WaPo: President Trump launched into a tweetstorm in April, banging out nine retweets of the Centers for Disease Control’s account on the dangers of misusing disinfectant and other topics — two days after he himself had suggested that people could … Continue reading
Category Archives: cheap speech
NBC News: Nine month before a purported leak of files from Hunter Biden’s laptop, a fake “intelligence” document about him went viral on the right-wing internet, asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving former Vice President Joe Biden’s son and business … Continue reading
WaPo: A video sent to voters falsely claimed that Joe Biden wants to give “sex changes to second-graders.”A menacing directive advised Democrats to vote for Trump “or else.”And a years-old photograph newly circulated with erroneous instructions for how to blow … Continue reading
Axios reports. … Continue reading
This is a must-read. … Continue reading
WSJ: Facebook is demanding that a New York University research project cease collecting data about its political-ad targeting practices, setting up a fight with academics seeking to study the platform without the company’s permission.The dispute involves the NYU Ad Observatory, … Continue reading
Politico: The swift action Twitter and Facebook took to stifle an unverified New York Post article and the crushing political pressure that forced them to reverse course illustrate a key reality: With just weeks until the U.S. election, tech giants have yet … Continue reading
WaPo: Elections officials in Maryland’s most populous jurisdiction held an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss a viral video alleging that an election worker attempted to tamper with a mailed-in ballot.A thorough investigation revealed no evidence of fraud or misconduct, Montgomery … Continue reading
WaPo: Authorities in Florida and Alaska on Tuesday were investigating threatening emails sent to Democratic voters that claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making … Continue reading
WSJ: Mr. Zuckerberg maintains an open line with Mr. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. The two sometimes discuss Facebook policies over WhatsApp. The CEO spoke this year with Mr. Kushner and separately with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump called Facebook and Twitter “terrible” and “a monster” and said he would go after them. Senators Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn said they would subpoena the chief executives of the companies for their actions. And on Fox … Continue reading
NBC News: The idea of a rigged election has already taken hold in Trump’s fervent online base, a horde of digital activists who dutifully share links from right-wing blogs and junk news sites and turn the president’s message into memes.Trump’s … Continue reading
Looking forward to reading this new Emily Bazelon in the NYT Magazine. … Continue reading
Washington Post: An account featuring the image of a Black police officer, President Trump and the words “VOTE REPUBLICAN” had a brief but spectacular run on Twitter. In six days after it became active last week, it tweeted just eight … Continue reading
Axios: Facebook users engage with content from untrustworthy outlets twice as often today as they did at the time of the 2016 U.S. election, researchers at the German Marshall Fund found, despite the many measures the platform and its competitors … Continue reading
WaPo: Facebook said Thursday it will permanently ban from its platform an Arizona-based marketing firm running what experts described as a domestic “troll farm” — in a probe of the deceptive behavior prompted by a Washington Post article last month.The firm, Rally … Continue reading
NYT: Over the past few weeks, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his lieutenants have watched the presidential race with an increasing sense of alarm.Executives have held meetings to discuss President Trump’s evasive comments about whether he would accept a peaceful … Continue reading
WSJ: On any given day over the past two years, visitors to the home page of RealClearPolitics were likely to see its famous average of political polls, a roundup of news and center-right commentary—and, near the bottom, a link or … Continue reading
AP: With just over a month to go before Americans head en masse to the polls in an extraordinarily contentious election, Facebook is expanding restrictions on political advertising, including new bans on messages claiming widespread voter fraud.New prohibitions laid out … Continue reading
Greg Sargent: The threat this time resides in a combustible combination of two factors. The first is what’s known as Facebook’s “Group recommendation engine,” which drives people to private Facebook groups. Experts have long warned that these private groups are … Continue reading
NPR reports. … Continue reading
Happy to participate in this roundtable (Disclosure: Knight is generously supporting my book leave): Midway through a year rocked by a pandemic, protests and politics, we asked leading researchers and policy thinkers: What new questions relating to technology’s impact on … Continue reading
CNN: Facebook (FB) has allowed political advertisers to target hundreds of misleading ads about Joe Biden and the US Postal Service to swing-state voters ranging from Florida to Wisconsin in recent weeks, in an apparent failure to enforce its own platform rules … Continue reading
CNN: Donald Trump Jr. is touting baseless election-rigging claims in videos posted to Facebook and Twitter asking “able-bodied” people to join an election security “army” for his father.Facebook and Twitter affixed labels to the video pointing to accurate information about voting, but neither company … Continue reading
WaPo: The Department of Justice asked Congress on Wednesday to adopt a new law that would hold Facebook, Google and Twitter legally accountable for the way they moderate content on the Web, as the Trump administration ratchets up its attacks … Continue reading
NYT: Facebook has detected limited Chinese operations intended to both help and hurt President Trump’s re-election chances, the company announced on Tuesday, the first public disclosure of Chinese efforts to influence the presidential election in November.The Chinese activity, while modest … Continue reading
Renee DiResta for The Atlantic: In the past, propaganda needed human hands to write it. Eager to create the illusion of popularity, authorities in China began hiring people in 2004 to flood online spaces with pro-government comments. By 2016, members … Continue reading
NYU: Transparency in political ads is vital to ensuring safe and fair elections, but transparency is difficult if advertisers are not required to disclose details about targeting and sources of funding. While TV broadcasters must disclose information about political ads … Continue reading
Washington Post: One tweet claimed coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated, adding, “It’s hard to know what to believe.” Another warned, “Don’t trust Dr. Fauci.”A Facebook comment argued that mail-in ballots “will lead to fraud for this election,” while an Instagram comment amplified the erroneous claim that … Continue reading
Tech Crunch: A privacy bug in Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s official campaign app allowed anyone to look up sensitive voter information on millions of Americans, a security researcher has found.The campaign app, Vote Joe, allows Biden supporters to encourage friends and family … Continue reading
Politico: George Soros directs a “deep state” global conspiracy network. A Joe Biden win would put America in control of “Jews and Blacks.” The Democratic nominee has a pedophilia problem.Wild disinformation like this is inundating Spanish-speaking residents of South Florida … Continue reading
So troubling: Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee and … Continue reading
A wow story in the New Yorker: On its face, Phunware seems like a strange choice to develop the campaign’s app. Before working for President Trump, Phunware’s software was being used in relatively few applications, the most popular being a … Continue reading
Eugene Volokh blogs. … Continue reading
WaPo: For President Trump and his allies, it was a week spent spreading doctored and misleading videos.On Aug. 30, the president retweeted footage of a Black man violently pushing a White woman on a subway platform under the caption, “Black Lives Matter/Antifa” — … Continue reading
WaPo: Russia is seeking “to undermine public trust in the electoral process” by spreading false claims that mail-in-ballots are riddled with fraud and susceptible to manipulation, according to a new intelligence bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security.Many of the … Continue reading
HuffPost:President Donald Trump’s campaign launched a series of Facebook ads on Thursday featuring a manipulated photo of his presidential opponent Joe Biden edited to make the former vice president appear older.The ads, which label Biden “Sleepy Joe,” show him gazing … Continue reading
CNN: In an attempt to combat efforts to undermine the US presidential election in November, Facebook on Thursday took several steps it says will address concerns about election interference on its platform.But Facebook will continue to allow politicians to run lies in ads through … Continue reading
ABC News: In early July the Department of Homeland Security withheld publication of an intelligence bulletin warning law enforcement agencies of a Russian scheme to promote “allegations about the poor mental health” of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to internal emails … Continue reading
New Brennan Center report. … Continue reading
NBC News: Peace Data aimed to court left-leaning voters, said Ben Nimmo, whose company, Graphika, released a report on the site.“This looks like an attempt to target left-wing audiences on a range of issues, but the operation got taken down … Continue reading
Cap Radio reports. … Continue reading
CNN: A series of deceptively edited and misleading videos shared by prominent Republicans have run up millions of views across Facebook and Twitter in just the past few days. And while both companies have pledged to combat misinformation, their responses … Continue reading
CNN: People associated with the infamous St. Petersburg troll group that was part of Russia’s attempt to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election are trying to target Americans again, Facebook (FB) announced Tuesday after receiving a tip from the FBI.The disrupted operation … Continue reading
Politico: Twitter said Monday it will begin displaying warning labels on shared posts that contain misleading or doctored videos after facing complaints that it failed to do enough to limit the spread of deceptive clips targeting Joe Biden’s campaign.Key context: The … Continue reading
As part of my own book project, I read the edited volume “Social Media and Democracy” the day it came out. This is a must-read for researchers who care about the extent to which social media has changed and may … Continue reading
WaPo: Google has declined to remove ads from a shadowy group echoing President Trump’s misleading claim that there is a meaningful difference between voting by mail and absentee voting.Google took five days to reach its decision to leave the ads in … Continue reading
Kevin Roose for the NYT: Listen, liberals. If you don’t think Donald Trump can get re-elected in November, you need to spend more time on Facebook.Since the 2016 election, I’ve been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on … Continue reading
NBC News: Twitter has taken action to stop a spam operation that pushed messages from fake accounts about Black people abandoning the Democratic Party.The company removed two fake accounts and deleted the account of a San Diego man who spammed … Continue reading
WaPo: Four years after Russian operatives used social media in a bid to exacerbate racial divisions in the United States and suppress Black voter turnout, such tactics have spread across a wide range of deceptive online campaigns operated from numerous nations — … Continue reading