Fake News And Half News

Read Time:3 Minute, 47 Second

by Neil Bamforth

Until Trump came along I don’t think I had heard the phrase ‘fake news’. I might have done but, if so, it certainly hadn’t really registered. Now, clearly, in Trump’s case, any news that he doesn’t like is ‘fake news’. Whether it is or not is quite immaterial to him. He doesn’t like it, therefore, it is ‘fake’. Fair enough, we know where we stand with your President.

The thing that worries me is that there is, clearly, ‘fake news’ out there. It’s all over the internet for a start. By all accounts, it has been proven that Russian hackers among others – Chinese? – have, for some time, been shoving all kinds of extraordinarily believable garbage out onto the internet.

This morning, on BBC Breakfast TV, I watched a short program that appears during Breakfast TV, on a Saturday, called ‘Click’. It’s very good you know. It’s won awards. It’s all about technological advances and things that usually go right over my head but, ‘Click’ tells you in easy ways so even I understand most of it.

Apparently – and they showed how – you can take a video of somebody and make them say something they didn’t say in any language you like. Amazing! Also frightening. A BBC newsreader was their guinea pig. He said, in English, that he was a news reader and could only speak English.

After messing about with technology, they replayed the video and, perfectly in sync with his lips, he clearly said, in Chinese, “I can speak lots of languages”. How the hell do they do that?

Anyway. After watching that I would suggest that anything that you see on Youtube or Facebook that has a video of someone saying something controversial, treat it with suspicion, especially if their enemies will gain from them supposedly saying whatever it is they are supposedly saying.

The mind literally boggles. Well, mine does anyway.

Speaking of news, fake or otherwise, something has changed in Blighty and it’s worrying me. It must be some form of political correctness as A) it is stupid and B) it is very stupid.

There have been a quite horrific number of stabbings in London over the last couple of years. Virtually all are young black men being stabbed by other young black men. We know that. We don’t know why, other than it is probably drug and/or gang related, but trying to hide the fact that it is almost always young black men stabbing young black men is hardly conducive to trying to fathom out a solution.

The news, whether BBC or ITV or whichever channel, used to give us the facts. Now, they are clearly avoiding saying ‘young black male’ or ‘black teenager’, they just say ‘man’ or ‘teenager’.

Now I know the color of the victim and, indeed, the perpetrator is not the most important issue. A young man’s death is tragic regardless, but, why try and hide what we already know? It makes no sense.

‘A gang of men’ is now the phrase for gangs, in the north of England primarily, grooming vulnerable young girls for sex. We already know that they are groups of predominantly men of Pakistani origin or descent so why try and hide what we already know?

I can understand the need for sensitivity if there is a risk of inciting racial tensions but, as we already know the ethnicity of virtually all the stabbing victims and perpetrators along with the ethnicity of the grooming gangs, then surely, so openly avoiding stating the bleeding obvious is likely to incite racial tensions.

It’s as though the perpetrators particularly are being protected by not revealing their ethnicity. I don’t get it. To be honest, it’s fake in its own way. We are being fed a story with some of the truth edited out in the name of particularly stupid political correctness.

Ah! I feel better for all that. There’s nowt like a soapbox rant to cheer you up you know.

Mind you, from up here on my soapbox, I still think I’m right.

Right to be a wee bit frightened of technology so mindbogglingly advanced that, if I recorded myself on Youtube, some clever sod could have me saying absolutely anything they wanted.

Right to be worried that our news channels are only spoon feeding us the bits of stories that they, or their editors, think we should hear.

Maybe Orwell did just get the year wrong eh?

In Case You Missed It:  Jane Fonda, Doctor Who, and the Mayor of London

About Post Author

Neil Bamforth

I am English first, British second and never ever European. I have supported Oldham Athletic FC for 50 years which has made me immune from depression. My taste buds have died due to too many red hot curries so I drink Kronenburg beer and milk - sometimes in the same glass. I have a wife, daughter, 9 cats and I like toast.
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Diane G
5 years ago

Pretty soon the MRA types will insist that not even the sex of miscreants be revealed. “A gang of persons…”

Diane G
Reply to  Diane G
5 years ago

Then the anti-species-ests will insist on “a gang of organisms…”

Neil Bamforth
Reply to  Diane G
5 years ago

Love it!!!!!

Reply to  Diane G
5 years ago

No doubt you are right!

Reply to  Diane G
5 years ago

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised Diane.

Bill Formby
5 years ago

Well apparently we have fake news and Trump and Company have “alternative facts”. It seems that we are having a massacre a day here in the states. A country singer/story teller, Tom T Hall, sang about a man sitting in the electric chair telling the warden “Turn it on, Turn it on.” Life is getting harder by the day.

Dennis Gerringer
5 years ago

As you mnetioned there was no “fake news”, at least not using that set of terms. There has of course always been news that was fake but people ate it up anyway.

Neil Bamforth
5 years ago

It’s getting that way over here. Depressing in’t it? 😞

Rockync
5 years ago

The other side of that coin is how here in the good ole USofA we have no such restraints especially when it comes to black people, brown people and liberals. We are all enemies of God,country and the Rethugs reptillian base. When a white American shoots up an upscale bar full of mostly white college kids, we hear nothing but excuses like, mental illness, PTSD. Never will you hear terrorist. We no longer have double standards, we have multifaceted standards that are fluid and changable depending on which political points need to be made.

Admin
5 years ago

It’s much the same here when it comes to gun violence. Young black men are shooting each other daily in US cities, such as Chicago. The press reports the numbers from time to time, but rarely speaks to the underlying issues, and rarely says “young black men” because that is somehow no longer politically correct.

Neil Bamforth
5 years ago

Quite right too!…besides, I’m not hairless 😀

Glenn R. Geist
5 years ago

It’s true that there’s a squeamishness about telling the truth when it tarnishes our halos and I’d add that it seems to disappear when we use dishonest hyperbole to make things seem worse for our opponents. That’s why I’ve given up on partisanship and gone over to the the misanthropy side. Maybe truth really isn’t truth as Rudy the Red Nose Reptile said, and from there to ‘honesty isn’t honest’ is a short hop.

So I’m done with apologizing for a troop of hairless monkeys which we all are – present company excluded of course.

jess
Reply to  Glenn R. Geist
5 years ago

Hey wait, I have hair otherwise why do I spent so much damn money having it done like I just did yesterday for going out last night to meet some friends for dinner. Yeah and I met another gooper last night who decided he liked me and I liked him till his politics screamed at me. I’m like a fucking gooper magnet right now, what the hell is wrong with me? DO NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION.

Neil Bamforth
Reply to  jess
5 years ago

Well, I think…oh…er…sorry…won’t answer 😉

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