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Bulgaria Abuzz With Online Rumors About ‘EU Plot’ To Make Everyone Eat Insects

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Bulgaria Abuzz With Online Rumors About 'EU Plot' To Make Everyone Eat Insects

SOFIA — He’s a fringe politician and social media influencer in Bulgaria who claims he’s on a crusade to save the nation. Georgi Georgiev Gotti recently posted on Facebook that the European Commission wants to “give cancer” to his compatriots.

How?

EU bureaucrats will allow food producers to add powdered insects to a list of foods, the combination of which, according to Gotti, will create carcinogens.

With no science to back his bogus claim, the Facebook post has gone viral, shared more than 1,000 times and generating hundreds of reactions, many of them seething.

As the disinformation spread, the rumor mutated, with some social media posters adding further nefarious EU intentions to force people to consume insects. They claimed powdered insects would be added to many foods, including bread, but it would all be shrouded in secrecy, with no labeling required.

While it is hard to prove the rumors are part of an orchestrated Kremlin campaign, social media posts on the topic spiked after one of Russia’s most powerful media figures, Dmitry Kiselyov, mentioned it on his popular show on state TV in late January. Russia regularly spreads disinformation in Europe, with the aim of sowing mistrust and doubt of EU institutions.

Milena Yakimova, a sociology professor at Sofia University who also monitors Russian propaganda efforts in Bulgaria, said this latest disinformation campaign aims, in part, to “show us that Europe is foreign to us.”

Tiziana di Costanzo holds up a cup of dried crickets to be ground up and added to pizza dough.

The current campaign appears to be largely waged by individuals and organizations who are at least sympathetic to Russia. Bulgaria has witnessed similar campaigns. The Balkan country suffered the EU’s highest COVID-19 fatalities, in part due to low vaccinations rates as medical misinformation turned many into skeptics.

Recently, social media was abuzz with false claims about an imminent military mobilization that would end with Bulgarian men being sent to Ukraine to fight against invading Russian troops.

The insect rumors do have a sprinkling of truth. The European Commission — the EU’s top executive body — has recently approved more insects as so-called novel foods after the EU’s food safety regulator, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), gave its stamp of approval.

Insects are part of the daily diet for about one-quarter of the globe. It’s thought that eating more bugs and less meat and poultry could be good not for only human health but the environment. Research by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization shows that crickets require six times less feed than cattle to create the same amount of protein.

In October 2014, the EFSA said its research found that houseflies, crickets, and silkworms can be safe, nutritious, and more environmentally friendly alternatives to chicken, beef, or pork. The EFSA analysis said the farming of insects could lead to lower emissions of greenhouse gases and ammonia than cattle or pigs and higher efficiency in converting feed to protein.

In May 2021, the European Commission announced the first insect — yellow mealworms, the larva form of mealworms — had been approved as a so-called novel food in the EU. By August 2022, the European Commission said a total of three insects — yellow mealworms, house crickets, and migratory locusts — had been authorized as novel foods inside the EU.

A container of yellow mealworms is offered from a food truck at a festival in Antwerp, Belgium. (file photo)

A container of yellow mealworms is offered from a food truck at a festival in Antwerp, Belgium. (file photo)

In January of this year, the European Commission approved the maggot-like larvae of lesser mealworms — a type of shiny black beetle — and house crickets — this time in powdered form — as novel food as well.

In both cases, the European Commission approval applies to specific items produced by two companies. It spells out in which types of food products they can be used — including bread — and that these items must be labeled.

Following the latest European Commission insect rulings at the start of the year, social media in Bulgaria was abuzz with posts — including from rabble-rouser Gotti — mentioning grasshoppers, which are not mentioned in the EU decision. Data from Google in Bulgaria shows searches for grasshoppers and crickets also spiked around the same time, RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service found, peaking on January 30.

Also creeping into other posts were false claims that chitins — the exoskeletons of crickets and other insects — would cause cancer in humans.

RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service found that one of the first Facebook posts, from January 26, to spread the poison claims and gain traction came from a Facebook account of an individual identified as Nadia Ivanova.

A check of Ivanova’s Facebook page turns up multiple posts praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and several mentioning Nikolai Malinov, a former Bulgarian lawmaker and the head of a pro-Russian lobby group in Bulgaria. In 2019, Malinov traveled to Moscow to personally receive an award from Putin. He is now on trial in Bulgaria on charges of spying for Russia.

Ivanova’s January 26 Facebook post was quickly seized on by others on Facebook, including by a person identified as Lisa Miller, who posted it on the page of Varna Without Censorship, a Bulgarian network that accuses mainstream media of an anti-Russian bias, among other things.

Employees sort crickets for size at the Smile cricket farm at Ratchaburi Province, southwest of Bangkok, Thailand.

Employees sort crickets for size at the Smile cricket farm at Ratchaburi Province, southwest of Bangkok, Thailand.

Miller’s profile appears to be fake, the photos taken from a photo bank, a check by RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service indicated. The account often shares many conspiracy theories and fake news.

The topic gained further traction in Bulgaria and elsewhere, after Kiselyov, a firebrand pro-Putin TV host, offered up his musings on his Russian First Channel program on January 29.

“Cultural transformation in Europe has been going on for a long time and certainly has a domestic dimension,” began Kiselyov. He continued with a familiar narrative in Russia that people in Europe are asked to do less laundry, use fewer appliances, limit the temperature in their rooms, before adding: “And now they are also advised to eat insects.”

“They are persuading Europeans to bathe less often and eat insects,” concludes Kiselyov, who is often described as one of the Kremlin’s top propagandists.

Kiselyov was not alone in sinisterly spinning the EU decision. In France, right-wing politician Laurent Duplomb also accused EU bureaucrats of nefarious intentions.

While it is hard to prove the rumors are part of an orchestrated Kremlin campaign, social media posts on the topic spiked after one of Russia's most powerful media figures, Dmitry Kiselyov, mentioned it on his popular show on state TV in late January.

While it is hard to prove the rumors are part of an orchestrated Kremlin campaign, social media posts on the topic spiked after one of Russia’s most powerful media figures, Dmitry Kiselyov, mentioned it on his popular show on state TV in late January.

“We cannot let the French eat insects without their knowledge,” he wrote on Twitter.

A transcript of Kiselyov’s January 29 show quickly spread on social media in Bulgaria, shared by Ivanova, Miller, and Gotti.

Sociology professor Yakimova, who is also a researcher at the Sofia-based Foundation for Humanitarian and Social Research, a project that monitors Russian propaganda in Bulgaria, said the “news” on insects for human consumption has flooded the information space in Bulgaria in recent weeks.

Yakimova says that the disinformation is meant to sow fissures within the EU.

“This is an attack on European solidarity and exploits long-standing fears in the West about insects,” she said.

Written by correspondent Tony Wesolowsky based largely on reporting by RFE/RL Bulgarian Service’s Georgi Angelov



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Lee Hsien Yang faces damages for defamation against two Singapore ministers over Ridout Road rentals

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Lee Hsien Yang faces damages for defamation against two Singapore ministers over Ridout Road rentals

High Court ruling: Lee Hsien Yang directed to compensate Ministers Shanmugam and Balakrishnan for defamatory remarks on Ridout Road state bungalows. (PHOTO: MCI/YouTube and ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images ) ((PHOTO: MCI/YouTube and ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images ))

SINGAPORE — The High Court in Singapore has directed Lee Hsien Yang to pay damages to ministers K. Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan for defamatory statements made in Facebook comments regarding their rental of black-and-white bungalows on Ridout Road.

The court issued a default judgment favouring the two ministers after Lee – the youngest son of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and brother of current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – failed to address the defamation lawsuits brought against him. Lee had, among other claims, insinuated that the ministers engaged in corrupt practices and received preferential treatment from the Singapore Land Authority for their bungalow rentals.

The exact amount of damages will be evaluated in a subsequent hearing.

Restricted from spreading defamatory claims against ministers

Not only did Justice Goh Yi Han grant the default judgment on 2 November, but he also imposed an injunction to prohibit Lee from further circulating false and defamatory allegations.

In a released written judgment on Monday (27 November), the judge highlighted “strong reasons” to believe that Lee might persist in making defamatory statements again, noting his refusal to remove the contentious Facebook post on 23 July, despite receiving a letter of demand from the ministers on 27 July.

Among other things, Lee stated in the post that “two ministers have leased state-owned mansions from the agency that one of them controls, felling trees and getting state-sponsored renovations.”

A report released by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau in June concluded that no wrongdoing or preferential treatment had occurred concerning the two ministers. However, Lee continued referencing this post and the ongoing lawsuits, drawing attention to his remarks under legal scrutiny.

Justice Goh emphasised that the ministers met the prerequisites for a default judgment against Lee. The suits, separately filed by Shanmugam, the Law and Home Affairs Minister, and Dr Balakrishnan, the Foreign Affairs Minister, were initiated in early August.

Lee Hsien Yang alleges in his post that two ministers leased state-owned mansions, 26 and 31 Ridout Road from an agency, one of which they control, involving tree felling and receiving state-sponsored renovations.Lee Hsien Yang alleges in his post that two ministers leased state-owned mansions, 26 and 31 Ridout Road from an agency, one of which they control, involving tree felling and receiving state-sponsored renovations.

Lee Hsien Yang alleges in his post that two ministers leased state-owned mansions, 26 and 31 Ridout Road from an agency, one of which they control, involving tree felling and receiving state-sponsored renovations.(SCREENSHOTS: Google Maps)

He failed to respond within 21 days

Lee and his wife, Lee Suet Fern, had left Singapore in July 2022, after declining to attend a police interview for potentially giving false evidence in judicial proceedings over the late Lee Kuan Yew’s will.

His absence from Singapore prompted the court to permit Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan to serve him legal documents via Facebook Messenger in mid-September. Despite no requirement for proof that Lee saw these documents, his subsequent social media post on 16 September confirmed his awareness of the served legal papers.

Although Lee had the opportunity to respond within 21 days, he chose not to do so. Additionally, the judge noted the novelty of the ministers’ request for an injunction during this legal process, highlighting updated court rules allowing such measures since April 2022.

Justice Goh clarified that despite the claimants’ application for an injunction, the court needed independent validation for its appropriateness, considering its potentially severe impact on the defendant. He reiterated being satisfied with the circumstances and granted the injunction, given the continued accessibility of the contentious Facebook post.

Lee acknowledges court order and removes allegations from Facebook

Following the court’s decision, Lee acknowledged the court order on 10 November and removed the statements in question from his Facebook page.

In the judgment, Justice Goh noted that there were substantial grounds to anticipate Lee’s repetition of the “defamatory allegations by continuing to draw attention to them and/or publish further defamatory allegations against the claimants.”

The judge mentioned that if Lee had contested the ministers’ claims, there could have been grounds for a legally enforceable case under defamation law.

According to Justice Goh, a reasonable reader would interpret Lee’s Facebook post as insinuating that the People’s Action Party’s trust had been squandered due to the ministers’ alleged corrupt conduct, from which they gained personally.

While Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan were not explicitly named, the post made it evident that it referred to them, and these posts remained accessible to the public, as noted by the judge.

Justice Goh pointed out that by choosing not to respond to the lawsuits, Lee prevented the court from considering any opposing evidence related to the claims.

Do you have a story tip? Email: [email protected].

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Also check out our Southeast Asia, Food, and Gaming channels on YouTube.

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Tauranga judge orders Team Chopper Facebook pages taken down due to ‘threatening’ online communciations

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Tauranga judge orders Team Chopper Facebook pages taken down due to ‘threatening’ online communciations

Helen Fraser’s son Ryan Tarawhiti-Brown with Chopper, the dog at the centre of an attack on Tauranga vet Dr Liza Schneider.

The son of the woman whose Rottweiler dog attacked and seriously injured a Tauranga vet has been ordered to disable two Facebook pages that contained threats towards the vet and her business.

Ryan Tarawhiti-Brown (AKA Ryan Brown) ran and promoted a Facebook page called Team Chopper in support of his mother Helen Fraser’s legal battle to save her dog Chopper.

Chopper was euthanised following a court order handed down on August 21 by Judge David Cameron after he convicted Fraser of being the owner of a dog that attacked and seriously injured Holistic Vets co-owner Dr Liza Schneider.

The attack happened in the carpark of her Fraser St practice on October 14, 2022.

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Schneider was left with serious injuries after Chopper bit her arm, including a broken bone in her forearm, and deep tissue damage and nerve damage.

She required surgery and her arm took several months to heal.

Tauranga woman Helen Fraser, pictured here at her July trial, said that the case was "exceptional" and argued in favour of sparing Chopper's life. Photo / Ethan Griffiths
Tauranga woman Helen Fraser, pictured here at her July trial, said that the case was “exceptional” and argued in favour of sparing Chopper’s life. Photo / Ethan Griffiths

Following Fraser’s conviction, Schneider sought a takedown order after she told the court she and her practice had been the subject of constant online harassment and threats since October 2021.

Schneider said comments posted on the Team Chopper Facebook page included threats, harassment and derogatory and abusive comments.

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In an affidavit, Schneider said her Google account had also been bombarded with fake reviews which she alleged were incited by the Team Chopper page.

Court documents obtained by the Bay of Plenty Times confirm an interim judgment was made by Judge Lance Rowe on August 30 which ordered the page be taken down and any references to Schneider removed. She also asked for a written apology. This order was previously suppressed.

During a second court hearing on October 25, Tarawhiti-Brown’s lawyer Bev Edwards told Judge Cameron it was accepted her client had not complied with this order to take down the page.

Edwards said her client had instead changed the nature of the page to help promote the rights of cats and dogs, and no criticism or abuse of Schneider or Holistic Vets was made by her client in those posts.

Tarawhiti-Brown had filed an affidavit to similar effect, court documents show.

Schneider argued the change in tone had not prevented others from posting derogatory comments about her.

This included posts on September 23, which stated she should be “prosecuted for negligence”, “sucked” at her job and should lose her licence.

Edwards also submitted that Schneider was prepared to use social media to her own advantage when it suited, her and cited an online article published in June.

In Judge Cameron’s written judgement, dated November 13, Tarawhiti-Brown, who lives in Australia, was ordered to immediately disable or take down his two Facebook pages.

The judge ruled the digital communications on the Facebook pages had been “threatening” to Schneider and “amount to harassment of her”, and also caused her “ongoing psychological harm”.

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Judge Cameron also ordered Tarawhiti-Brown to refrain from making any digital communications about Schneider or identifying her or her business directly or indirectly, and not to encourage any other person to do so.

The judge said it was accepted by Schneider removal orders against Facebook/Meta were “fraught with difficulties”, including jurisdictional ones, and discontinued the takedown application against those organisations.

The judge did not order Tarawhiti-Brown to apologise to Schneider and lifted the suppression orders by consent of both parties, who had to pay their own legal costs.

Schneider and the NZ Veterinary Association, which has been supporting her, declined to comment on these court orders.

Tarawhiti-Brown was also approached for comment.

Sandra Conchie is a senior journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post who has been a journalist for 24 years. She mainly covers police, court and other justice stories, as well as general news. She has been a Canon Media Awards regional/community reporter of the year.

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Facebook group helps creative director uncover mystery behind photo of father

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Facebook group helps creative director uncover mystery behind photo of father

A creative director who “didn’t really have any memories” of his father who he died when he was just two was able to “build a persona” of him thanks to an old photo and a local Facebook group.

Lee Williamson’s father, Ian, died at the age of 23 in a car crash and, without many ways of finding out more about him due to personal reasons, he uploaded one of the few photos of the pair together, from 1983, to a High Wycombe Facebook group in the hope someone could help.

“I wasn’t quite sure where it was taken, but I just knew it was from High Wycombe somewhere, so one of my friends – who lives in High Wycombe – said to leave it with a couple of his friends but they weren’t sure,” the 42-year-old, who now lives in Lanesborough, Co Longford, Ireland, told the PA news agency.

“So, I posted it in a Facebook group and lots of people started interacting with it.

“I had no idea that was going to happen.”

Liz Parry, 62, who used to babysit Mr Williamson, happened across the post and from there, a phone call was set up between the pair on Friday.

Ms Parry, who now lives in Iver, Buckinghamshire, and is retired, told PA that as soon as she saw the picture, she recognised both Mr Williamson and his father as she lived next door to them on Hylton Road, High Wycombe, for about two to three years.

“I used to help the family out by babysitting them and we’d spend time together at games evenings or would have drinks together,” she said.

She said Mr Williamson’s late father was always on the lookout for a “good deal to give the family a good home”.

She added when Mr Williamson was a baby, he was “lovely”.

“He was always happy and laughing and smiling and wanting to play,” she added.

“He was a really happy little baby.”

She said the conversation with him on Friday was a “lovely” way to catch up after so many years.

“That little baby that I used to look after is now in his 40s and has his own children,” she said.

“It’s nice to see how well he is doing now as well because I wondered what happened to the family after they left (the area) after Ian’s passing.”

Mr Williamson said: “The chat on the phone was nice.

“I found out he was a bit of a Del Boy character, he was always looking for a way to make a business and was only 23 when he died.”

“I didn’t really know that he was my father until I was 10 – when I stumbled upon a bunch of documents in the attic while playing with a Scalectrix car toy – and so I didn’t really have any memory of him to be able to build a persona of who my father used to be.

“I have two of my own kids now, so can talk to them about stories about their grandad – it just gives you a sense of closure.”

Mr Williamson said it was “nice” to see Facebook lead to something “positive”.

“Everyone who replied was very encouraging and it showed that High Wycombe is a very nice place to be and the people that lived there had fond memories.”

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