The Germans are the people least worried about fake content on the internet.
According to a survey by the BBC, only 14 percent are very perturbed by content possibly being fake. Another 33 percent are somewhat worried. So, while 47 percent overall are worried to some degree, this is a low figure compared to how worried people in other countries are.
However, as Statista"s Dyfed Loesche notes, in Brazil, most people are concerned: 92 percent are worried about what"s real and what"s fake.
Perhaps most notably however, while American politicians (on the left) continue to push the narrative of "fake" content, fewer Americans "worry about what is real and fake in the web" than in Russia, China, Spain, France, or Greece (though notably the percentage who "strongly agree" is dramatically high relative to other nations).
The study also finds that more people in 2017 than in 2010 say that the internet should never be regulated by government (58 percent in 2017 to 51 percent in 2010).
But slightly less people than in 2010 think the internet is a safe place to express their opinions (46 to 48 percent).
16,542 adults in 18 countries took part in the survey, of which 11.799 used the internet, conducted by GlobeScan.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a lawsuit Monday against the Justice Department and FBI in an effort to pry loose documents related to the FBI’s prior impersonation of documentary filmmakers.
The FBI has admitted to sending undercover agents to Nevada in 2014 to act as a film crew and interview supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy amid an armed standoff with the federal government.
Footage shot for the fake documentary was later used by the government during criminal trials of some of those involved in the standoff.
The reporter’s committee sought through Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain FBI records regarding the bogus film crew as well as any records on the bureau’s use of the tactic dating back to 2010. The lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comes after the committee said the FBI has failed to act on the FOIA requests.
FBI agents pretended to work for a bogus film company, Longbow Productions, to gain access to and interview Mr. Bundy and others who aided him during the standoff. The agents created a website, business cards and other credentials to make Longbow Productions look like an authentic company.
“The FBI’s impersonation of journalists and documentary filmmakers undermines the credibility and independence of those who are trying to report on matters of importance to the public,” said Katie Townsend, litigation director for the committee.
“The public deserves to know more about the FBI’s use of this tactic, and has a right to this information under the law, but the FBI seems determined to evade disclosure. We’re asking the court to step in and compel the agency to release these records,” she said.
Over the summer, like a lot of people, I purchase a bottle of aloe vera gel because, despite my best efforts, I always get sunburned when I work in the garden. Now I know where I’ll never be buying it from again: CVS. Don’t bother picking up a bottle at Walmart or Target, either. A BloombergNewsreport from late 2016 shows that none of these store-brands actually contain any aloe.
Source: Bloomberg News
All of the products listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice on the label as either the #1 ingredient or #2 (behind water). However, tests revealed that not a single one contained so much as a drop of aloe vera. [1]
Aloe’s 3 chemical markers – acemannan, malic acid, and glucose – were nowhere to be found in the tests for Walmart, Target, and CVS products conducted by a lab hired by Bloomberg. Instead, the products contained a cheaper ingredient called maltodextrin, a sugar sometimes used to imitate aloe.
Maltodextrin is a white powder usually found in processed foods as a thickener or filler, and in pharmaceuticals as a binding agent. It is also found in canned fruits, snacks, cereal, desserts, instant pudding, sauces, and salad dressings, as well as artificial sweeteners, as it contains fewer calories than sugar. [2]
Aloe vera gel sold at other stores was also shown to be potentially adulterated. The aloe gel sold at Walgreen’s contained 1 chemical marker, malic acid, but not the other 2. Ken Jones, an independent industry consultant based in Chapala, Mexico, says that means the presence of aloe vera can’t be ruled out. [1]
The Testing Process
Bloomberg News tested:
Walmart’s Equate Aloe After Sun Gel with pure aloe vera
Target’s Up & Up Aloe Vera Gel with pure aloe vera
CVS Aftersun Aloe Vera Moisturizing Gel
Walgreens Alcohol Free Aloe Vera Body Gel
The lab – which requested anonymity to preserve its business relationships – used a testing technique called nuclear magnetic resonance. In addition to maltodextrin, the test revealed other additives, such as triethanolamine, an emulsifier. Lactic acid, a component which indicates degraded aloe vera, was not detected in any of the samples.
In Denial
Spokesmen for Walmart, CVS, and Walgreen’s said their suppliers confirmed to them that their products were authentic. Target declined to comment. The 4 retailers have 23,000 stores, combined.
The gels supplied to Walmart, Target, and Walgreen’s were all produced by Fruit of the Earth, a Fort Worth, Texas-based aloe brand founded in 1980. The aloe used by Fruit of the Earth was supplied by Ormond Beach, Florida-based Concentrated Aloe Corp., which claims it uses fair trade, organic aloe that is farmed and processed in Guatemala.
Both companies dispute Bloomberg’s findings.
John Dondrea, Fruit of the Earth’s general counsel, said:
“We’ve been in the business a long time and we know where the raw ingredients come from. We stand behind our products.’’
A Walmart representative said:
“We hold our suppliers to high standards and are committed to providing our customers the quality of products they expect. We contacted our suppliers and they stand behind the authenticity of their products.” [3]
In a statement, Walgreen’s said:
“The quality, safety and integrity of our products is of highest priority to us, and we carefully select suppliers who share those priorities as well. Our supplier has assured us that the product’s ingredients match its labeling.”
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. Well brand alcohol free Aloe Vera Body Gel is displayed for a photograph in Tiskilwa, Illinois, U.S., on Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
“Tests Not Reliable”
Tim Meadows, president of Concentrated Aloe Corp., argues that nuclear magnetic resonance is not a reliable test for cosmetics because the presence of multiple ingredients can interfere with test results. He said there is no way to accurately test for the presence of aloe vera in finished products. [1]
Meadows also argued that maltodextrin isn’t an adulterant because it can be used in the drying process. Additionally, he said, some methods of processing aloe can remove acemannan, but that doesn’t mean the product is fake. He said:
“Acemannan has been misinterpreted. The cosmetics industry requires highly processed aloe. How that affects acemannan is anybody’s guess.’’
But James Neal-Kababick, director of Flora Research Labs in Grants Pass, Oregon, which tests and researches natural products, said that while it’s true that nuclear magnetic resonance isn’t designed to test for aloe vera in cosmetic products, the lab results still suggest that aloe “is not a major component” of the product.
In fact, Jones reviewed some of the tests and said he didn’t see evidence of aloe or interfering substances.
The Tests Didn’t End There
But the testing didn’t end there, and the results were mixed:
ConsumerLab.com tested Fruit of the Earth brand Aloe Vera 100% Gel using nuclear magnetic resonance and found no evidence of aloe.
A competing brand, Aubrey Organics, tested the brand and said it did contain markers that indicate aloe.
As for the aloe gel sold at CVS, the product is supplied by Product Quest Manufacturing LLC of Daytona Beach, Florida. The firm declined to comment.
Target Corp. brand Aloe Vera Gel is displayed for a photograph in Tiskilwa, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Legal Ramifications
Last summer, lawsuits were filed against the 4 retailers by several law firms after separate testing also found no aloe vera in the store-brand products. The firms are seeking class-action status and restitution for all the people who say they got ripped off by the retailers.
In a complaint filed in September in Illinois on behalf of plaintiffs represented by 10 law firms, attorneys wrote:
“No reasonable person would have purchased or used the products if they knew the products did not contain any aloe vera.”
No Reliable Standards
According to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, cosmetic labels should be truthful. Great, right? Who is making sure that companies are being honest? Well, no one. [4]
In a statement, the FDA said that “under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, FDA requires cosmetics marketed on a retail basis to consumers to bear a list of ingredients, in descending order of predominance. However, like other cosmetic labeling, this information is not subject to premarket review by FDA.”
Cosmetic companies can register their products with the FDA’s Voluntary Cosmetic Registration Program, but as the name implies, they don’t have to.
The investigation is from 2016, but it’s still a solid reminder to check into any aloe vera products you may purchase for this year’s summer sun.
Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.
“Fake News” has become the buzzword that the dying mainstream media has been using to dismiss alternative viewpoints that may appear on the internet or in alternative media. While it is true that there are a large number of satire sites and clear disinformation sites on the web, mainstream media sources are focusing on alternative media websites who do not share their views politically and attempting to associate these sites with the “fake news” phenomenon.
Luckily, however, it seems that the public is not buying this recent propaganda campaign. A poll conducted by the Harvard-Harris group found that 65 percent of voters believe that the mainstream media is guilty of distributing false reports.
Harvard-Harris co-director Mark Penn believes that the extreme polarization on cable news channels is playing a major role in this negative perception that has been developing.
“Much of the media is now just another part of the partisan divide in the country with Republicans not trusting the ‘mainstream’ media and Democrats seeing them as reflecting their beliefs. Every major institution from the presidency to the courts is now seen as operating in a partisan fashion in one direction or the other,” Penn told The Hill.
The poll reportedly surveyed 2,006 registered voters from May 17 to May 20.
Although the mainstream media continuously pumps divide into the populace through the use of the left/right paradigm, the survey shows this is simply not what the people want. One of the questions asked is if people want to see the divide continue — the overwhelming response was, ‘no.’
Do you want the parties to work together and try to reach compromise or stick to their positions and fight it out until the next election?
89 Percent said they want to see this divide come together.
Trust in the mainstream media has been slowly declining after several decades of monopolization and centralization. Over the last century, many large companies have been attempting to consolidate the media and have total control over what is said in the public arena. These companies are almost always heavily involved in politics and international business affairs, many times even depending on the government to regulate their competition.
The good news is, people aren’t buying it. Despite the massive push by the media to assert some sort of connection between Russia and Trump — without providing a single shred of concrete evidence — the majority of Americans still don’t buy it.
Here are some things that have been said by the media or one of the political parties. For each of the following, do you agree or disagree with it?
Donald Trump is a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
66 Percent don’t buy it.
While Donald Trump is most likely someone’s puppet, Putin is most assuredly not the master.
Through controlling the dialogue in the media they are able to portray their political allies in a positive light, even if this is accomplished by telling blatant lies. It is even a generally accepted fact that all of the corporate news outlets have their own political agendas.
What is not realized is that even though they may have different party affiliations, the major media sources are all on the same team and advertise the same general worldview. This bias was clearly visible after Trump bombed Syria in April. As the Free Thought Project pointed out, the day following Trump’s illegal act of war against a sovereign nation was nothing but praise for him in the mainstream media — including outlets like WaPo and the NY Times, who constantly attacked him prior to the strike.
In the early 1980s, there were over 50 corporations which controlled all of the news media in America. This is a small number considering that it accounted for television, movies, magazines, books and music all combined. Before the First World War, there were actually hundreds of corporations that made up the US media.
This corporate monopolization is largely due to government regulation that prevents independent journalists from reaching the masses. This is done by limiting the number of broadcast spots available, issuing permits and licenses for the ability to broadcast and, now, censoring alternative media.
In 1983 a man by the name of Ben Bagdikian published a book called “The Media Monopoly” which pointed out the consolidation going on in the media at the time. In his book, Bagdikian predicted that the meager number of 50 corporations would dwindle very quickly to less than a dozen companies in coming decades.
His predictions were met with a great deal of criticism in the mainstream circuit, and that was to be expected considering they were the target of his accusations. Sure enough though, over the next 25 years, the media would be consolidated into fewer and fewer hands. In 2012 it was reported by Forbes that just 6 companies owned the entire mainstream media, then they reported in 2016 that all media was owned by just 15 billionaires amongst those companies.
This consolidation has caused an obvious change in the content, and even if the general public doesn’t understand why it is happening, they do understand that the mainstream media cannot be trusted.
