By programmer-journalist A.J. Fish. TracingVRL is the software-journalism project tracing the antivaxx infodemic going ViRaL. TracingVRL.substack.com
theonion.com/congress-int... #CovidOrigin #lableak
Congress Interrogates Fauci Over Origins Of Pie Brought To CookoutWASHINGTON—Accusing the physician of not being straight with the American people, an often hostile Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week interrogated Anthony Fauci over the or...theonion.comWhen England's antivaxx news outlet The Daily Sceptic amplifed Ohio anti-immigrant narratives, I dedicated a TracingCOVID/TracingVRL newsletter to the topic. ... And up turned Elon Musk among multiple anti-immigrant media artifact tracings #Haitians #TPS tracingvrl.substack.com/p/why-is-eng...
Why is England’s Antivaxx News Outlet Amplifying Ohio Anti-immigrant Narratives?#84 Also: How a president’s character could affect respiratory transmission of mpoxtracingvrl.substack.comTracingVRLThey were all I could think about last night. tracingvrl.substack.com/i/150083084/... Trump & Vance, Katie & Stephen Miller, have announced the harassment and/or worse of Haitian migrants as their future sources of temporary confidence and false superiority. www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...
Albeit indirectly, the administration just lowered some food costs: www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaur... #cyclosporiasis #FDA
Taco Bell offers $1 lettuce-free menu item as it tries to win back customersTaco Bell offered $1 lettuce-free Enchiritos on Wednesday, as the chain works to reassure customers following a cyclospora outbreak linked to lettuce served at some of its restaurants.www.sfchronicle.comkffhealthnews.org/insurance/tr... "Sixty-five insurance companies will be required to routinely send OPM detailed data — including names, addresses, doctor information, diagnoses, prescriptions filled, and payment details — on health care services" #privacy #HIPAA
Trump’s Personnel Agency Says It Will Remove Some Identifying Info as It Sweeps Up Medical Records - KFF Health NewsThe Office of Personnel Management said it will “pseudonymize” medical records it collects on more than 8 million people — federal workers and retirees, and their family members. Democrats and employe...kffhealthnews.orgJust got back from the theater. Loved it, if for no other reason than __The Odyssey is NOT microtargeted content__ . Hardly the only reason. This 🧵 almost makes me want to pay $16 for another matinee ticket. #monoculture
EMILY WILSONThere is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.
It's sad, but because encountering #genAI music and film leaves the effect off me distrusting my senses and exacerbating ADD, I'd block this series "The American Experiment" assuming the actors were fake. Hearing it used "AI" #Hollywood is kiss of death to many viewers fortune.com/2026/07/16/n...
Netflix used AI to make 17 minutes of a documentary 'twice as fast and at half the cost'—as streaming competition drives up content spending to $20 billion | FortuneThe streaming company touted the efficiencies of AI in its Q2 earnings, while stressing that movies will still be 'made by people who make movies.'fortune.comI'm slipping, when my willpower is less than 100%, and reading the #Google #AIOverview instead of the source links beneath them. Machine Learning "AI" summaries scramble the provenance of their claims. I consider them pollution. This may help me quit #Google searches in favor of #DuckDuckGo .
TracingVRLThis is becoming obscene, the degree to which #Google is burying, disappearing, websites it relies on for #AIOverviews. A bare minimum gesture would be a *Setting* to keep the AI Summaries under a + expandable section, so I first see the source sites. It should be the default setting for everyone.
Their cartoonish harassment of Canadian governing officials continues to bite California winemakers. They're harassing California by proxy. #Wildfire #Canada #California www.cbc.ca/radio/asitha...
California lawmakers are begging Quebec's premier to put U.S. booze back on the shelves. She won't budge | CBC RadioCalifornia lawmakers, from both sides of the aisle, have signed a letter to Quebec Premier Christine Frechette, urging her to put U.S. wines and spirits back on the shelves, despite Canada's ongoing t...www.cbc.caJen Bendery“The false rhetoric about the cause of wildfires is not constructive," says Tim Gray, exec director of Environmental Defence Canada. "It helps to further underscore the sense Canadians have that the U.S. has lost its way." Canada sent water bombers + teams to help with last year's CA fires.
Copyright started in England in 1710 with the Statute of Anne. It grew in the late 1800s when writers like Mark Twain pointed out the disincentives for people to sweat out original works without international copyright agreements. Russia didn't buy in. www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...
TracingVRLThis is becoming obscene, the degree to which #Google is burying, disappearing, websites it relies on for #AIOverviews. A bare minimum gesture would be a *Setting* to keep the AI Summaries under a + expandable section, so I first see the source sites. It should be the default setting for everyone.
Great thread, especially ⤵️. Katie Porter sank to 5th in the polls 4 gov. vote for a top-two runoff, leaving 2 Republicans more viable than she. A MAGA-looking friend said "my brother was in love with her" but got so turned off by reports of her flashing anger she became unredeemable in his eyes.
Royce Kurmelovs3. The most annoying people in politics are those who have wanted to be politicians their whole lives, and who present as if they were made in a lab for the task. Part of this whole episode appears to be a conversation about and reaction to this decades-old phenomenon, not just in US politics.
This Ebola outbreak is very bad. A report last month from a dismissed #USAID worker: www.npr.org/2026/06/08/g... "He says he was stymied at every turn. 'I was told by one of the political appointees, who was the head of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, that #Ebola is a scam,' Enrich says."
In his book, self-described USAID 'whistleblower' talks about the agency and EbolaNicholas Enrich, on staff at the U.S. Agency for International Aid under 4 administrations, talks about Into the Woodchipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID.www.npr.orgThis storyline is very susceptible to distortion, when reporting quickly or on social media. But the histrionics surrounding #COVID origin talk "lab leak" vs "nature" are flaring up among conspiracy influencers, in a concerning way. Accurate report found here: www.theatlantic.com/science/2026...
Lab-Leak Payback Has BegunIndictments, subpoenas, and debarments are hitting American scientists embroiled in the controversy over COVID’s origins.www.theatlantic.comThis is becoming obscene, the degree to which #Google is burying, disappearing, websites it relies on for #AIOverviews. A bare minimum gesture would be a *Setting* to keep the AI Summaries under a + expandable section, so I first see the source sites. It should be the default setting for everyone.
TracingVRL1) I don't use (or try not to scroll past) Google's AI overviews because they scramble the provenance of their claims and are less accurate. Here I asked "When did philistine become an insult" and it breaks down the claims making it appear like they're footnoting with five sources: "Reddit + 4".
