No, That's Just Called 'Noticing'

Local social media groups are fuelling misinformation in areas with no reliable sources of news, according to an investigation that reveals the scale of fake news flowing to vulnerable communities across Britain. Misinformation was nearly three times more common in areas with little or no recognised local journalism, according to a study of tens of thousands of posts seen by the Guardian. Immigration and Islamophobia were the most common topics of misinformation across Facebook and X.

The findings, by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) thinktank, are based on the analysis of more than 125,000 social media posts across local Facebook groups, X searches and Nextdoor communities. They led to immediate calls for action from senior MPs.

A look at the people involved in this enterprise tell you all you need to know.

MPs are concerned about the growing influence of unreliable online groups. With the decline and financial peril faced by local news outlets, inaccurate online forums are filling the void.

And slowly, but surely, they are drawing their plans against us… 

And for only one reason:

The authors of the SMF study described local online groups as “the silent killer of trust in Britain”. Their analysis uncovered faked local authority communications, AI-generated content and misleading claims of councils behaving corruptly.

Au contraire, the real concern is that we can find out things they won’t allow the legacy media to publish from social media. 

Misleading posts...described the Black Lives Matter campaign as a “terrorist group”, above a picture of Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner taking the knee.

Is it misleading? Their antics certainly caused  lot of terror.

Chi Onwurah, the Labour chair of the science and technology select committee, said the findings were “deeply concerning”.“It’s clear that far more must be done to safeguard the public from unreliable online sources that are filling the void left by trusted local news,” Onwurah said.

Even if that local news weren’t missing, it would no longer be trusted. There's a reason people turn to social media.

The SMF research found that two in five local Facebook groups and more than four in five X searches featured at least one piece of misinformation in their most recent 1,000 posts.

Did anyone thing to run the same scan on the MSM? I wonder what it would have found?

Aren't We Forgetting Something, BBC News?

The family of a young boy who was left with life-threatening injuries after he was thrown from the 10th floor of London's Tate Modern art gallery have said their "little knight" has achieved his goal of being able to run, jump, and swim again.

The boy, who spent months in intensive care, has continued to gain cognitive endurance. His family said although his memory skills were still very limited, they were functional and improving, so he was "acquiring a general knowledge at his own pace, which increasingly allows him to be included with other children".

Bravery was found guilty of attempted murder in 2020 following a trial at the Old Bailey. He was handed a life sentence and told he would serve a minimum of 15 years in prison.

Heartening as it is to hear good news, it's strange that their update on progress doesn't include a mention of the progresss made by his attacker - perhaps because its not quite so heartwarming.