Canada’s newspapers are asking the federal government to follow France and Australia in forcing companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook, Inc. to pay to display their news content.
“Both France and Australia have set deadlines to have mandatory solutions in place by July. That means paying for copyrighted content and sharing the advertising dollars and data that flow from it,” said a letter signed by newspaper executives including Andrew MacLeod of Postmedia and The Globe and Mail’s Phillip Crawley. “The situation is urgent, with media companies suffering huge advertising declines because of the coronavirus pandemic.”
The letter said Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube had amplified “Icke’s racism and misinformation about Covid-19 to millions of people”.
It was co-signed by MP Damian Collins, as well as celebrity medics Dr Christian Jessen, Dr Dawn Harper and Dr Pixie McKenna.
The CCDH said videos of Mr Icke making “untrue and conspiracist claims about Covid-19” had been watched more than 30 million times online.
As examples, it cited:
a YouTube interview in which Mr Icke falsely claimed that a Jewish group was behind coronavirus
an Instagram post in which he falsely claimed 5G mobile networks left people unable to absorb oxygen
a YouTube video in which he falsely claimed it was not possible to catch a virus from shaking hands
a Twitter post in which he falsely claimed Germany was moving to “legalise rape” for Muslim men
The letter was published after Facebook had removed Mr Icke’s page.
In April, YouTube removed an interview with Mr Icke in which he said there “is a link between 5G and this health crisis”.
When asked for his reaction to reports of 5G masts being set on fire in England and Northern Ireland, he responded: “If 5G continues and reaches where they want to take it, human life as we know it is over… so people have to make a decision.”
Facebook later removed the same video saying it broke its rules on misinformation.
By Marianna Spring, Specialist disinformation and social media reporter
David Icke has promoted several conspiracy theories on social media throughout the pandemic – and has consequently found himself in hot water with social media sites and broadcasting regulators.
The health misinformation that he’s been spreading, including linking 5G to coronavirus, has played a role in platforms like YouTube tightening their policies about conspiracy theories.
This is a difficult area for social media sites to tackle.
Medical myths and speculation that could cause harm are easier to act on, while conspiracy theories occupy a grey area where companies risk accusations of censorship if they take action.
But the setting alight of mobile phone towers and abuse of telecommunications workers linked to this 5G coronavirus conspiracy has pushed sites like Twitter and TikTok to tighten their rules.
Facebook has also recognised that the conspiracy theories repeatedly promoted by Icke fall into their bracket of harmful misinformation. This isn’t the first time it has removed content from him – but the platform has gone one step further in taking down his page.
Governments and social media sites alike grapple with the fine balance between stemming harmful narratives and allowing freedom of expression. But experts point out that they can do both with effective moderation and collaboration.
THIS week, the actor Chris Hemsworth was photographed with his agreeable-looking child, in the sunshine, outside their beachfront home in the exclusive Australian surfing resort of Byron Bay.
And I guess everyone thought when they saw the picture: “Well, lockdown’s working pretty well for him.”
Chris Hemsworth takes a break from self isolation and heads to the beach with one of his twin sonsCredit: Splash News
Yeah, and it can’t be too bad either for Mrs Hemsworth. Living by the sea, in paradise, with a triangular- torsoed Hollywood hunk.
But then if you take a glance at your social media, you’ll notice that absolutely everyone else is living the Hemsworth dream.
It’s an endless parade of people’s perfect sourdough baking and of jolly board games with the kids.
This morning, my Instagram feed featured a young family doing a fancy dress dinner, a girl on an enormous horse, a woman sprawled on the bonnet of a Mercedes SL, a man with a cute dog, doing exercises, and a shot of some cows taken through a wisteria bush.
On Instagram, no one is ever bored, it never rains and everyone’s breasts are perfect. Especially Chris Hemsworth’s.
FAT WIFE SLOBBING OUT
This is having an effect on the nation’s teenagers. They have been told there will be no exams this year and that all their school work was for nothing. They’ve been told they have to stay indoors and that they can’t see their friends.
And it’s driving them mad because they do not read newspapers. They do not listen to the BBC news. And they replaced Radio 1 with Spotify five years ago.
This means they never hear any actual news. So they don’t know what’s going on.
Instead they look at their phones (constantly) and all they can see are pretty girls with swimsuits up their a*** cheeks, and Chris Hemsworth, and parents who have turned the cellar into a nightclub and lots of cute ducklings.
And they’re thinking, as they watch the rain trickle down the windows at their house: “Why can’t I have some of that?”
Chris Hemsworth’s wife Elsa Pataky shows off her incredible figure in a sun-kissed shoot
In the olden days we’d have smacked their bottoms and told them to stop being spoiled, but that’s not allowed any more. So I’ve come up with another idea . . .
If you are an old person stuck in a tower block, waiting for Covid-19 to stick its warty little head through the letterbox, post a picture of your surroundings on Instagram. Don’t hold back. Show us the overflowing cat litter and the photograph of your husband, alone in his hospital bed.
Show us also pictures of your sister who is in a care home and hasn’t had a visitor for five weeks.
And your food cupboard which has nothing in it any more. And your empty bottle of Senokot.
REALITY OF LOCKDOWN
In fact, we should all get in on the act. Don’t wait for a joyous moment to photograph and share. Send us instead pictures of stuff you didn’t enjoy.
The particularly gruesome bit of wax you’ve just pulled out of your left ear. The turd your dog just did on the mat. Your fat other half slobbing out in front of the TV.
Your kids throwing Monopoly pieces at one another after a row over Fenchurch Street station.
Instead of sharing your perfect loaf, send pictures of the charred wreck that went wrong, the scarf full of dropped stitches, the wonky self-assembly garden furniture that broke the first time you sat on it.
Hit us with the reality of lockdown. Admit that it’s one part happiness and nine parts ditch water.
And then maybe teenagers will start to understand that life is bookended by the lucky and the not so lucky. At one end you’ve got the Hemsworths. At the other you’ve got a frightened old man in a tenement block in Bermondsey.
Maybe then they will understand they are somewhere in the middle, and stop bloody complaining.
Cocoa-vid-19
There is much debate about what increases your chances of dying from Covid-19. But there’s one thing everyone agrees on. It likes to kill fatties most of all. And how have we responded to this?
Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut chocolate is getting Brits through lockdown
Well, I don’t know about you but I’ve addressed the issue by sitting on a sofa for six hours a day, eating slabs of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut chocolate and getting up only to go to the fridge for another bottle of wine.
I guess I’m working on the principle that soon I’ll be so fat, there won’t be room in the house for me and the virus as well.
But there is one problem.
There are now so many empty bottles sitting by the bins at the bottom of the drive I just know my neighbours will assume I’ve been throwing illegal parties, and call the police.
Tube boob
A nurse made headlines this week after moaning about the cramped conditions on a London Tube train at 5.45am.
She said she was risking her life at work and pointed out that she shouldn’t have to risk it even more while commuting. Fair point, you might think. But hang on.
Commuting on a cramped Tube is dangerous during this pandemicCredit: Alamy
In the olden days – before March – people may well have been on a Tube train at that time because they were coming home from a club.
But these days, nobody on a Tube train at quarter to six in the morning is there for fun. They’re ALL going to work.
There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what most of us have been told to do all along. But I do agree that commuting on a cramped Tube is bloody dangerous.
So I ask once again for parking restrictions to be lifted immediately, as this would allow people to go to work in the blissful self-isolation of their own cars.
Portsmouth from above
An aerial photograph of Portsmouth taken this week showed that the colour of the sea has turned from the usual mud brown to a shimmering, aquamarine blue.
It’s the sort of colour you usually associate with the Caribbean, and it is genuinely amazing.
Incredible photographs captured by drone in Portsmouth, Hants, show the sea now looking almost tropicalCredit: Solent News
Naturally, green people are saying it happened because the lockdown means less traffic. And they may be right.
Or, let me just lob this one in . . . it happened because the photographer was experimenting with some of the filters on his new phone.
My phone’s got so many that if you gave me long enough, I could take a selfie and make me look like Chris Hemsworth. Or his wife.
Shell shock
For the past couple of years, farmers have not been allowed to spray their bright yellow oil seed rape with insecticides called neonicotinoids.
As a result, a lot of my crop is dead.
Enjoy nature while in lockdown and look out for tortoiseshell butterflies in the gardenCredit: Iain H Leach
But on the upside, I’m now seeing more bumble bees than I have in years. And yesterday I saw a tortoiseshell butterfly, the first I’ve found since about 1972.
But that said, my eyesight is so bad these days, it could have been an actual tortoise.
