-----
This weekly blog is to explore the news around the larger issues
around Digital Health, data security, data privacy, AI / ML. technology, social
media and related matters.
I will also try to highlight ADHA
Propaganda when I come upon it.
Just so we keep count, the latest Notes from the ADHA Board are still
dated 6 December, 2018! How pathetic is that for transparency? Secrecy
unconstrained!
Note: Appearance here is not to suggest I see any credibility or
value in what follows. I will leave it to the reader to decide what is
worthwhile and what is not! The point is to let people know what is being said
/ published that I have come upon.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/governments-outsourcing-care-to-keep-patients-out-of-emergency-rooms-20200619-p5549t.html
Governments outsourcing care to keep patients out of
emergency rooms
By Dana McCauley
June 21, 2020 — 12.00am
Patients
are being diverted from hospital emergency departments to a private telehealth
service, which saw users double at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and
is bracing for even more demand as restrictions ease.
State
and federal government-funded hospitals and urgent care centres in NSW and
Victoria have been outsourcing emergency work to My Emergency Doctor, as part
of a tele-health push to reduce preventable hospitalisations.
Patients
who phone Triple-0 with symptoms deemed to be less than urgent are being
diverted to the service by NSW Ambulance and Ambulance Victoria operators, to
be connected with an accredited emergency physician.
But
experts warn the roll-out of emergency tele-health must be properly evaluated
to ensure that patients outcomes are not negatively impacted by the switch.
-----
https://www.zdnet.com/article/scott-morrison-cries-cyber-wolf-to-deniably-blame-china/
Scott Morrison cries 'Cyber wolf!' to deniably blame
China
Australia's
prime minister didn't name China as the source of recent 'sophisticated' cyber
attacks in Friday's press conference. He didn't have to.
By Stilgherrian for
The Full Tilt | June
19, 2020 -- 04:05 GMT (14:05 AEST) | Topic: Security
"Senior
sources" in federal government agencies have reportedly confirmed that China is believed to be behind recent
cyber attacks targeting all levels of government in Australia, as well as
the private sector.
Prime
Minister Scott Morrison had avoided blaming China at his press conference on Friday morning.
"I'd
simply say this, and that is, the threshold for public attribution on a
technical level is extremely high," he said.
"Australia
doesn't judge lightly in public attributions, and when and if we choose to do
so, it is always done in the context of what we believe to be in our strategic
national interest."
-----
https://www.themandarin.com.au/135285-opinion-covidfail-the-it-debacle-that-could-cost-lives/
Opinion: COVIDFail. The IT debacle that could cost lives
By Laurie Patton
Friday June
19, 2020
Another
spate of COVID-19 cases being reported
in Victoria. China re-instating restrictions
as it sees infections return. Our chief medical officer says
his greatest fear is a second wave, and there’s the likelihood the coronavirus
will linger around forever like the flu. Another IT debacle from the federal
government. But this one is different. In this case we could see people die. We
need a tracing app that actually works.
It’s
worth noting that Victoria is the only state known to have actually used
the COVIDSafe app. More than 20 people who’ve tested positive have
allowed its health department to download their data yet this hasn’t identified
anyone they didn’t already know about through existing manual contact tracing
methods. Presumably the app missed numerous people with whom they must
have come into contact.
Millions
of Australians are out and about in the false belief that having downloaded the
app they are somehow safer, because that’s what the government told them. It’s
still running TV commercials telling people to download the app.
Documents
released
by the Digital Transformation Agency have confirmed that COVIDSafe’s ability to
communicate between two locked iPhones – about 40% of the Australian market –
was rated as “poor” and this was known at the time it was launched. While Apple
and Google are working on a solution, you’d have thought this is something to
be sorted out before launching the product, surely?
The
big question is, will COVIDSafe ever work? An Oxford
University report
suggests around 60% of the population needs to be co-opted for a tracing app to
be effective. Take-up in Australia appears to have stalled at around 25%. The
government itself has said we need a 40% take-up level.
-----
https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/health/covid19/electronic-prescriptions-explained
Everything you need to know about electronic
prescriptions
You
no longer have to visit your doctor to have a prescription filled.
YourLifeChoices Writers
19th Jun 2020
In
episode 47 of YourLifeChoices’ Mind Your Own Retirement podcast, host John
Deeks was joined by chief medical officer for the Australian Digital Health
Agency Meredith
Makeham to discuss electronic prescriptions.
Read
the transcript below.
John
Deeks: Welcome. With so much talk of technology across this
crazy COVID-19 time, something like My Health Record is even more important.
Meredith Makeham: I couldn't agree more, John, it really is. And speaking with
my GP head on, I practise as a GP in Sydney as well, it’s really coming into
its own now. The value and the benefit that we get out of being able to use
digital technology to support the way we are caring for our patients,
particularly in this time where we are trying to use telehealth and all of the
things that go with that. So, there's a lot of things that our digital
infrastructure in the country, like the My Health Record system, like something
called electronic prescribing that's about to come out.
John:
Tell me about that. So, I have Thyroxine and a few other odds and sods, so does
that mean I can just get my doctor to prescribe it to me electronically?
MM:
Yes, there's going to be a way for your doctor, if they’ve got the right system
in their practice, and that's probably going to be about 80 per cent of the
community of pharmacists and GPs by roughly the end of May. There's going to be
a way for them to have a phone consultation or a video consultation with you,
write a prescription for you as they normally would, and that prescription will
come to you on your mobile phone in a form that we call a ‘token’. Kind of like
one of those QR codes that you see that people scan for things. And that’s got
all the information about your prescription in it.
-----
https://www.afr.com/technology/more-questions-than-answers-as-pm-goes-on-cyber-offensive-20200619-p5547m
More questions than answers as PM goes on cyber
offensive
The Prime
Minister had nothing new to say about cyber attacks, as he called out China
without mentioning it, but tech execs can use his words for much-needed
investment.
Paul Smith Technology
editor
Updated Jun
19, 2020 – 2.01pm, first published at 11.36am
It
is quite normal for a prime minister to leave a press conference to the sound
of shouted unanswered questions, but not so normal for that question to be
"what was that all about then?"
His
Friday
morning reveal that Australia has been facing a sustained major
cyber intrusion campaign by a foreign state-based actor had all the hallmarks
of a major story, but ended up being generic to the point of banality.
Prime
Minister Scott Morrison didn't give any details of cyber attacks that most in
the industry didn't already know, but that doesn't mean the announcement was
pointless.
To
television viewers who never think twice about cyber security - except when
their Facebook gets hacked - the announcement would undoubtedly have sounded
suitably scary. But to anyone involved in the sector it was simply a
well-staged statement of the obvious.
-----
https://itwire.com/open-sauce/it-looks-like-australia-s-bid-for-a-digital-tax-may-not-get-very-far.html
Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:21
It looks like Australia's bid for a digital tax may not
get very far
By Sam Varghese
The
chances that Australia will be able to impose its will on digital giants Google
and Facebook, as far as getting them to pay for using news from
local outlets goes, appear rather slim, with indications that the US Government
may pressure the Coalition to back off.
According
to a Reuters
report, Washington has pulled
out of talks with European countries over a digital tax, claiming that there
has been no progress.
Both
Facebook, which gave an insolent reply to the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regarding its proposal on a
mandatory code for payment, and Google, which has also effectively told
Canberra to take a walk, know they have
support from the big boys in power.
France
had already decided to impose a 3% digital
services tax when the US started threatening retaliation in the form of
tariffs. This month, Washington opened an investigation into this tax, and also
those announced by Britain and Spain, claiming that they target American
companies.
-----
https://itwire.com/business-it-news/data/australians-willing-to-share-data-with-government-agencies-in-exchange-for-better-service.html
Friday, 19 June 2020 03:23
Australians willing to share data with government
agencies in exchange for better service
By Peter Dinham
The
majority of Australian citizens are willing to share personal information with
government agencies in exchange for better service, according to a global
study.
The
study by management consulting firm Accenture, based on a survey of more than
6,500 respondents across 11 countries in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific,
including 500 Australians, found the vast majority (72%) of Australian
respondents, are open to sharing their personally identifiable data with a
government department in exchange for a more personalised customer service
experience.
Additionally,
nearly half (46%) of the Australians said they would be comfortable with their
personal information being shared between government agencies if it would
enhance customer service.
“In
recent years governments have taken positive steps to secure and protect
citizen and organisational data,” said John Vidas, Client Group Lead – Health
& Public Service, Accenture Australia & New Zealand.
-----
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/victoria-police-admits-officers-trialled-clearview-ai-facial-recognition-tool-549432
Victoria Police admits officers trialled Clearview AI
facial recognition tool
By Justin Hendry on
Jun 18, 2020 9:58PM
After FOI documents released.
Victoria
Police has admitted to trialling the controversial facial recognition tool
Clearview AI after previously denying that officers had used the software.
Documents
released under freedom of information this
week confirm at least five police officers signed up to use the software as
part of a trial from late 2019.
The
FOI request was made by IT consultant and analyst Justin Warren after the force
declined to confirm its use of the software following news reports earlier this
year.
Victoria
Police was one of 2200 law enforcement agencies globally outed by BuzzFeed
News for having had personnel use Clearview AI at one point or
another.
-----
https://anmj.org.au/australians-are-using-and-accessing-medical-histories-on-my-health-record/
Australians are using and accessing medical histories
on My Health Record
By ANMJ Staff ADHA Propaganda
June 17th,
2020
Nearly 70% of Australians
registered with My Health Record have their medical histories recorded in the
system, according to research by the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA).
According
to the ADHA report, Statistics
and Insights to April 2020, there were 22.75 million records stored
by My Health Record, with more than 10 million records filled with data since
the voluntary opt-out period for Australians concluded in January 2019.
Nearly
two billion documents have been uploaded to the digital storage system. The
majority of those documents coming from Medicare and just under 10% coming from
members of the public and healthcare providers.
The
top five things people want to access are their latest scans and results, notes
from their GP, information on medicines they have been prescribed, Medicare
information and their immunisation status.
The
research indicated that in total 10 million people had their immunisation
records uploaded, “[with a] 40% increase in April due to a bulk upload of these
important documents,” the ADHA said.
-----
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/new-snooping-epidemic-will-outlive-covid-19-297nsqx20
This snooping epidemic will outlive Covid-19
Surveillance tech can help beat virus but we risk it
becoming a permanent tool of government
Roger
Boyes
Tuesday
June 16 2020, 5.00pm BST, The Times
They bugged
your phone, fixed cameras into the plasterboard of hotel rooms, strip-searched
you at the airport and photocopied your phone book to work out your network of
contacts. I’ve been targeted like that by the Stasi, by the Polish SB and the
Soviet KGB but they were rank amateurs compared with the surveillance machinery
being put in place in the fight against Covid-19. Will this apparatus be
dismantled after the virus goes into abeyance? My bet is that, like the
post-9/11 US Patriot Act, it will go on and on.
Fear of
the coronavirus is institutionalising state surveillance. It is turning privacy
intrusion into a social virtue, making public health heroes out of tech
innovators who know very well that the tools being used to track the virus can
also be used against citizens when the current emergency passes. The result:
liberal democracies, corrupted by the new levers of control on offer, will grow
more and more like the autocratic societies we supposedly despise.
-----
https://itwire.com/open-sauce/marise-payne-forgot-the-us-also-spread-disinformation-during-pandemic.html
Author's Opinion
The
views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
views of iTWire.
Wednesday, 17 June 2020 11:44
Marise Payne forgot the US also spread disinformation
during pandemic
By Sam Varghese
Australian
Foreign Minister Marise Payne has given other countries even more impetus to
call this country a lapdog of the US, completely forgetting that the US was
among the countries spreading disinformation with a vengeance during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
In
what was described as her first major speech since the
coronavirus started spreading, Payne rightly criticised Russia and China for
spreading disinformation during the lockdown.
But
she appears to have forgotten that US President Donald Trump went on the record
claiming that the virus had leaked from a research institute in Wuhan, China, a
point that was repeeated by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/more-economic-pain-predicted-for-media/news-story/d5603aaae842f1d69013201f98699fe1
More economic pain predicted for media
·
By Guy Faulconbridge
·
Reuters
·
June 16, 2020
The coronavirus outbreak has prompted a significant increase in
news consumption but the economic turmoil is forcing news businesses to
accelerate their move to digital, The Reuters Institute for the Study of
Journalism says.
The coronavirus lockdowns prompted a global rise in viewing of
television and online news though concerns about misinformation remain high,
with Facebook and WhatsApp seen as the main channels for spreading so called
"fake news".
The broader picture is that the outbreak is accelerating the
trends wrought by the technological revolution, including the rise of smartphones
as an interface of news consumption, The Reuters Institute said in its annual
Digital News Report.
"The headline is that we see an accelerated move to digital
media and mobile media and various kinds of platforms," Rasmus Kleis
Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute, said on Monday.
-----
https://itwire.com/technology-regulation/you-need-us,-we-don-t-need-you,-facebook-tells-news-companies.html
Tuesday, 16 June 2020 10:25
You need us, we don't need you, Facebook tells news
companies
By Sam Varghese
Social
media behemoth Facebook has told the Australian competition watchdog that its
community metrics or revenue would not be affected in any way if no Australian
news content was available on its web site.
In
a 5 June submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,
which has been tasked with drafting a mandatory code for sharing of revenue
between digital platforms and the country's media organisations, Facebook said
this was "because news content is highly substitutable and most users do
not come to Facebook with the intention of viewing news".
In
the same breath, the firm said news organisations needed Facebook, adding:
"But the absence of news on Facebook would mean publishers miss out on the
commercial benefits of reaching a wide and diverse audience, and social value
would be diminished because news would be harder to access for millions of
Australians."
-----
https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/facebook-says-it-doesnt-need-news-content/news-story/de51c45c8c9f624f352e10b044da81a1
Facebook says it doesn't need news content
Facebook says
it's being unfairly targeted by a proposed industry code which would force it
and Google to pay for news content on their platforms.
Finbar
O'Mallon
Australian Associated Press June 15,
2020 3:55pm
Facebook says
it wouldn't be significantly impacted if Australian news outlets pulled content
from social media.
The
tech giant said it and Google were being unfairly targeted by proposed new
regulations to force them to pay for news content on their platforms.
In
its submission to the competition watchdog's draft code, Facebook dismissed
concerns it shared an unequal market dominance with Google.
"We
recognise that there is merit in setting regulatory frameworks to give all
Australian media organisations and Australian consumers confidence that we are
contributing appropriately in the Australian news ecosystem," it said.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/facebook-wont-share-ad-revenue/news-story/3161ff01239d48a3748eee3aa9fe99c9
Facebook won’t share ad revenue
Lilly
Vitorovich
·
June 16, 2020
Facebook has rejected demands to share advertising revenue with
local media organisations, and threatened to remove news from its platform if
it is forced to.
It was “not healthy nor sustainable to expect that two private
companies, Facebook and Google, (would be) solely responsible for supporting a
public good and solving the challenges faced by the Australian media industry”,
it told the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.
The competition regulator was tasked by Josh Frydenberg in April
to develop a mandatory code of conduct dealing with how the two companies
should pay for news content generated by local media companies used on their
platforms.
“It’s only fair that those that generate content get paid for it,”
the Treasurer said at the time.
-----
https://www.afr.com/technology/how-can-we-help-ai-fight-this-virus-and-the-next-20200614-p552j5
How can we help AI fight this virus and the next?
Australia does not want to miss out on the benefits of data-driven
healthcare and clinical practice that is booming in the wake of the COVID-19
pandemic.
Anna
Belgiorno-Nettis and Peter Waters
Jun 15,
2020 – 12.00pm
Artificial Intelligence’s medical potential has rarely felt more
important than now. Across the world data-driven technology is helping us
respond to COVID-19.
A software start-up flagged Wuhan’s increased pneumonia cases nine
days before the World Health Organisation. Tools in the pipeline include a
machine learning app that compares Facebook posts with expert disease
descriptions to pinpoint outbreak locations, and software that generates vast
numbers of COVID-19 drug prototypes for scientists to evaluate.
Australia does not want to miss out on the benefits of data-driven
healthcare and clinical practice.
Yet as AI cements its importance to the world’s healthcare, the
best way to regulate it remains unclear. Shortly before the pandemic hit,
Australia’s proposed regulatory solution was to shoe-horn AI into the
Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) regime for medical devices.
-----
https://www.afr.com/technology/hacked-aussie-websites-for-sale-on-dark-web-20200612-p55227
Hacked: Aussie websites for sale on dark web
Ronald Mizen Reporter
Jun 16, 2020
– 12.00am
ASX-listed
companies, financial services firms, law firms, an insurance company and an
adult entertainment store are among hundreds of Australian websites for sale on
the dark web.
The
websites are part of a list of 43,000 hacked servers available for sale on
MagBo, the shadowy online marketplace where cyber criminals sell access to
websites for as little as $US1 ($1.46) and as much as $US10,000.
"It's
an important message to get out to Australian businesses," Curve
Securities chief executive Andrew Murray said.
Curve
offers fixed income advisory services and was one of the websites identified by
The
Australian Financial Review as being compromised.
Curve's
website said it has helped place more than $80 billion for its clients, which
includes 160 local, state and federal governments.
-----
https://theconversation.com/getting-vaccinated-at-the-pharmacy-make-sure-its-recorded-properly-140070
Getting
vaccinated at the pharmacy? Make sure it’s recorded properly
June 15, 2020
11.55am AEST
Frank Beard
Senior
Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Pharmacists
are vaccinating more and more people, but those shots are not always ending up
in your immunisation record, our report
out today shows.
This
means your records could be incomplete, leading to unnecessary repeat
vaccinations, or it could affect your eligibility for government benefits or
work.
Incomplete
records also mean health authorities cannot accurately monitor vaccination
uptake across the population.
And
if we have a vaccine for COVID-19 delivered through pharmacies, accurate record
keeping will be important for both individuals and health authorities.
-----
https://www.afr.com/technology/can-australia-become-known-for-safe-and-ethical-ai-20200614-p552j4
Can Australia become known for safe and ethical AI?
John Davidson Columnist
Jun 15, 2020
– 4.03pm
Liesl
Yearsley and Hanno Blankenstein have more in common than merely being
overseas-born founders of promising Australian technology start-ups.
Both
of them have founded companies that use artificial intelligence (AI) to help
create an edge for their customers. Yearsley's company, Akin, is using AI to
create bots that can converse with humans in a lifelike way. Blankenstein's
company, Unleash Live, uses AI for real-time analysis of video footage coming
from security cameras and drones.
Both
of them have built their companies around the notion there is money to be made,
a business niche to be exploited, by ensuring their AI is ethical, and doesn't
use personal information to manipulate or surveil the public.
And
both of them might have taken some comfort in events that have unfolded in the
US this past week, had their belief in ethical AI not been proved out under
such dramatic and tragic circumstances.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/no-significant-commercial-benefit-from-having-news-on-platform-facebook-20200615-p552ny.html
No significant commercial benefit from having news on
platform: Facebook
June 15, 2020 — 12.59pm
Facebook
has threatened to reduce the availability of news on its platform in Australia
if a code of conduct forcing it to share revenue with media outlets is
introduced.
The
tech giant rejected the premise of the code
being developed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,
denying that it derives significant value from having news stories shared on
its platform.
In
response to an ACCC concepts paper on the code, which is designed to tackle the
power imbalance between digital platforms and news media, Facebook said it
would not be damaged if news were not available on its service.
"If
there were no news content available on Facebook in Australia, we are confident
the impact on Facebook's community metrics and revenues in Australia would not
be significant because news content is highly substitutable and most users do
not come to Facebook with the intention of viewing news," the company
said.
-----
https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/news-and-events/news/immunisation-status-among-the-top-5-healthcare-documents-australians-want-access-to
Immunisation status among the top 5 healthcare
documents Australians want access to
15
June, 2020: Ten million Australians now have their
immunisations in their My Health Record and people can’t get enough of them.
Research
undertaken by the Australian Digital Health Agency (Agency) earlier this year
showed that the top 5 things people want to access are their test scans and
results, notes from their GP, information on medicines they have been
prescribed, Medicare information and their immunisation status.
To
respond to this demand, the Agency fast tracked information from the Australian
Immunisation Register to go into the My Health Record in April for those
records which had not been updated.
At
the end of April, of the 22.75 million My Health Records nearly 70% had
information in them; including nearly 10 million with immunisation information
that is critical to keeping Australians safe against preventable infections.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/media-rules-must-help-news-providers-harness-digital-platforms-value-20200614-p552f4.html
Media rules must help news providers harness digital
platforms' value
By Mia Garlick
June 15, 2020 — 12.00am
Journalism
is vital to a healthy democracy. From breaking news and local coverage to
investigative reporting, news plays an important function in society, helping people
make informed decisions. But in recent decades the news industry has been
tested by the digitisation of society and the economy.
There
is now a widely recognised need for news organisations to adapt their business
models to discover new audiences and digital revenue streams. As they do, we
have worked with the Australian government to develop frameworks that promote
transparency and accountability on the distribution of news online, as well as
protect countervailing benefits of the internet.
We
continue to support rules in Australia that ensure the primacy of market-driven
models for cross-industry collaboration, encourage innovation, provide
certainty for tech investment, and ensure consumer interests are safeguarded.
Based
on conversations with Australian news companies, the Australian government and
the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), we believe a
workable code is achievable. It would allow news publishers and digital
platforms that distribute news to continue building on existing commercial
arrangements, and support the development of a Digital News Council to advance
cross-industry collaboration. It would also encourage more transparency for
significant changes to the ranking of news content in News Feed and guarantee
to publishers we'll continue to share measurement data on how their content
performs on Facebook as well as insights on their audiences, without sharing
personal user information.
-----
https://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/technology/article/how-covid-19-has-exposed-the-need-for-telehealth-in-aged-and-assisted-care-65611234
How COVID-19 has exposed the need for telehealth in
aged and assisted care
Thursday, 11 June,
2020
COVID-19
outbreaks have devastated residential aged-care facilities across Australia and
the world, as the sector grapples to balance the risks associated with the
virus and maintain high levels of patient care. However, from virtual hospitals
to video calls with GPs, innovations in telehealth are transforming the
industry and pointing the way forward post-pandemic.
Earlier
this year, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality
and Safety revealed that innovation and technology can and should be
utilised across Australian aged-care facilities and those living with assisted
care at home.
The
coronavirus pandemic has only solidified this finding, exposing cracks in the
assisted care industry’s capacity to support some of Australia’s most
vulnerable residents. Through forced isolation, facility lockdowns and reduced
contact with carers and loved ones, not only is the health and safety of
elderly residents put in jeopardy, so too is their mental wellbeing. The US
National Institute of Health linked social isolation and loneliness
to a number of physical and mental conditions, such as high blood pressure,
heart disease, anxiety and depression, to name a few.
Tunstall
Health and Community Account Manager Alishya Gillham, from Australian provider
of connected care and health solutions Tunstall
Healthcare, said the pandemic has amplified these existing problems
in the older population.
-----
https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/11/will-online-symptom-checkers-improve-health-care-australia
Will online symptom checkers improve health care in
Australia?
Adam G
Dunn
Med J Aust 2020; 212 (11): . || doi:
10.5694/mja2.50621
Published online: 15 June 2020
Topics
Information
science
Health
services administration
The available tools are largely unregulated, and do not reliably
guide people to the right care at the right time
In times when health services are under increasing strain, digital
health technologies such as online symptom checkers appear convenient and
cost‐effective tools for reducing the burden on clinics, telemedicine services,
and emergency departments. In practical terms, an online symptom checker is a
smartphone app or web‐based form that can provide a diagnosis on the basis of a
set of self‐reported symptoms. They can suggest diagnoses for a broad range of
conditions with which people may present to a clinic or emergency department.
When they work properly, symptom checkers should turn current practice
guidelines into tools that can diagnose and triage patients at low cost.
-----
https://itwire.com/open-sauce/twitter-deletes-accounts-partly-based-on-defence-lobby-group-aspi-s-word.html
Author's Opinion
Sunday, 14 June 2020 16:37
Twitter deletes accounts partly based on defence lobby
group ASPI's word
By Sam Varghese
Social
media site Twitter has done what little reputation it has no good by accepting
recommendations for deletion of accounts from the Australian Strategic Policy
Institute, an organisation which claims to be an independent think-tank but in
reality is a lobby group for big defence and tech firms.
The
deletion
of more than 23,750 pro-China accounts — and more than 150,000 more that were
claimed to be amplifying the message from these — and a smaller number of
pro-Russian and pro-Turkish accounts was announced by the company last week.
It
mentioned that data about these accounts had been shared with ASPI and the
US-based Stanford Internet Observatory. Some of the deletions were said to be
for spreading pro-China information about the cornonavirus pandemic.
With the true
story of the pandemic yet to be determined — the World Health Organisation will
carry out an investigation to find out how it spread — it is not possible at
this point to say what is, and what is not, bogus. US President Donald Trump
and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were claiming not long ago that the
virus emerged from a research institute in Wuhan, while American intelligence
agencies were not inclined to believe this.
-----
Comments more
than welcome!
David.
