"The Next News Network". @Commodore never fails to come up with the best sources... YouTube Doesn’t Just Welcome ‘Conspiracy Theorists’—It Gives Them Awards Next News Network Take Gary Franchi. Back in 2012, Franchi was pushing Ron Paul action figures as part of his work with the Revolution PAC. Now, as the host of the Next News Network, he’s providing the world with a less tangible product: a YouTube channel that’s been grabbing millions of views with factually dubious reports, despite the host’s promise of “real, authentic news.” Among its more popular broadcasts is one that scored 2.4 million views that claimed Hillary Clinton rigged the first presidential debate with President Trump. Another video published just ahead of the 2016 election, with 1.2 million views, claimed to have proof that Clinton had Parkinson’s disease. This was later deemed false by Parkinson’s charities and the fact-checking site Snopes. Recent Franchi broadcasts have focused on Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide, which the host indicates was no suicide. In one bulletin published August 21, Franchi asks viewers for their thoughts on “who did it,” laughs and signs off with: “I think we all know.” It’s unclear what exactly he knows. A coroner ruled Epstein’s death was a suicide by hanging a week before Franchi’s implied accusation at no one in particular. Despite those stories being widely discredited, Franchi was given a gold Creator Award in May this year. (He took down the video of him receiving the award shortly after publication). A simple Google search for Franchi would have revealed to YouTube’s award judges that he has previously been called out as a “conspiracy theorist,” a term he says is “a cheap label applied by biased journalists.” Back in 2010, he made it onto the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of people spreading hate after he helped promote the false claim that the U.S. was building concentration camps for Americans who disagreed with the government. His pinned tweet at the time of writing is an erroneous claim that Michelle Obama is transgender, another conspiracy of the far right. Brushing off accusations that he’s a conspiracy theorist, Franchi is proud of his work. When Forbes asks him about the Creator Award, Franchi says: “It was a very special moment for our family.” He isn’t entirely enamored with YouTube, though. Franchi has claimed in multiple videos that YouTube is taking action to limit access to his channel by removing it from “suggested videos.” He believes this has led some viewers to be forcibly unsubscribed. YouTube said it couldn’t comment on the matter. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...orists--it-gives-them-awards/?sh=5f15c15040f4
'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth An ex-YouTube insider reveals how its recommendation algorithm promotes divisive clips and conspiracy videos. Did they harm Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency? With its flashy graphics and slick-haired anchor, the Next News Network has the appearances of a credible news channel. But behind the facade is a dubious operation that recycles stories harvested from far-right publications, fake news sites and Russian media outlets. The channel is run by anchor Gary Franchi, once a leading proponent of a conspiracy that claimed the US government was creating concentration camps for its citizens. It was the Next News Network that broadcast the fabricated claims about Bill Clinton raping a teenager, although Franchi insists he is not a fake news producer. (He tells me he prefers to see his channel as “commentating on conservative news and opinion”.) In the months leading up to the election, the Next News Network turned into a factory of anti-Clinton news and opinion, producing dozens of videos a day and reaching an audience comparable to that of MSNBC’s YouTube channel. Chaslot’s research indicated Franchi’s success could largely be credited to YouTube’s algorithms, which consistently amplified his videos to be played “up next”. YouTube had sharply dismissed Chaslot’s research. I contacted Franchi to see who was right. He sent me screen grabs of the private data given to people who upload YouTube videos, including a breakdown of how their audiences found their clips. The largest source of traffic to the Bill Clinton rape video, which was viewed 2.4m times in the month leading up to the election, was YouTube recommendations. The same was true of all but one of the videos Franchi sent me data for. A typical example was a Next News Network video entitled “WHOA! HILLARY THINKS CAMERA’S OFF… SENDS SHOCK MESSAGE TO TRUMP” in which Franchi, pointing to a tiny movement of Clinton’s lips during a TV debate, claims she says “**** you” to her presidential rival. The data Franchi shared revealed in the month leading up to the election, 73% of the traffic to the video – amounting to 1.2m of its views – was due to YouTube recommendations. External traffic accounted for only 3% of the views. Franchi is a professional who makes a living from his channel, but many of the other creators of anti-Clinton videos I spoke to were amateur sleuths or part-time conspiracy theorists. Typically, they might receive a few hundred views on their videos, so they were shocked when their anti-Clinton videos started to receive millions of views, as if they were being pushed by an invisible force. In every case, the largest source of traffic – the invisible force – came from the clips appearing in the “up next” column. William Ramsey, an occult investigator from southern California who made “Irrefutable Proof: Hillary Clinton Has a Seizure Disorder!”, shared screen grabs that showed the recommendation algorithm pushed his video even after YouTube had emailed him to say it violated its guidelines. Ramsey’s data showed the video was watched 2.4m times by US-based users before election day. “For a nobody like me, that’s a lot,” he says. “Enough to sway the election, right?” Daniel Alexander Cannon, a conspiracy theorist from South Carolina, tells me: “Every video I put out about the Clintons, YouTube would push it through the roof.” His best-performing clip was a video titled “Hillary and Bill Clinton ‘The 10 Photos You Must See’”, essentially a slideshow of appalling (and seemingly doctored) images of the Clintons with voiceover in which Cannon speculates on their health. It has been seen 3.7m times on YouTube, and 2.9m of those views, Cannon said, came from “up next” recommendations. Chaslot has put a spotlight on a trove of anti-Clinton conspiracy videos that had been hidden in the shadows – unless, that is, you were one of the the millions YouTube served them to. But his research also does something more important: revealing how thoroughly our lives are now mediated by artificial intelligence. Less than a generation ago, the way voters viewed their politicians was largely shaped by tens of thousands of newspaper editors, journalists and TV executives. Today, the invisible codes behind the big technology platforms have become the new kingmakers. They pluck from obscurity people like Dave Todeschini, a retired IBM engineer who, “let off steam” during the election by recording himself opining on Clinton’s supposed involvement in paedophilia, child sacrifice and cannibalism. “It was crazy, it was nuts,” he said of the avalanche of traffic to his YouTube channel, which by election day had more than 2m views. “Breaking news,” he announced in one of his last dispatches before the vote: the FBI, he said, had just found graphic images of Clinton and her aide in “sexually compromising positions” with a teenager. “It seems to me, with Bill Clinton’s trips to paedophile island a number of times, that what we have here is nothing short of the Clinton paedophile ring,” he declared. Todeschini sits in his darkened living room in New Jersey, staring into his smartphone. “I’ll tell you what: the rabbit hole just got a couple of yards deeper.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/02/how-youtubes-algorithm-distorts-truth
Rules for thee, not for Gretchen. “In retrospect, I should have thought about it. I am human an *******. I made a yet another mistake, and I apologize I got caught again.” Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer apologized Sunday after she was caught dining maskless indoors with a dozen people, violating her own COVID restrictions. Photos posted over the weekend showed Whitmer dining with at least a dozen other people at The Landshark Bar & Grill in East Lansing, Michigan, Breitbart News first reported Sunday. The publication reported before the photos were taken down that Whitmer’s chief operating officer Tricia Foster was also present at the event. Michigan’s May 15 order mandates that no more than six people may be seated at the same table. The governor has faced heavy criticism throughout the pandemic for strict COVID restrictions that have forced many Michigan restaurants and businesses to shutter their doors. “Yesterday, I went with friends to a local restaurant. As more people arrived, the tables were pushed together,” the governor said, according to NBC affiliate WDIV of Detroit. She did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Because we were all vaccinated, we didn’t stop to think about it,” she continued. “In retrospect, I should have thought about it. I am human. I made a mistake, and I apologize.” Whitmer also came under fire in late April and early May when reports surfaced that she had traveled to Florida in March to visit her father. Shortly after her trip, she appeared on “Meet the Press” and urged people to “take this seriously, mask up” and “get tested” — and to specifically avoid traveling for spring break in Florida. Whitmer also drew fire in January when she traveled to President Joe Biden’s inauguration after she had recently issued a “gatherings and face mask order” requiring Michigan residents to limit their gatherings to 25 or fewer people.
The Trumper obsession with her is insane. You posting this puts you in a special level of crazy nutbags who were so obsessed with her they plotted to kidnap her and execute her in a confederate south trial. IF THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH then so be it, but just to let you know... yeah this obsession is bizarre. I also thought you Trumpers don't care about masks and congregating to blow around your covid. So I don't really know what your problem is here. Democrats eat out and have friends too. She apologized for setting a bad example in that moment. Who cares...... I know you sure as hell don't.... but this level of obsession with you and your right wing friends on 4Chan or wherever has led to her almost getting murdered. I hope you are proud that you share in that bizarre obsession.
I think the conservative media folks beating the narrative drums target Democratic governors (like Whitmer and Newsom) on purpose. They're intentional, strategic, and whip-smart (if predictably cynical and empty of anything worthwhile). These are the up-and-comer possibly national-level farm club Democrats, and by cutting them off at the knees with faux/FOX controversies, you build up some rallying negative battle cries if they try to move beyond the state level. I wish Dems could be this strategically dishonest and venomous against the GOP. It would serve us all well, actually. Dems just react to the most ugly and relevant things before them and keep losing the long game, relying instead, I guess, on the myth of shifting demographics taking care of everything for them.
If we were all vaccinated, Michigan wouldn't have a need for covid restrictions. Guess who's lagging on that front...
Vaccination data hints at new pandemic phase in which COVID-19 spreads primarily among Republicans In news that still surprises approximately nobody, the newest vaccination data confirms that the race to immunize Americans against a pandemic virus that killed 600,000 people in this country has been thoroughly partisanized. Democratic-leaning communities are getting vaccinated. Republican communities aren't. Analyzing the newest data, CNN reports that 21 of the top 25 most-vaccinated states were won by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and 21 of the least vaccinated states voted for Trump—including all but one of the bottom 17. "The correlation between vaccination rates and the 2020 election outcome by state has only strengthened over time," says CNN analyst Harry Enten. That's almost certainly because vaccine supply is no longer so constrained, turning personal motivation into the new driving factor for who's getting the vaccine and who isn't. We already know who won't be getting the vaccine, because they are very vocal about it: Trump supporters. Fox News watchers. Diehard Republicans who believe, despite all available evidence and quite probably themselves knowing someone who died, that the world pandemic is a hoax perpetrated by scientists or "globalists" or other supposed elites working behind the scenes. ... We can begin to see how the next year of the pandemic will unfold. As access to the vaccine becomes more widespread, non-Republicans will become increasingly immune. Diehard Republicans, however, will remain willingly at risk. While a good chunk of Republicans will get vaccinated, the most ideology-obsessed will not. So they'll die. The numbers will likely never reach those of previous pandemic spikes, because ideological fascists do not make up 100% of any community—a good chunk of their neighbors will provide the necessary buffer that slows pandemic spread, with the virus transmitting mostly among fellow cult members—but we may well reach the bizarre pandemic point where COVID-19 is, in this country, a primarily conservative disease. A disease that specifically targets members of the Fox News community. An ITD—an ideologically transmitted disease.
Got my second shot Tuesday. Felt fine all day and the next morning. Then about 9 Am I got hit like a freight train and have been in bed all day. Just started feeling better 2 hours ago.
