The absence of accurate official statistics in Venezuela is no accident. Rather it is a symptom of the breakdown of the rule of law and hides the regime’s criminal failures.
Tag: fake
Diving, flopping and faking for the referee’s benefit have become an integral part of modern football. But Guatemalan player Wilfredo Ramos Pérez has taken the craft to the next level of the absurd. During a match in the Central American country’s third division, with one player already on the ground, the referee stopped the match […]
For many people, the lesson from the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – and more broadly from the experience of the last four years – is that American democracy has become newly and dangerously fragile. That conclusion is overstated. In fact, American democracy has always been fragile. And it might be more precise to diagnose the United States as a fragile union rather than a fragile democracy. As President Joe Biden said in his inaugural address, national unity is “that most elusive of things.” Certainly, faith in American democracy has been battered over the last year. […]
As the coronavirus has spread across the world, so too have an array of fake remedies and cures that promise to protect people. Social media have been flooded with claims about foods, products and other assorted concoctions that can allegedly cure or prevent the virus. Up to the point that the World Health Organization had […]
An Argentine pharmaceutical firm has begun testing lab beef production and expects to have a tasty and ‘painless’ product sizzling within a few years.
SAN FRANCISCO — On Amazon, customer comments can help a product surge in popularity. The online retail giant says that more than 99 percent of its reviews are legitimate because they are written by real shoppers who aren’t paid for them. But a Washington Post examination found that for some popular product categories, such as Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the vast majority of reviews appear to violate Amazon’s prohibition on paid reviews. Such reviews have certain characteristics, such as repetitive wording that people probably cut and paste in. Many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook, where sellers seek shoppers […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Remember conspiracy theories? There was a time, not so long ago, when we used to worry about how the internet encourages the proliferation of crackpot versions of what “really happened” on 9/11 or circulated “the ultimate proof” that Moon landings were actually staged in a television studio. Nowadays, a website hocking a […]
By 2022, disinformation could completely replace real facts online. So what are we supposed to do about it? Sharp ideas from France to Denmark to the U.S. and beyond.
Facebook has agreed to give the government information on political ad campaigns. But the social media giant must behave more like other media companies in a functioning democracy.
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Fighting Fake News At School
-Analysis- Educators have created well-worn “awareness’ strategies to combat everything from teen pregnancy to drug abuse. But this year, some schools are taking on a new spectre hanging over our impressionable youth: “fake news.” School officials in both Germany and Switzerland have developed tools to address the problem of bogus online articles, and to become […]
BEIJING — China’s copycat culture is so deeply ingrained that along with the mock mobile phones, counterfeit clothing and faux food packaging, there is also an abundance of supposedly civic minded NGOs that are also effectively counterfeit knock-offs. Last week, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs published a list of 203 illegitimate civil society organizations. […]
Yassine S. presented himself in Brussels as a Harvard-educated psychologist. Business was booming until his “mental manipulations” caught the attention of colleagues.
BEIJING – To stem surging housing prices and curb speculation, China has recently issued a new policy that enables local governments to impose a 20% tax on profits earned from the sale of a second home. This is a huge hike from the current 1-2% tax. The move immediately triggered panic among the affluent class […]
The taste of Alsace deep in the Malaysian heartland.