Screengrab from a video with Abu Mohammad al-Julani highlighted among a crowd
THREAD - How we know the commander-in-chief of the Syrian militant group Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was in Aleppo today.
1/ This is a grab of a video posted on Telegram at 1323 GMT today, claiming the man highlighted in red is Abu Mohammad al-Julani, head of HTS.
Let's go through the where, when, who.
🚨 LAUNCHING TODAY 🚨
Nearly two years ago, @tortoisemedia.bsky.social unveiled the Westminster Accounts, a free tool designed to give people greater understanding of the money that flows through parliament.
Now, with Peer Review, we take on another arcane part of our system - the House of Lords
Thank you so much, Jeremy! Great to connect!
Ah thank you! You too!!
One month Britain is a place of common sense, another it's turning into a police state - depending, it appears, on whether views expressed align with views held.
And the way I came across it is because my X explore tab is promoting this claim alongside various others
Literally none of the so-called ‘evidence’ put forth in this tweet (which has over 4m views at the time of writing) stands up or makes sense. Doesn’t even require a debunk it’s so clearly error-ridden. Only mention of a Rwandan in the case it points to is of a woman who claimed she had been raped
A bunch of us from Verify wrote up a piece on some of RFK Jrs claims which can be read here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... And back in March @rachelschraer.bsky.social wrote an incredible piece which can be found here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-6...
With even the smallest amount of googling, claims like the one dangled by RFK Jr about HIV are easily debunked. A scientist from John Hopkins put it quite bluntly when he described RFK's stance on vaccine safety to me as being "beyond the reach of science, reason, and evidence.”
The book claimed that scientists accidentally introduced a precursor of HIV, a chimpanzee virus called SIV cpz, into the vaccine during manufacturing. MULTIPLE studies later examined old samples of the vaccine and found that NONE contained DNA from chimpanzee cells www.science.org/content/arti...
When falsely suggesting there was plenty of evidence that HIV also came from a vaccine, Kennedy referenced a 1999 book called "The River" which put forth the now discredited claim that HIV may have emerged from trials of the oral polio vaccine conducted in the late 1950s.
The roundtable featured multiple anti-vaccine activists, including prolific spreader of covid misinfo, Joe Mercola, Pierre Kory who recently lost his medical license for promoting ivermectin as a covid cure, & Sherrie Tenpenny, who once claimed that covid vaccines could make people "magnetic"
We've heard a lot about how Trump's pick for health sec #RFKJr believes autism comes from vaccines, but he's also suggested that HIV came from a vaccine too. During a 2023 roundtable discussion he suggested that there was “plenty of evidence" that HIV came from vaccines (1/6)
Was never too active on X (or any other platform for that matter), but deciding to give this one a go and share any useful insights/random thoughts!
And, finally, investigating claims in elections - including the US midterms and recent presidential.
To investigating war crimes in Ukraine...https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60591017 www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-e...
To investigating attacks on water and sanitation sites in Gaza..https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68969239
From looking at questionable accounts returning to Twitter in the early days of Musk’s takeover…https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64554381
Hi Bluesky! I’m a senior journalist working at BBC Verify. I’ve worked on both national and global stories across multiple platforms…