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AARP Illinois and other senior-focused interest groups voiced concerns Wednesday over “misinformation” that they say is being spread about the state’s proposed shift to a graduated income to communities that “can’t afford to be misled.”

“It makes me crazy to know my hard-working friends and neighbors are paying the same tax rate as millionaires and billionaires in this state, and it makes me angry when I see those same millionaires and billionaires spreading rumors about graduated income tax impacting retirement income,” said Wendy Edington, an AARP Illinois volunteer.

In a Zoom news conference, members of the advocacy group for retirees, as well as the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans and Jane Addams Seniors in Action, said there’s “nothing more important” than voters passing the amendment that would change the state’s tax structure to a graduated-rate system.

AARP has paid for ads in support of the tax proposal, which Gov. J.B.

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Hello everyone! Welcome to this weekly roundup of Business Insider stories from executive editor Matt Turner. Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Sunday.

Read on for news on how Facebook became a haven for misinformation and conspiracy theories, McDonald’s worst nightmare, and former employees of Tanya Zuckerbrot’s popular F-Factor diet speaking out.

How Facebook became a haven for misinformation

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg

Drew Angerer/Getty Images


Hello!

I still remember the first time I heard about Facebook. It was late 2005, and I was catching up with old friends who both attended a different university in the UK where the site had already established a following. They joked about their classmates who would post there all the time.

15 years later, it’s easy to wonder how Facebook morphed from that early iteration into what it has become today.

From Rob Price:

In recent months, posts and pages with

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This photo taken by Talent, Ore., resident Kevin Jantzer shows the destruction of his hometown as wildfires ravaged the central Oregon town near Medford late Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020. (Kevin Jantzer via AP)


Kevin Jantzer

AP

SEATTLE

Emergency responders in the Pacific Northwest are fighting misinformation along with raging wildfires as people spread unsubstantiated social media posts blaming coordinated groups of arsonists from both the far left and far right for setting the blazes.

The FBI said Friday that it’s investigated several claims and found them to be untrue, while officials in Oregon and Washington state have turned to Facebook to knock down the competing narratives — some posts blamed far-left antifa activists and others claimed the far-right group the Proud Boys was responsible for the fires scorching wide swaths of the region.

“I am physically and emotionally exhausted. We’ve been working really hard to protect people’s lives and homes,”

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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has published a response to Google’s open letter, which had slammed the new media bargaining code, stating that the letter contained “misinformation” about the proposed law.

“The open letter published by Google today contains misinformation about the draft news media bargaining code which the ACCC would like to address,” ACCC said in its statement.

Google has published an open letter drafted by Melanie Silva, Managing Director, on behalf of Google Australia addressing ACCC’s draft media bargaining code which is backed by the federal government, calling it “unfair.”

“A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia,” wrote Silva.

In response, the ACCC clarified that the tech

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a close up of a sign: Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

© Provided by The Guardian
Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

Google has started targeting Australians with pop-up ads that link to an open letter that contains “misinformation”, according to the consumer watchdog, as the tech company campaigns against a proposed code that would force it to share advertising money with media companies.

The international tech giant is waging a campaign against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which at the request of the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has developed a mandatory code that would require Google to share a portion of its multi-million dollar advertising revenue with Australian media organisations and newspapers.



a close up of a sign: Google is targeting Australians with open letter campaigning against proposed code.

© Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters
Google is targeting Australians with open letter campaigning against proposed code.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, more than a hundred regional and rural newspapers have shut down or stopped printing, and hundreds of journalists have been made redundant as advertising revenue has dropped.

Newspapers have

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  • Facebook had a bad week when it came to cleaning up toxic content on its platform.
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook refused to take action against a politician who violated its hate speech policies for fear of backlash, just months Trump’s controversial posts suggesting violence against protesters.
  • Another report from NBC News found that Facebook has discovered a community of millions of QAnon conspiracy theorists on its platform, and according to a report from Tech Transparency Report failed to deliver on its pledge to crack down on violent boogaloo hate groups.
  • The company also got slammed for a loophole in its fact-checking policies that allow climate change skeptics to spread falsehoods by labeling them as “opinion,” The Verge reported.
  • Amid a scathing civil rights audit, grilling from lawmakers, and major advertiser boycott, Facebook has promised to “get better” at tackling hate speech and misinformation, but this week’s missteps
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