Profile avatar
stemcdermott.bsky.social
Editor of The Journal FactCheck | Journalist with @thejournal.ie | Royal Canal local living in Grand Canal exile Dublin, Ireland. Email: [email protected]
130 posts 2,066 followers 596 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 23 Comments 27

Interesting to see that DeepSeek also self-censors when you ask it relatively straightforward questions about Ireland on subjects it doesn't like...

submitted 26 days ago • 2 comments

Heads up if you're looking for #StormÉowyn updates here today that Met Éireann say the account posting as @meteireann.bsky.social is fake.

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

Ads for deepfake ‘nudify’ apps have started to pop up in the feeds of Irish Facebook users in the past few weeks. The apps allow users to create non-consensual nude images by letting users upload photos to "erase" women's clothing using AI.

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

"Several fact-checkers over the years have suggested to Meta how it could improve this labeling to be less intrusive and avoid even the appearance of censorship, but Meta never acted on those suggestions." -- @factchecknet.bsky.social www.poynter.org/ifcn/2025/an...

submitted 44 days ago • 11 comments

"There is irony in Zuckerberg branding US fact-checkers as being “just too politically biased” in a statement that, in both timing and explicit alignment, hints strongly at political expediency." @susandaly.bsky.social @factcheck.thejournal.ie

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

The US government has branded Dublin's 2023 riots as "white identity terrorism", carried out by Irish white supremacists and ultranationalists. Report by our journalist @trishdevlin.bsky.social http://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-riots-white-identity-terrorism-6589040-Jan2025/

submitted 44 days ago • 3 comments

The evacuation of Connolly Station in Dublin yesterday immediately led to a spate of false claims and unfounded speculation online about what had happened. Some social media users suggested it had something to do with foreign nationals or asylum seekers. www.thejournal.ie/debunked-fac...

submitted 45 days ago • 2 comments

Join @gavreilly.com tonight at 10pm: - Dangerous cold snap - Will next gov abandon green agenda? - Meta scraps fact checking Timmy Dooley TD, FF Minister Malcolm Noonan Francie Gorman, IFA President Prof John Sweeney, Climatologist Sarah McGuinness, Irish Daily Mail + @stemcdermott.bsky.social

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

🚨In Nature🚨 Meta is dropping fact-checking to avoid anti-conservative bias- but is there actually evidence of bias? We this test empirically & find that conservatives * ARE suspended more * BUT share more misinfo So suspension isn't necessarily evidence of bias www.nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 47 days ago • 99 comments

Meta has announced that it's ending its third-party fact-checking programme in the US and replacing it with Community Notes (as are seen on X). It means third parties - like @factcheck.thejournal.ie - will no longer be able to flag misinfo on Facebook, Instagram or Threads in the US.

submitted 47 days ago • 3 comments

Ireland's decision to intervene in South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and Israel’s subsequent decision to close its embassy in Dublin have been surrounded by false claims about the Irish government’s position on the war in Gaza. www.thejournal.ie/israel-claim...

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

See the incentives at play here in the influencer economy … a great communicator with a tight focus sees the YouTube data … moves into the “secret knowledge” that trigger the dark sides of our brains … monthly views have increased from nine million to 15 million. www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 72 days ago • 2 comments

More bad news in the courts for Ireland's far-right election candidates yesterday. Kim McMenamin of The Irish People lost a defamation case against Peter Casey: jrnl.ie/6569277 And Paul Fitzsimons of the Irish Freedom Party was accused of knife possession and threatening a Garda: jrnl.ie/6569547

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

Brilliant new investigation from @trishdevlin.bsky.social on coastal erosion putting many homes at risk of falling into the sea.

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

Kerry far-right election candidate and personality Michelle Keane was jailed yesterday for contempt of court over social media posts (which usual suspects are comparing to Enoch Burke's case). Understanding is that she has already appared back in court to purge her contempt this morning.

submitted 74 days ago • 1 comment

There appear to already be a lot of fake Instagram accounts posing as Luigi Mangione, the man arrested in Pennsylvania today over the killing last week of the United Healthcare CEO in New York.

submitted 76 days ago • 4 comments

Amid scenes of prisoners being freed in Syria, incl. from the "human slaughterhouse" at Sednaya, read Anne Barnard's investigation based on the Caesar files exposing systematic torture and extra-judicial executions by the Assad regime. (Gift article) www.nytimes.com/2019/05/11/w...

submitted 77 days ago • 3 comments

In 2020, no far-right candidate in Ireland won more than 2% of first preference votes in an election; this time around, the figure had risen to 20. This week's (final) FactCheck election newsletter looks at why Ireland's far-right failed - but failed better - in #GE24.

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

The annual Bohs effort to get a toy to every child in direct provision in Ireland is a wonderful thing. Donations and info here: gofund.me/ee17f8fe

submitted 81 days ago • 4 comments

Conspiracy theories that the general election result was rigged or manipulated are being spread by far-right candidates who failed to gain seats in the 34th Dáil. It follows similar claims of vote-rigging during and after the local and European elections in June.

submitted 82 days ago • 2 comments

I know it's a big ask, but we need help getting CouncilTracker.ie back online to show how Dublin city councillors vote. counciltracker-fdecc5cce045.herokuapp.com/motions We need to add a system so we can update the line-up of councillors as it changes. github.com/DublinInquir... Can anyone help? 🙏

submitted 82 days ago • 3 comments

Irish Freedom Party leader Hermann Kelly is out in Count 14 in Louth with 3,608 votes. Means all far-right candidates have Ní been eliminated from #GE24

submitted 84 days ago • 6 comments

Latest on the far-right in #GE24: - 69 candidates eliminated - 9 candidates are still in the running.

submitted 84 days ago • 3 comments