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social media

Islamophobia
Hating on Muslims in Western Media is based on the Big Lie

Hating on Muslims in Western Media is based on the Big Lie

The Conversation

By Stuart Chambers | – Although anti-Muslim sentiments certainly existed long before 2001, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the response to them intensified anti-Muslim tropes, namely the presumption that Islam is inherently violent or that Muslims have a propensity for terrorism. Since 9/11, specific individuals have turned Islamophobia into an industry, scapegoating Muslims to […]

Donald Trump
Why is False News about Iran All Right?  No, Khamenei didn’t Threaten Trump on Golf Course, and no, his Twitter account wasn’t Banned

Why is False News about Iran All Right? No, Khamenei didn’t Threaten Trump on Golf Course, and no, his Twitter account wasn’t Banned

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – No, Ayatollah Ali Khameni’s twitter account did not carry an image of Donald Trump being droned on a golf course, and no, his twitter account was not canceled. A small twitter account run by unknown persons with only 8,000 followers posted the image of someone (it wasn’t a picture of […]

al-Qaeda
Vanilla ISIL: Social Media is forced to Treat Trump and Trumpists Like Terrorists

Vanilla ISIL: Social Media is forced to Treat Trump and Trumpists Like Terrorists

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Not everyone who mobbed the Capitol on 1/6 was a terrorist, but there were many terrorists among them. Some people came armed, or with ties for taking congressional representatives and senators hostage. Some were desperately looking for Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi in order to assassinate them for, in their […]

Donald Trump
Far-right activists on social media telegraphed violence weeks in advance of the attack on the US Capitol

Far-right activists on social media telegraphed violence weeks in advance of the attack on the US Capitol

The Conversation

By Alex Newhouse | – The attack on the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 was shocking, but no one following right-wing activity on social media should have been surprised. The attempt by President Donald Trump’s far-right supporters to violently stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote and formalizing Joe Biden’s election victory was […]

Donald Trump
Peril in the Middle East, Peril at Home:  Our Top 10 Stories of 2020

Peril in the Middle East, Peril at Home: Our Top 10 Stories of 2020

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 2020 was a monster of a year, leaving three million Americans dead (a record), probably nearly half a million of them of Covid-19 once everyone is counted. The fecklessness of the outgoing Trump administration was responsible for a good deal of this national catastrophe, one that did not strike our […]

Far Right
NZ’s Ardern: Mosque Massacre was Enabled by ignoring White Supremacist Terror Threat and by YouTube Radicalization

NZ’s Ardern: Mosque Massacre was Enabled by ignoring White Supremacist Terror Threat and by YouTube Radicalization

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019 looked into the background of the white nationalist Australian young man who flew to Dunedin in 2017, stayed there in a sparsely furnished little apartment for eighteen months, and then went on a killing […]

Democratic Socialism
Socialism is a trigger word on social media – but real discussion is going on amid the screaming

Socialism is a trigger word on social media – but real discussion is going on amid the screaming

The Conversation

Robert Kozinets | – The word “socialism” has become a trigger word in U.S. politics, with both positive and negative perceptions of it split along party lines. But what does socialism actually mean to Americans? Although surveys can ask individuals for responses to questions, they don’t reveal what people are saying when they talk among […]

Internet
A message to Big Tech search engines and social media platforms – Put Palestine on the map

A message to Big Tech search engines and social media platforms – Put Palestine on the map

Middle East Monitor

By Yousef Alhelou | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Over a million people have signed a petition since July calling on Google to recognise Palestine on its maps, and to clearly designate and identify the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel. The petition was initially launched in 2016 on Change.org, but gained significant momentum […]

Epidemics
Information warfare: COVID-19’s other battleground in the Middle East

Information warfare: COVID-19’s other battleground in the Middle East

Global Voices

By Saoussen Ben Cheikh | – ( Globalvoices.org) – COVID-19 has exacerbated existing political tensions in the Middle East and North Africa, a region already marred by decades of conflict. Now, unscrupulous politicians blame their political enemies or neighboring governments for the spread of the novel coronavirus. Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros […]

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