Signs of Alzheimer’s were everywhere. Then his brain improved
Blood biomarkers of telltale signs of early Alzheimer’s disease in the brain of his patient, 55-year-old entrepreneur Simon Nicholls, had all but disappeared in a mere 14 months.
Search for the word "climate" on Twitter and the first automatic recommendation isn't "climate crisis" or "climate jobs" or even "climate change" but instead "climate scam."
Clicking on the recommendation yields dozens of posts denying the reality of climate change and making misleading claims about efforts to mitigate it.
Such misinformation has flourished on Twitter since it was bought by Elon Musk last year, but the site isn't the only one promoting content that scientists and environmental advocates say undercuts public support for policies intended to respond to a changing climate.
"What's happening in the information ecosystem poses a direct threat to action," said Jennie King, head of climate research and response at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based nonprofit. "It plants those seeds of doubt and makes people think maybe there isn't scientific consensus."
The institute is part of a coalition of environmental advocacy groups that on Thursday released a report tracking climate change disinformation in the months before, during and after the U.N. climate summit in November.
The report faulted social media platforms for, among other things, failing to enforce their own policies prohibiting climate change misinformation. It is only the latest to highlight the growing problem of climate misinformation on Twitter.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, allowed nearly 4,000 advertisements on its site -- most bought by fossil fuel companies -- that dismissed the scientific consensus behind climate change and criticized efforts to respond to it, the researchers found.
In some cases, the ads and the posts cited inflation and economic fears as reasons to oppose climate policies, while ignoring the costs of inaction. Researchers also found that a significant number of the accounts posting false claims about climate change also spread misinformation about U.S. elections, COVID-19 and vaccines.
Twitter did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. A spokesperson for Meta cited the company's policy prohibiting ads that have been proven false by its fact checking partners, a group that includes the AP. The ads identified in the report had not been fact-checked.
Under Musk, Twitter laid off thousands of employees and made changes to its content moderation that its critics said undercut the effort. In November, the company announced it would no longer enforce its policy against COVID-19 misinformation. Musk also reinstated many formerly banned users, including several who had spread misleading claims about climate change. Instances of hate speech and attacks on LGBTQ people soared.
Tweets containing "climate scam" or other terms linked to climate change denial rose 300% in 2022, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit Advance Democracy. While Twitter had labelled some of the content as misinformation, many of the popular posts were not labelled.
Musk's new verification system could be part of the problem, according to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, another organization that tracks online misinformation. Previously, the blue checkmarks were held by people in the public eye such as journalists, government officials or celebrities.
Now, anyone willing to pay $8 a month can seek a checkmark. Posts and replies from verified accounts are given an automatic boost on the platform, making them more visible than content from users who don't pay.
When researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed accounts verified after Musk took over, they found they spread four times the amount of climate change misinformation compared with users verified before Musk's purchase.
Verification systems are typically created to assure users that the accounts they follow are legitimate. Twitter's new system, however, makes no distinction between authoritative sources on climate change and anyone with $8 and an opinion, according to Imran Khan, the center's chief executive.
"We found," Khan said, "it has in fact put rocket boosters on the spread of lies and disinformation."
Blood biomarkers of telltale signs of early Alzheimer’s disease in the brain of his patient, 55-year-old entrepreneur Simon Nicholls, had all but disappeared in a mere 14 months.
Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued recalls for various items this week, including kids' bassinets, chips, and stoves. Here's what to watch out for.
Passengers heading from Montreal to Lyon, France on Friday were forced to return home and depart the next day after a pressurization indication was detected in flight.
Canada's Ambassador to the United States says she's 'not aware' of any plans for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to meet with former U.S. president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump before the November American election.
Zephen Xaver walked into a central Florida bank in 2019, fatally shot five women and then called police to tell them what he did. Now 12 jurors will decide whether the 27-year-old former prison guard trainee is sentenced to death or life without parole.
The Virginia State Police investigator seemed puzzled about what the inmate was describing: "unbearable" conditions at a prison so cold that toilet water would freeze over and inmates were repeatedly treated for hypothermia.
Italy has dozens of secret smaller lakes that boast superb scenery, unknown to mass tourism, where locals get together on day trips and enjoy picnics.
Testimony in the hush money trial of Donald Trump is set to conclude in the coming days, putting the landmark case on track for jury deliberations that will determine whether it ends in a mistrial, an acquittal — or the first-ever felony conviction of a former American president.
Lawyers are questioning Canada’s approach to screening visa applications for people in Gaza with extended family in Canada after one applicant, a medical worker, was asked whether he had treated members of Hamas.
A B.C. woman says her service dog pulled her from a lake moments before she had a seizure, saving her life.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.