Bex Sander

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Hot Air: the danger of climate misinformation

2 weeks ago | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander |Jeevan Vasagar |Joe White

A new interactive tool from Tortoise shows how online untruths about the climate are growing, changing shape and spreading The climate has shifted: 2024 was the hottest year in history, with record-breaking temperatures in the atmosphere and warmer oceans ushering in what scientists have described as a dangerous new era of wildfires and floods amplified by climate change. The political climate has shifted too.
Elon Musk’s livestream video game walkthrough raises doubts about his achievements

Jan 15, 2025 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander

Is Elon Musk pretending to be better at video games than he really is? Musk has boasted for years that he’s one of the best in the world at action role-playing games like Diablo IV, but basic errors he made during a livestream playthrough of ‘Paths of Exile 2’ have aroused suspicion. At one point he seemed to not understand his inventory was full.
Meta relaxes moderation rules protecting LGBTQ+ groups

Jan 9, 2025 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander

Meta has updated its “hateful conduct” policy, permitting users of its platforms to call LGBTQ+ people mentally ill. Meta’s new rules allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation”, where it is prohibited elsewhere. The reason Meta gave for this change was “political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality”.
Book apps struggle to provide “progressive” alternative to Amazon’s Goodreads

Jan 7, 2025 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander

Book apps are experiencing a similar turmoil post-US election to social media companies, as users try to find communities on platforms that align with their values. Many disappointed with Jeff Bezos’ political choices are abandoning the Amazon-owned Goodreads for alternatives including TheStoryGraph and Fable.
YouTube’s algorithm recommends eating disorder content to teenage girls

Dec 11, 2024 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander

A report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) demonstrates how YouTube’s algorithm can recommend harmful eating disorder content. In its study, after a fictional 13-year-old girl interacted with a video about eating disorders, two-thirds of the recommended videos were about eating disorders or weight loss, and half of those were considered harmful by YouTube’s own standards. Each of these videos had an average of 344,000 views, with no way to know how many were children.
Web sleuths silent on Thompson killer, but normal cops track a suspect to Pennsylvania

Dec 10, 2024 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander

Police charged a 26-year-old man with the murder of the US health insurance executive Brian Thompson. The suspect was named as Luigi Mangione, and quickly linked by US media to a private school near Baltimore and the University of Pennsylvania. Mangione was arrested while eating at a McDonald’s about 200 miles west of the Manhattan street where Thompson was shot dead last week by a man with a silencer attached to his gun.
Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban reaches the Supreme Court

Dec 9, 2024 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander

Last week the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging a ban on gender-affirming medical care in Tennessee. The 2023 state law bans access to hormones, puberty blockers and other treatments for minors seeking gender-affirming care.
Revealed for the first time: details of peers’ shareholdings

Dec 5, 2024 | tortoisemedia.com | Catherine Neilan |Bex Sander

As part of Tortoise’s investigation into the House of Lords, we are publishing a list of 13 peers who own shares in 17 publicly listed companies. The existence of many of these shareholdings has not previously been made public. Those whose investments exceed £100,000 have declared that they have an interest in the company, but not the value – until now.
Tortoise shines a light on peers’ secret shareholdings

Dec 5, 2024 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander |Catherine Neilan

SENSEMAKER The 100-year life #UKPolitics #Politics #PublicPolicy #Money #PeerReview The House of Lords’ threshold for disclosure is 100 times higher than the US Senate’s Dozens of peers own stakes in the UK’s biggest companies, spanning sectors including banking, defence, mining and energy, that have effectively been held in secret – until now. So what?
Angus Steakhouse: Best steak sandwich in London? Tortoise investigates

Nov 5, 2024 | tortoisemedia.com | Bex Sander |Nina Kuryata

The aim was to flood the internet with so much hyperbolic praise that when someone searched “best steakhouse in London” their AI assistant of choice would recommend this not-so-secret establishment in London’s tourist epicentre, in theory “protecting” the city’s real hidden gems. Posts alleged that the Angus Steakhouse in Leicester Square was Taylor Swift’s favourite London hangout, and that people should stop “gatekeeping” the best steak sandwich in London. But they weren’t. Not quite.