Welcome to our ‘News In Brief’ column in which we digest all the news releases for you in no more than five paragraphs.
Below are snippets of all the media releases we received from Nov 2 till the end of the week.
This article updates throughout the week.
Bot Accusations Eroding Trust In Political News: Study
Perth, Nov 3: Claims that online posts are “AI” or written by bots are being used to shut down opposing political views, new University of Sydney research has found.
Researchers led by Dr Timothy Koskie analysed more than 220,000 Reddit posts and comments from the platform’s five largest news and politics communities in the lead-up to the 2024 US presidential election.
They found these accusations were aimed almost entirely at users with different political views, and that discussions lost momentum once someone was labelled a bot. “‘That’s AI’ has become a common way to dismiss information online,” Dr Koskie said.
Users also voiced distrust of how platforms promote or suppress content. The researchers warn that legitimate concerns about deepfakes and bots are being weaponised against genuine, human-written content.
The study, published in Communication Research and Practice, says the findings apply to elections worldwide. It calls on platforms, policymakers and tech companies to support more transparent information environments.
Rates Hit 18-Year High
Perth, Nov 3: The Reserve Bank has raised the cash rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.85%, its fifth hike this year and the highest level in almost 18 years.
The decision followed higher-than-expected inflation data for the September quarter and was not unanimous, with the board voting 6-3.
According to Finder, Australians with an average home loan of $730,719 will pay $538 more a month, or $6,460 more a year, than in January if banks pass on the rise in full. Three in four of the 40 experts in Finder’s RBA Cash Rate Survey predicted the hike.
“Anyone who took out their first mortgage in the past 18 years has never seen a cash rate this high,” said Finder’s Taylor Blackburn.
LGT Wealth Management chief investment officer Scott Haslem said Australia now had the seventh-highest inflation rate in the G20 and had lifted rates more than any other G20 country this year. He said that with governments slow to rein in spending, “rising interest rates will mean the private sector is going to bear the brunt of a necessary slowing in growth.”
Haslem said unemployment, now 4.7%, could rise above 5% by early 2027. If government spending slowed, the RBA could begin cutting rates in the second half of 2027. If it didn’t, he warned, 4.85% may not be the peak.
Royal Selangor Drops Badger Brushes
Perth, Nov 3: Malaysian pewter company Royal Selangor has stopped making badger-hair shaving brushes and is clearing its remaining stock, following a campaign by animal rights group PETA.
PETA says footage it obtained from eight fur farms in China shows badgers kept in small, filthy wire cages, and a worker beating and stabbing a conscious badger for its hair.
“No badger should be caged, beaten, and violently killed for a brush, and Royal Selangor did the right thing by quickly ceasing production of its badger-hair products,” said PETA President Jason Baker.
More than 100 brands have stopped selling badger-hair products since PETA’s first investigation into the industry in 2018. They include Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, PChome in Taiwan and iShopChangi in Singapore, while Zalora has removed the items across Southeast Asia.
PETA is urging remaining retailers to stop selling badger hair and consumers to choose synthetic brushes.
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