Author Topic: Transparency  (Read 3529 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Maik

  • Administrator
  • Forum Deity
  • *****
  • Posts: 35160
Transparency
« on: Wednesday, 06 November, 2019 @ 03:23:16 »
Quote
How a misleading story about Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson went viral

Misleading politics stories go viral online all the time. The action gets particularly frantic during an election campaign.

This is the story of how one tale - involving Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson and her husband Duncan Hames - became one of the most-shared politics stories in the first few days of 2019's battle, with a potential audience of more than 1.5 million people.

Multiple versions of the story exist, many with different details. But the false allegation at the core is the same: that Ms Swinson's husband personally benefits from European Union funds and this is the main reason why she is against Brexit.

Some elements of the tweet are correct. Duncan Hames, who was an MP from 2010-2015, works for the UK branch of Transparency International.

The Berlin office of the non-governmental organisation received a grant of 4m euros (£3.4m) from the European Commission in 2018.

But the funding for the UK branch - again, the one that Mr Hames works for - is separate. It did receive smaller EU grants: £21,000 in 2016/17 and £2,000 in 2017/18.

The European Commission funds many charities and NGOs and grants go to general accounts - not Mr Hames' own pocket.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-50160148

Offline TonyKath

  • Forum Deity
  • *****
  • Posts: 1965
Re: Transparency
« Reply #1 on: Wednesday, 06 November, 2019 @ 20:13:15 »
Never believe anything on FB or similar.  This is bad enough but in a particularly horrific murder trial in Dublin that has just ended the wrong teenage boys have been named on social media, as publicity about the true offenders is legally barred because of their age. The government are currently sitting on a report into how Russia influenced the 2016 referendum by using social media.

Tony