Conspiracy theories

We need to be vigilant against the antivaxers…

Terry Maguire on January 22, 2021, 8:07 am

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Medical scientists are more positive than they have been for months. If the science is right – and we trust it is – twenty-one days after 95% of the most vulnerable have had their first covid-19 vaccine they should have 70% protection against the virus and then there should be a sharp fall in the numbers hospitalized and ending up in ICU. Mission accomplished in protecting the NHS and this should be happening mid-March. The Covid-19 virus will off course …

Conspiracy Theories and how dangerous they can be. Part Two…

Robert Campbell on January 12, 2021, 2:45 pm

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QAnon began with an anonymous poster on 4chan who alleged that they were a government official in the US. The Conspiracy Theory that was described includes a paedophile ring involved in child sex-trafficking, the involvement of government agencies, Democratic politicians, and Hollywood celebrities who are all plotting against President Trump who is fighting them. The plotters, of course, are an elite who really run the world. This built on the earlier Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory with which it is now merged. …

Conspiracy Theories and how dangerous they can be. Part One…

Robert Campbell on January 11, 2021, 2:58 pm

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Let’s be very clear about this; conspiracies are real, but Conspiracy Theories are fake, imaginary, and fictitious. (I intend to follow Cassam’s convention, using initial capitals to denote fake Conspiracy Theories, and lower case for real conspiracies.) Conspiracy Theories merge with fake news, alternative facts, and general misinformation. There are also conspiracy allegations, often in relation to specific events; the allegations usually allude to governmental malfeasance. Similar allegations in the past have often been shown to be (largely) correct after …

How can we all be fact checkers in a pandemic?

Soapbox on December 16, 2020, 8:30 am

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You can play your part and think more critically about the information that is being fired at us all. Organisations can book a free online interactive training session with FactCheckNI on fact checking, where we explore: what is fact checking; why is it important; how can you do it yourself; and examine some of the tools you can use to make sure what you’re sharing both online and in your real life is accurate.

“we have stripped away the overgrowth of decades of ill-informed comment, half truths and deliberate misrepresentations which have all too often masqueraded as established facts.”

Pete Baker on January 22, 2017, 4:34 pm

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Given the many lurid conspiracy theories that have been constructed over the years around the abuse at the Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast, it’s worth highlighting the findings of the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1995 on that issue in particular. While the BBC mentioned it in a longer report, The Irish Times focused on this aspect of the Inquiry’s findings There is no evidence to support allegations that security agencies were complicit in …

“all participants attend Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity…”

Pete Baker on June 18, 2012, 6:41 pm

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As the Irish Times noted at the weekend, the Irish Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, has been providing written answers to the Dáil about his trip to Chantilly, and his attendance at the 2012 Bilderberg Meeting. Here’s his 13 June written answer on “Official Travel” Minister for Finance (Deputy Michael Noonan): I attended the Bilderberg meeting in Westfield Marriot, Chantilly, Virginia, USA, from 1 to 3 June 2012. I, like a number of my European colleagues (both Ministers and EU Commissioners), …

Bilderberg 2012: “Like a corporate cross between Santa Claus and a big friendly squid.”

Pete Baker on June 1, 2012, 9:44 pm

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It’s just as well that Ireland said ‘Yes’ to the Fiscal Treaty. I can only imagine the embarrassed silences Irish Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, would have experienced this weekend if the result had gone the other way. Where is Michael? He’s in the US. Virginia, since you ask. In Chantilly. At the 60th annual Bilderberg conference… It’s quite a list of attendees. Some names you might recognise include Lord [Peter] Mandelson and US Senator John Kerry, as well as the chairmen …

Bilderberg 2012: “Are you here for the brunch?”

Pete Baker on May 30, 2012, 6:01 pm

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The Guardian’s Charlie Skelton is in Chantilly, Virginia, ahead of the, whisper it, annual Bilderberg conference – “a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced”. As he says at the Big G’s US News blog Everything’s set. The hotel is being primped and hoovered, the security is arriving, the press is nowhere to be seen, and I just had a really boring crab salad. It’s shaping up to be a vintage Bilderberg. …