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Staff at a US-based non-profit have received death threats linked to erroneous claims about its work on digital ID in a case propelled by the tide of misinformation over coronavirus and false accusations against Bill Gates.

Dakota Gruener, CEO of New York-based non-profit ID2020, told The New Humanitarian the threats were linked to patently false online conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and described the episode as pretty frightening.

The head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned that false and fringe ideas can undermine international efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic and sow panic, confusion, and division.

Research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that the largest category of COVID-19 misinformation involves public authorities, including government and international bodies. Social media platforms have made commitments to remove the worst misinformation and provide free placement to the WHO and other official sources. A recent addition to WHOs series of mythbusters, for example, debunks false claims about 5G.

In a matter of weeks, ID2020 has gone from niche international policy operator, to the subject of thousands of hostile media postings, to having to call in the FBI.

The results of being caught up in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, meanwhile, can be dramatic.

In a matter of weeks, ID2020 which advocates for digital ID for the billion undocumented people worldwide and under-served groups like refugees has gone from niche international policy operator, to the subject of thousands of hostile media postings, to having to call in the FBI. Heres how.

A public-private coalition members include representatives from Microsoft and Accenture as well as NGOs, academia, blockchain firms, and others ID2020 is advising the government of Bangladesh on a vaccination records system.

The non-profit, which does not work on embedded microchips, is falsely accused of being part of fictitious plans that allege Bill Gates supports mandatory vaccination and the implantation of microchips or quantum dot tattoos into patients.

The claims about Gates have been debunked by fact-checkers at Reuters, but ID2020 is not listed in the leading database of COVID-19 debunks.

(Disclosure: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of several funders of The New Humanitarian.)*

Since mid-March, the outfit, which had an income of $1.4 million in the 2017 tax year, has been mentioned alongside false claims about Gates and COVID-19 in tens of thousands of social media postings, videos, and memes, amplified to millions after being shared by members of impassioned communities.

The ID2020 theory attracts attention, for example, from adherents of the QAnon conspiracy, the alt-right, objectors to 5G telecommunications, and Christians considering apocalyptic prophecies such as the mark of the beast.

Asked by TNH about the Gates and ID2020 conspiracy, Tedros praised the extraordinary commitment and sincerity of Bill and Melinda Gates and thanked them for their contribution.

In a telephone interview with TNH, Gruener, the ID2020 CEO, said it had been a wild ride and she was mystified, adding: I dont know whos behind this. Gruener could, however, trace the beginnings of the firestorm back to October 2019.

A 23 October monologue by Alex Jones on the InfoWars website falsely alleged that an ID2020-linked pilot project was implanting chips into homeless people in Texas he refers to an article that appears to misinterpret the word biometric.

Jones is banned from several social media platforms for his misleading claims and is almost certainly the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America, according to the US watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Jones monologue referred to a September press release in which ID2020 announced its largest ever venture alongside the vaccine alliance Gavi advising the Bangladesh government on its immunisation records. The statement also mentioned the Texas pilot project. In Bangladesh, it announced that the government would create a database of childrens immunisations linked to their parents biometric information most likely a digital fingerprint.

The implementation of ID and biometrics in developing countries can attract real controversies, and the initiative may yet run into criticism for things it really does mean to do: ID2020 also plans trials of biometric recordkeeping of children, including babies.

As reported by TNH last year, the technology for infant biometrics is not fully mature, and raises practical and ethical questions.

According to Gruener, the flurry of chatter started by Jones who has long promoted rumours of plans to microchip the public died down in October but re-surfaced recently in much greater strength amidst the flood of COVID-19 misinformation.

An 18 March Q&A by Gates on the website Reddit provided fuel for the conspiracists: he said digital certificates could be used to prove future COVID-19 vaccination status. This was linked, without evidence, by commentators to the possibility of implants and a range of much wilder hypotheses.

Gruener said ID2020 would not consider chips or implantables because they could be used without the users consent. For the same reason, it does not support facial recognition, she said. Gruener insisted that ID2020s vision is the opposite of deeply frightening... Orwellian large-scale surveillance systems. ID2020, she said, is trying to put the individual in charge of their data, and allow them to use digital certificates as credentials, for example for driving or for professional qualifications or vaccination records.

Online searches for ID2020 spiked in March, according to Google Trends, showing that the name had started to percolate. A YouTube video describing the made-up plans as Satanic and posted on 21 March has racked up 1.8 million views.

News articles about ID2020, almost all negative, also picked up, according to monitors GDELT and Media Cloud. Multiple petitions have also been mounted against ID2020, including one which repeats false accusations on the White House website. Others, but not all, have been removed by petition website operator Change.org. YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all carry significant amounts of videos, memes, and false allegations against Gates and ID2020.

According to the Reuters Institute study, Facebook and YouTube had taken down about three quarters of the misinformation found to be false by fact-checkers in its sample. Twitter had only removed 31 percent.

TNH analysed a sample of 58,000 tweets and retweets mentioning ID2020 between 31 March and 12 April and found at least 50 percent mentioned Gates (he has no direct relationship with ID2020 although Microsoft the tech giant he co-founded is a member) or other conspiracies. A single tweet by one alt-right reporter was retweeted by people with a collective following of nine million. Hundreds of negative or politicising hashtags were used, ranging from #5G and #plandemic to #markofthebeast. About half the postings with hashtags used a negative hashtag.

The accusations against ID2020 are clearly false but, as with much misinformation, grains of truth in the conspiracy theory are being spun into the bigger lie. A couple of examples:

A recent experimental study, seized upon by the conspiracists, describes a skin patch used on rats that delivered a vaccine and a quantum dot at the same time. The tiny tattoo only becomes visible under a near-infrared light. The authors suggest the technology could be useful in the developing world for intradermal on-person vaccination recordkeeping. The experiment was partially funded by the Gates Foundation. Its abstract has been viewed tens of thousands of times on a science journals website.

Some of the alt-right commentary focuses on a UN plan: that may refer to the UNs Sustainable Development Goals, which include a target to provide legal identity to all, including birth registration, by 2030. It makes no mention of digital or biometric technology.

Gruener told TNH she saw ID2020 as collateral damage for conspiracy theorists: We are part of a bigger vortex.

Graphic shown in header image is an undirected network graph of co-occurring hashtags in tweets about ID2020.

* Added 16 April 2020 forfull disclosure. About TNH.

bp/ag

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Go here to see the original:
What is ID2020? - The New Humanitarian

Many right-wing media outlets from Fox News to white AM talk radio have promoted a great deal of misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, which radio host Rush Limbaugh infamously compared to the common cold. But not only all right-wing media outlets have downplayed the severity of coronavirus: The Bulwark has offered an abundance of quality reporting on the pandemic. And Bulwark journalist Jonathan V. Last, this week, slams some of the bizarre contradictions that have been coming from coronavirus truthers.

Ive been consistently boggled by the loose affiliation of coronavirus-truthers, America Firsters, Catholic rad-trads, and economic boosters who have come together over the last month to insist that: (1) COVID-19 isnt so bad. (2) The real problem is the economy and the lunacy of shutting America down, Last asserts in an article published on Thursday.

Coronavirus truthers, the conservative journalist adds, are demanding that the U.S. economy reopen and insist that social distancing is going too far.

These people all seem to have different reasons for wanting America to reopen, Last explains. The only thing they have in common is that they all from the Taliban Catholics to the alt-right trolls, from the conspiracy cranks to Peter Navarro love them some Trump.

Last adds, however, that coronavirus truthers overlook the fact that Trump himself supports social distancing for the rest of April and that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who many of them hate, is part of Trumps coronavirus task force.

If you have seen someone from the #ReopenAmerica brigade blame Trump, please send me the clip, Last writes. Because as of now, I have literally never seen anyone from that part of the world blame Trump for Americas shutdown. How could that be? Hes the president! Last adds, If Anthony Fauci is the villain in all of this, and Trump hasnt fired him by now, then Trump is at least a dupe and maybe an accomplice.

Moreover, Last writes, the coronavirus truthers are giving Trump a pass for when it comes to social distancing.

On March 16, Trump urged Americans to social distance for 15 days, Last notes. He later extended that timeline. If COVID-19 is really no big deal and if reopening America is the most important thing in the world, then why arent these people flaying Trump every minute of every day and exhorting him to stop this madness? Truly, it is a mystery.

Last is among the conservative journalists who like Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot at the Washington Post or Joe Scarborough at MSNBC certainly cannot be accused of downplaying coronavirus severity. In a separate Bulwark article published on April 15, Last slammed the coronavirus truthers who ignorantly claim that its no worse than the flu.

Pointing to a scientific graph that compared flu and COVID-19 data, Last stressed that COVID-19 is not only deadlier it is also easier to spread.

Coronavirus is so much more dangerous to the American people than the flu that anyone who suggests equivalency is either deliberately lying, or does not know what they are talking about, Last wrote.

then let us make a small request. AlterNets journalists work tirelessly to counter the traditional corporate media narrative. Were here seven days a week, 365 days a year. And were proud to say that weve been bringing you the real, unfiltered news for 20 yearslonger than any other progressive news site on the Internet.

Its through the generosity of our supporters that were able to share with you all the underreported news you need to know. Independent journalism is increasingly imperiled; ads alone cant pay our bills. AlterNet counts on readers like you to support our coverage. Did you enjoy content from David Cay Johnston, Common Dreams, Raw Story and Robert Reich? Opinion from Salon and Jim Hightower? Analysis by The Conversation? Then join the hundreds of readers who have supported AlterNet this year.

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See the original post:
Conservative journalist wonders why coronavirus truthers never blame Trump for anything: Truly, its a mystery - AlterNet

Fate has done its best to derail Mystery Jets and their frontman Blaine Harrison.

First, the release of their sixth album, A Billion Heartbeats, and its September support tour were delayed after Harrison underwent emergency surgery.

Now, coronavirus has forced them to postpone their live dates a second time, until autumn this year.

The band, however, were determined to release their album.

It would have been wrong to delay the music again, explains Harrison down the line from his studio in central London.

These songs need to be out there in the world doing their thing.

Although life is different at the moment, community feels more important than ever togetherness feels more important than ever.

Thats what A Billion Heartbeats is about. Its about empathising with other people and sharing our experiences in difficult times.

A decade ago, Mystery Jets were a very different beast.

Formed in 2003 on Eel Pie Island, a Twickenham mudflat home to a huddle of hippy communes, the band was swept up in the Noughties folk explosion.

Twee tracks like Two Doors Down and Young Love with Laura Marling helped define that era, alongside acts like Johnny Flynn (now a bona fide film star) and Dry The River.

They were also notable for the fact that Harrisons father Henry featured as bassist, albeit briefly.

When the indie bubble burst at the end of the decade and bands like The Libertines lost their cultural cache, Mystery Jets looked to America.

Their varied and eccentric haircuts have charted this transformation from folkies to radical songwriters in the vein of Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg.

More recently, the band performed at the Extinction Rebellion protests and the march celebrating the NHSs 70th anniversary.

This period also saw Harrison, who has spina bifida, include his crutches in their press photos for the first time.

They are part of who I am, he says matter-of-factly.

A Billion Heartbeats - a name taken from Yuval Noah Hararis zeitgeist-capturing Sapiens book - was born out of those moments.

A protest is a billion hearts beating together towards a common goal, he relates.

Thats what a music festival is as well. You go to a festival to escape or rejoice or lose your mind.

Whatever draws you there, its that feeling of being in a sheer mass of people pulled by the same force.

I have always thought of a protest as being like a festival of resistance.

The album takes in vast swathes of culture Trump, Brexit, the climate crisis, womens rights, race relations, the plight of the NHS.

It would feel messy if not for its execution.

Of all these topics, there is one that Harrison holds dearest.

The singer and multi-instrumentalist has spent much of his 34 years in NHS hospitals being treated for spina bifida, a condition that develops during pregnancy when the bones of the babys spine do not form properly.

He is a patron of Attitude Is Everything, which works with venues to make gigs more accessible, and last year Mystery Jets performed a free lunchtime concert for NHS workers at Londons St Thomas Hospital. Hospital Radio, which features on the album, was inspired by the hundreds of hospital radio stations in operation around the UK.

That was our first protest song, he recalls. Writing it shaped all the songs that came after it on the record.

It stemmed from a very personal feeling. When I wrote it I didnt quite appreciate how many people felt that way about the NHS.

I have often said the NHS is the closest thing the British have to a religion, and that has never felt more true than right now.

When everyone took to the streets and shared an applause, the participation across the country crossed so many divides.

Harrison lives in Londons Holborn, and before that he lived on The Strand - but back in 2017, after a decade of living in flat shares across the capital, he thought it might be time to check out and live somewhere else.

The city felt like the Ourobouros, he says, the ancient snake who eats its own tail, perpetuating an unstoppable cycle of rebirth and destruction.

But then the opportunity arose for him to become a property guardian for an abandoned office on The Strand, with a direct view of Trafalgar Square.

The agreement offered him space to build a studio and a clear view of the protests taking place below Nelsons Column. Soon he and his band were in the midst.

I arrived in zone one in the wake of the referendum and just after Trump entered office, he explains.

There was quite a spike in race-related crimes in London and the UK, and suddenly casual racism started showing its face in more and more places.

It wasnt just in Britain. The alt-right is now the second largest party in Germany.

I started attending protests. It was a way for me to get closer to, I suppose, the truth.

Recently, he moved to his current home, a second guardianship in Holborn.

His bands decision to go political, it seems, was also born out of a frustration with what rock and roll had become.

Guitar music has become very polite and sanitised, he declares.

It doesnt have to be like that. Its why grime is the punk of today...

...which is the most white person thing that has ever been said, he laughs.

But it really is. Grime is talking about the mechanics of society in way that guitar music has done at points in time.

Harrison is philosophical about the fact his bands tour has been postponed once again.

He suggests the virus is nature sending us to our bedrooms to think about what we have done.

In fact, he sees positivity in the lockdown.

When we are going about our everyday lives, perhaps we have got the blinkers on and we are so focused on getting our head down, working and keeping the wolf from the door that we forget the importance of human contact.

Thats what this moment is teaching us. A Billion Heartbeats is out now. Mystery Jets embark on their postponed UK tour in the autumn.

Read the original:
Mystery Jets frontman Blaine Harrison discusses their long-awaited sixth album - expressandstar.com

On Easter Sunday, a group of around fourteen people, led by an anti-vaxxer and documented by a conspiracy vlogger, intentionally broke social distancing and took to the streets of Vancouver.

Videos show the groupwhich featured both older people and a childholding a sign featuring an illustration of the coronavirus and the words Fake News. The rally even featured one grey-haired person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask with sunglasses over it. In photos and videos, the protesters seem to pay no heed to the six feet rule experts have recommended to avoid the spread of COVID-19.

Organizer Susan Standfield-Spooner told VICE that the quarantine measures put in place by the government have caused her to lose about 80% of the income she and her husband made from a consulting company. She said that she believes the deaths and homelessness that come from the financial strife brought about by the closures of business are far worse than the health impact of COVID-19, which has killed 735 Canadians as of Monday.

Social distancing measures are in place in an attempt to flatten the curve to slow the spread of COVID-19 so hospitals dont become overwhelmed and cause an even larger loss of life.

A photo of the rally walking in downtown Vancouver. Photo via Standfield-Spooner

Standfield-Spooner said she didnt even know most of the people at the rallya 70-year-old woman helped organize the event. The senior woman was present at the rally. Experts warn that those 70 years and older are the most at risk for dying from the disease. Standfield-Spooner said she believes the virus is real but the death tally has been exaggerated and that it was intentionally released upon the world. She also thinks the disease is infectious but not deadly, like herpes. Standfield-Spooner also has said that she believes the pandemic is an attempt by elites to strip citizens of their rights and vaccinate them. Social media posts show that shes held anti-vaccinations beliefs for several years.

In British Columbia, like the majority of the rest of the country, non-essential businesses are closed and public gatherings are banned.

Personally, my life has been destroyed, said Standfield-Spooner. I'm not sitting around enjoying it. I'm screwed. People would be surprised because I grew up, you know, in the status quo world of opportunity. I'm educated, have a wealthy background, whatever, but not right now. Right now, personally, I'm in the loser group.

(Chief Public Health Officer of Canada) Teresa Tam, I dont know how she's sleeping at night, Standfield-Spooner said.

Standfield-Spooner said this march was just a trial run and bigger rallies are on the way.

Stanfield-Spooner was only able to get a small group out in Vancouver but did inspire a similar rally in Vernon B.C. at the same time. At the Vernon rally attendeeseven those who described the virus as a hoaxstood six feet apart. The Vernon rally's organizer told a local publication that, like Standfield-Spooner, they believe social distancing for healthy people is "tyranny."

"Waiting in lines outside of stores is not normalwe don't want it anymore, and it needs to stop," Sylvia Herchen told Castanet.

The march was attended and promoted by Dan Dicks, a bit player in the Canadian conspiracy scene. Dicks sent a tweet out from the rallyshowing him in aviators talking about how people are fighting backthat went viral.

Vancouverites arent drinking the kool-aid, Dicks said in the video. Theyre getting out and getting together here to show the world that were not OK with unlawful orders and quarantines and lockdowns.

Dicks had originally posted a longer video of the rally but it was removed by YouTube, which is cracking down on conspiracy videos. Dicks boasts a YouTube channel called Press for Truth with over 260,000 subscribers in which he posts mishmash of videos ranging from his more conspiracy-centric videos about globalists, wireless technology, and Trudeaus evil plans; to more far-right videos like an endorsement of alt-right figure Faith Goldy during her Toronto mayoral campaigns, and videos railing against the irregular migrants at Roxham Road.

Recently Dicks has turned his eye to COVID-19 and conspiracies surrounding that, with a focus on the tyranny of self-isolation. Experts have warned that during a pandemic conspiracies can do real damage to real people. As for the 70-year-old organizer who helped organize the anti-lockdown rally,Standfield-Spooner said it was her choice to come out.

People participate in life by choice, said Standfield-Spooner. It's more likely there's a woman there who was 70, I think she was the oldest I think shes more likely to die from a car accident in Canada.

There were 160 car accident fatalities per month in Canada in 2018, roughly 600 less than the amount of people who have died due to coronavirus over the last month.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Read the original here:
Great, the Anti-Vaxxer Coronavirus Protests Are Here - VICE

FATE has done its best to derail Mystery Jets and their frontman Blaine Harrison. First, the release of their sixth album, A Billion Heartbeats, and its September support tour were delayed after Harrison underwent emergency surgery.

Now, coronavirus has forced them to postpone their live dates a second time, until autumn this year. The band, however, were determined to release their album.

"It would have been wrong to delay the music again," explains Harrison down the line from his studio in central London.

"These songs need to be out there in the world doing their thing. Although life is different at the moment, community feels more important than ever togetherness feels more important than ever.

"That's what A Billion Heartbeats is about. It's about empathising with other people and sharing our experiences in difficult times."

A decade ago, Mystery Jets were a very different beast. Formed in 2003 on Eel Pie Island, a Twickenham mudflat home to a huddle of hippy communes, the band was swept up in the folk explosion of the early 00s.

Twee tracks like Two Doors Down and Young Love with Laura Marling helped define that era, alongside acts like Johnny Flynn and Dry The River. They were also notable for the fact that Harrison's father Henry featured as bassist, albeit briefly.

When the indie bubble burst at the end of the decade and bands like The Libertines lost their cultural cache, Mystery Jets looked to America. Their varied and eccentric haircuts have charted this transformation from folkies to radical songwriters in the vein of Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg.

More recently, the band performed at the Extinction Rebellion protests and the march celebrating the NHS's 70th anniversary. This period also saw Harrison, who has spina bifida, include his crutches in their press photos for the first time.

"They are part of who I am," he says matter-of-factly.

A Billion Heartbeats a name taken from Yuval Noah Harari's zeitgeist-capturing Sapiens book was born out of those moments.

"A protest is a billion hearts beating together towards a common goal," he relates.

"That's what a music festival is as well. You go to a festival to escape or rejoice or lose your mind. Whatever draws you there, it's that feeling of being in a sheer mass of people pulled by the same force.

"I have always thought of a protest as being like a festival of resistance."

The album takes in vast swathes of culture Trump, Brexit, the climate crisis, women's rights, race relations, the plight of the NHS. It would feel messy if not for its execution.

Of all these topics, there is one that Harrison holds dearest. The singer and multi-instrumentalist has spent much of his 34 years in NHS hospitals being treated for spina bifida, a condition that develops during pregnancy when the bones of the baby's spine do not form properly.

He is a patron of Attitude Is Everything, which works with venues to make gigs more accessible, and last year Mystery Jets performed a free lunchtime concert for NHS workers at London's St Thomas' Hospital.

Hospital Radio, which features on the album, was inspired by the hundreds of hospital radio stations in operation around the UK.

"That was our first protest song," he recalls.

"Writing it shaped all the songs that came after it on the record.

"It stemmed from a very personal feeling. When I wrote it I didn't quite appreciate how many people felt that way about the NHS.

"I have often said the NHS is the closest thing the British have to a religion, and that has never felt more true than right now. When everyone took to the streets and shared an applause, the participation across the country crossed so many divides."

Harrison lives in London's Holborn, and before that he lived on The Strand but back in 2017, after a decade of living in flat shares across the capital, he thought it might be time to "check out and live somewhere else".

The city felt like the Ourobouros, he says, the ancient snake who eats its own tail, perpetuating an unstoppable cycle of rebirth and destruction. But then the opportunity arose for him to become a property guardian for an abandoned office on The Strand, with a direct view of Trafalgar Square.

The agreement offered him space to build a studio and a clear view of the protests taking place below Nelson's Column. Soon he and his band were in the midst.

"I arrived in zone one in the wake of the referendum and just after Trump entered office," he explains.

"There was quite a spike in race-related crimes in London and the UK, and suddenly casual racism started showing its face in more and more places. It wasn't just in Britain. The alt-right is now the second largest party in Germany.

"I started attending protests. It was a way for me to get closer to, I suppose, the truth."

Recently, he moved to his current home, a second guardianship in Holborn.

His band's decision to go political, it seems, was also born out of a frustration with what rock and roll had become.

"Guitar music has become very polite and sanitised," he declares.

"It doesn't have to be like that. It's why grime is the punk of today which is the most 'white person' thing that has ever been said. But it really is. Grime is talking about the mechanics of society in way that guitar music has done at points in time."

Harrison is philosophical about the fact his band's tour has been postponed once again.

He suggests the virus is nature "sending us to our bedrooms to think about what we have done".

In fact, he sees positivity in the lockdown.

"When we are going about our everyday lives, perhaps we have got the blinkers on and we are so focused on getting our head down, working and keeping the wolf from the door that we forget the importance of human contact.

"That's what this moment is teaching us."

:: A Billion Heartbeats is out now.

More:
Mystery Jets man Blaine Harrison on sixth album A Billion Heartbeats and why the NHS is "the closest thing the British have to a religion" -...