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False Claims that Heatwave is Bogus Spread Online (www.bbc.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.social to c/world@lemmy.world

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False claims suggesting that the BBC has been misreporting temperatures in southern Europe have been spreading on social media.

A clip of Neil Oliver, a GB News presenter, accusing the BBC "and others" of "driving fear" by using "supposedly terrifying temperatures", has been viewed more than two million times.

For the past few weeks, an intense heatwave has been sweeping through parts of southern Europe and north Africa, with extensive wildfires breaking out in Greece, Italy and Algeria - leading to more than 40 deaths.

Speaking about the fires on Rhodes on GB News on Monday, Mr Oliver accused the BBC, and other broadcasters, of trying to "make people terrified of the weather".

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[-] egeres@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I think we need to get used to a new "life law" that has arisen as a fruit of echo chambers, too much information (regardless of its veracity) and modern recommendation algorithms: "For every important global event, there will be a small portion of deniers."

Besides education at early ages, I don't see a way this trend can be stopped. "Denying" will mutate across different topics (chem-trails, vaccines, the shape of the earth). I'm starting to perceive it like the flu, a seasonal disease with no permanent cure which we just take for granted. When you do your new years resolution/planning you should remember to subtract 2 weeks from your time because certainly you will be ill, it's a constant. My head has grown accustomed to expecting this constant flux of fake-information-toxicity to appear in "obvious universal problems"

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Is it new? Weren't there moon landing deniers and JFK conspiracy people and Truthers within a year, long before the modern Internet algorithm nonsense.

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[-] zlatiah@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For god's sake temperatures above 40 Celsius are dangerous and claims like this will literally kill some people... But again, after everything happening in the last 3-4 years it's hard to imagine conservatives putting other folks' health and safety as a priority

[-] Dazed_Confused@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I live in Greece. The past couple of weeks have been really hot. Today we have a significant drop in temperatures, at last.

Mr Oliver needs to get out more.

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[-] bouh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Meanwhile in some places there were temperatures statistically impossible to reach...

[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Ugh, is the urban heat island theory gaining popularity again?

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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023

510 points (100.0% liked)

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