On Bluesky someone posted a picture purporting to show that the Bondi shooter is actually a Jewish person from Israel. I found a Daily Mail image of the shooter on the bridge, named as Naveed Akram and they seem to be the same person. What are your thoughts? The social media page of David Cohen has apparently vanished. I putthe two images together for comparison.

There are also stories about the person who eventually thwarted the shooter. The reports are that the fake stories cropped up, fueled by AI/bots and spread on dodgy news sites and places that amplify such disinformation via their algorithms (X/Twitter and Facebook, to name two). Such bots do appear on Bluesky, but there’s no algorithm to amplify the slop.

One of the effects here is to make all information untrustworthy. Stick with sources that actually do fact-checking and take the other stuff with a huge grain of salt.

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

There are also stories about the person who eventually thwarted the shooter. The reports are that the fake stories cropped up, fueled by AI/bots and spread on dodgy news sites and places that amplify such disinformation via their algorithms (X/Twitter and Facebook, to name two). Such bots do appear on Bluesky, but there’s no algorithm to amplify the slop.

One of the effects here is to make all information untrustworthy. Stick with sources that actually do fact-checking and take the other stuff with a huge grain of salt.

I was mindful that AI might be involved. Time will tell. I suppose this is the first time I've had to hesitate, hence my asking. Thanks.

The Russians have quite an operation going using fakery and bots to sow civil discord in "western" countries. I have little doubt they will be piling in on this with all sorts of crap, to crank up both antisemitism and islamophobia and to distract governments with domestic strife. As with aircraft crashes I suspect it pays to wait for an authoritative story to emerge.

I think it is now more important than ever to wait for official verification. Even without AI, internet rumors had a way to spread misinformation and it is only getting worse.

Also prepared for conspiracy theories to blow up all over, so long as we have no information on who murdered Rob Reiner yesterday, a prominent Trump critic. ETA: As I typed this, I checked the newsfeed and now see they're arresting Nick, their son, as a suspect, so maybe this won't get spun out so much. Still a horrible thing. I so admired his movies and his political activism and just him as a really great guy.

ETA: If you are a decent human being, and have any hypertension tendencies, do not read the utterly vile and sickening SM post from Trump today on Reiner's murder. I couldn't finish reading it. And the White House official website REPOSTED it.