While global controversies around “fake news” continue unabated, UNESCO holds two events at its Paris HQ this week which will give more insight into the issues.
First up is an annual meeting on media development, held by the eight UNESCO Member States who serve on the Bureau of the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).
Google is constantly under pressure from all sides to change how it ranks just about everything. There's a massive SEO industry, a decent portion of which is dedicated into tricking Google into ranking some stuff higher than others (or downgrading content that someone doesn't like). And, then, of course, there are the "outside" interests. For years, the legacy recording and movie industries would misleadingly blame Google for piracy and demand that it downrank "pirate" links. Google caved in and did so, and the end result has been kind of a mess.
AFTER A FEW hours of watching livestreamers E-Poemz or Johnny Dangers on February 22, 2017, you might have felt like you knew them. Their voices, narrating livestreams of the slow-motion eviction of Dakota Access pipeline protesters from a Standing Rock protest site (on land claimed by the Army Corp of Engineers), became familiar. For those viewers not accustomed to police at protests, it might been a shock when officers tackled and arrested E-Poemz, possibly seriously injuring him. His livestream ends with a sideways shot from his camera lying on the ground.
More than half of British people are unaware of the “forgotten war” underway in Yemen, despite the Government’s support for a military coalition accused of killing thousands of civilians.
A YouGov poll seen exclusively by The Independent showed 49 per cent of people knew of the country’s ongoing civil war, which has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced three million more and left 14 million facing starvation.
The figure was even lower for the 18 to 24 age group, where only 37 per cent were aware of the Yemen conflict as it enters its third year of bloodshed.
The airstrikes, recently conducted by the Israeli Air Force on Syrian territory, are supposed to make it clear that Tel-Aviv won't allow Tehran to strengthen its positions in the region, Austrian Der Standard newspaper reported.
Israeli airstrikes have targeted Syria since 2012. In this way, the Israeli authorities seek to prevent Hezbollah — a Shiite militant group and political party based in Lebanon, which currently fights on the side of the Syrian government — from developing advanced weapons and transporting them to Lebanon.
A dispute between a Wisconsin family and their local government could set an important precedent for how the federal government must compensate states when taking land.
Law enforcement agencies across the world are targeting the dark web. Whether that's through undercover buys of illegal weapons, or deploying malware to catch suspected pedophiles, cops have spent the past few years learning how to tackle criminals who make use of Tor hidden services.
But a theme has emerged throughout dark web crackdowns: Much of their presentation by law enforcement is little more than PR hype, designed to exaggerate the effectiveness of the operation, or how many agencies are actually involved.
Events are moving so fast in Europe these days, it’s almost impossible to keep up. While much of the attention is being hogged by political developments, including the election in the Netherlands, Reuters published a report warning that the European banking sector may face even higher bad loan risks if the ECB begins to scale back its monetary stimulus programs, something it has already begun, albeit extremely tentatively.
Sam Genco, at age 19, narrowly survived one of the United States’ worst military aircraft carrier fires. Today, 50 years later, it’s that ship’s drinking water he says could be killing him.
Genco was diagnosed last year at a North Carolina veterans’ clinic with ischemic heart disease – a common condition the federal government says is linked to Agent Orange exposure. He suffers from severely blocked arteries, cutting off the normal flow of oxygen and blood to the heart.
The Marine Corps’ investigation of cyber bullying by a Facebook forum of veterans and active-duty troops has widened into a probe that now involves cooperation from all military branches, FBI agents and state prosecutors, officials said Friday.
Headquartered in Quantico, Virginia, the Military Criminal Organization Task Force includes detectives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Federal Bureau of Investigation.