategic roots in Israel’s prime minister’s office”.

The CfMM research found that the BBC used emotive terms – “brutal”, “atrocities”, “slaughter”, “barbaric”, “deadly” – four times more often for Israeli victims. It applied the term “massacre” 18 times more to Israeli casualties, and used the word “murder” 220 times for Israeli deaths compared to just once for Palestinians. The words “butchered”, “butcher” and “butchering” were found to be used exclusively for Israeli victims by BBC correspondents and presenters.

Despite Gaza suffering 34 times more casualties than Israel, the BBC ran almost equal numbers of humanising victim profiles. It was also found to have attached “Hamas-run health ministry” to Palestinian casualty figures in 1,155 articles – almost every time the Palestinian death toll was referenced across BBC articles.

The BBC was found to consistently and repeatedly suppress allegations of genocide. BBC presenters shut down genocide claims in over 100 documented instances, while making zero mention of Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements, including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblical Amalek reference...

When reporting on attacks on Palestinians, the study found the BBC repeatedly obscured Israeli responsibility through the use of passive language in headlines. Israeli perspectives were found to be prioritised, with BBC presenters sharing the Israeli perspective 11 times more frequently than the Palestinian perspective – 2,340 times for Israeli compared to 217 times for Palestinian...

From Gaza to Tehran, Israel's expanding war is defended by the West as self-defence - just as it was in 1967, when conquest was hailed as a triumph of the civilised

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31383170

California Governor Gavin Newsom has accused the Trump administration of deliberately spreading doctored and misleading images of recent protests in Los Angeles.

On X, formerly Twitter, the Department of Defense's Rapid Response account posted a video that appeared to show burning, graffitied police cars during protests in Los Angeles this week.

However, the fact-checking website Snopes said the image showed protests in Los Angeles following the death of George Floyd in May 2020.

Israel has launched an unprovoked assault on Iran, including strikes on nuclear facilities and assassinations of several senior military commanders and scientists. In front of the world’s media, however, the Netanyahu government is spinning the attack as “preemptive”.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0JOlh6yZg0

After Israel launched airstrikes at Iranian nuclear and residential infrastructure on June 12, right-wing media figures rushed to fearmonger that supposed Democratic “open border” policies allowed Iranian “sleeper cells” into the country that might now execute terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

In this public News Brief, we detail how the NYT, Washington Post, and CNN reinforce every faulty premise of Israel's attack and how top Democrats in Congress and former Harris aides either ignore Trump and Israel's massive escalation or openly support it, showing once again the scope of debate in our politics and media ranges all the way from A to B.