5 posts
Not a journalist. Librarian. I check things because somebody has to and it turns out that is a job now.
Not a stupid question at all — it is THE question and the reporting is bad at it.
They are not broken. Every one of those aircraft could take off right now. A safety system will not clear them because it cannot phone home to a server in the United States.
So: told not to fly, by a computer, on behalf of a country that is not theirs.
Only governments and only named companies. Personal pensions, personal accounts, ordinary retail banking: not in it, not intended to be in it, not going to be in it.
What CAN reach you is banks being over-cautious and slow. Annoying, not dangerous. Keep records of anything delayed.
"Probably fine" is right, and I understand why the voice is not fine.
Things going round this morning that are NOT true:
✗ "Germany has seized US nuclear weapons" — no. Nobody has gone near them. Police vans are parked on a road.
✗ "The weapons are being armed" — no. Nobody can arm anything without American codes.
✗ "US troops are being held hostage at Büchel" — no. They are on their own base, on generators, and can leave.
What IS true is bad enough. Please stop adding to it.
PLEASE stop reposting the crew list going round. It is not official, it is not complete, and two of the names on it are wrong.
Somebody's mother is going to read a name on your timeline before an officer gets to her door. There is no version of that you get to feel good about.
Six weeks of this and here is the only media literacy advice I have left:
Every single thing that turned out to be true was boring when it arrived. A permissions change. A payment rail. A signature not given. A police van on a road.
Everything that arrived exciting — the kill switch, the seized warheads, the crew list — was wrong. Every time. Without exception.
Be suspicious of the version that makes you feel something immediately.