WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Category Archives: social media and social protests
VICE: Two artists and an advertising company created a deepfake of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg saying things he never said, and uploaded it to Instagram.The video, created by artists Bill Posters and Daniel Howe in partnership with advertising company Canny, … Continue reading
Politico: Russia’s infamous troll farm conducted a campaign on Twitter before the 2016 elections that was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known, research from cybersecurity firm Symantec out Wednesday concluded.The Internet Research Agency campaign may not only have had … Continue reading
The Guardian: Facebook says it will continue to host a video of Nancy Pelosi that has been edited to give the impression that the Democratic House Speaker is drunk or unwell, in the latest incident highlighting its struggle to deal with disinformation.The … Continue reading
WaPo: Distorted videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), altered to make her sound as if she’s drunkenly slurring her words, are spreading rapidly across social media, highlighting how political disinformation that clouds public understanding can now spread at the … Continue reading
WaPo: Google, Facebook and Twitter executives came to Capitol Hill to testify about election security. Instead they faced a grilling about whether their platforms are biased against conservatives.A string of Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee skipped questions about how … Continue reading
WSJ: Facebook said it stopped paying commissions to employees who sell political ads, as the tech giant overhauls how it engages with campaigns ahead of elections in 2020.Once seen as a growth area, political ads are now viewed within Facebook as … Continue reading
This is very good news. You can find the advisory opinion here. It is unanimous, except the Republican commissioners would not have imposed the disclosure requirements or source limitations. From Chair Weintraub’s letter: Under the unusual and exigent circumstances presented … Continue reading
Jim Rutenberg NYT column: The rules now in place just don’t match up with how certain groups influence voters via the internet. Thanks to savvy lobbying by tech companies, online election campaign speech remains almost entirely unregulated.The platforms won exemptions from many … Continue reading
The New Yorker reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: While much attention has focused on the question of whether the Trump campaign encouraged or conspired with Russia, the effort to target Sanders supporters has been a lesser-noted part of the story. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, in … Continue reading
NYT’s The Upshot. … Continue reading
NYT column. … Continue reading
This post appears at the Free Internet Project. Don’t miss the Ginni Thomas cameo. … Continue reading
WaPo: The U.S. military blocked Internet access to an infamous Russian entity seeking to sow discord among Americans during the 2018 midterms, several U.S. officials said, a warning that the Kremlin’s operations against the United States are not cost-free.The strike … Continue reading
Amy Chozick for the NYT. … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Lori Ringhand: A report issued by a British Parliamentary committee generated headlines this week for its scathing takedown of Facebook’s data management practices. The report, however, also made detailed suggestions about how to … Continue reading
Somehow missed this NYT story yesterday: As Russia’s online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar … Continue reading
Daniel Gallant WSJ oped. … Continue reading
I am heartbroken for the victims of today’s domestic terrorist attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh which has left 11 people dead. These people were praying and celebrating a recent birth with a bris. The killer apparently … Continue reading
CNET: On Oct. 7, during the first round of Brazil’s presidential election, Facebookemployees noticed something suspicious on the social network. A story posted to Facebook incorrectly claimed the election was delayed because of protests. The company’s data scientists and operations team … Continue reading
Sheera Frenkel for the NYT: What Right Wing News did was part of a shift in the flow of online disinformation, falsehoods meant to mislead and inflame. In 2016, before the presidential election, state-backed Russian operatives exploited Facebook and Twitter … Continue reading
Release: Today, Facebook is announcing a new initiative to help provide independent, credible research about the role of social media in elections, as well as democracy more generally. It will be funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Democracy … Continue reading
Fascinating NYT report. … Continue reading
Lili Levi has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, First Amendment Law Review). Here is the abstract: “Fake news” has become the central inflammatory charge in media discourse in the United States since the 2016 presidential contest. In the political realm, … Continue reading
Ken Doyle for Bloomberg BNA: Political ads on Facebook would have to carry disclaimers stating who paid for each ad, under a new draft advisory opinion set to be considered by the Federal Election Commission. Disclaimer requirements for online political ads have … Continue reading
Tony Gaughan has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal). Here is the abstract: Since the 1970s, federal campaign finance law has been built on four pillars. The first is contribution limits on donations to candidate … Continue reading
CNN: A Twitter account misleading Democratic voters in Virginia by telling them they could cast their ballot by text message was active for almost three hours on Tuesday morning before Twitter suspended the account. The account, “MAGA Mike King,” was … Continue reading
CBC News reports. … Continue reading
Politico: Top lawyers from Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday that Russian-linked posts and advertisements placed on the social networks after Election Day sought to sow doubt about President Donald Trump’s victory. Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a Senate Judiciary … Continue reading
CNN: Facebook will inform lawmakers this week that roughly 126 million Americans may have been exposed to content generated on its platform by the Russian government-linked troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency between June 2015 and August 2017, … Continue reading
NYT: Twitter said on Tuesday that it would bring more transparency to advertisements on its site, including political ads, in the latest response by a technology company to criticism about its role in spreading foreign propaganda during the 2016 presidential … Continue reading
Texas Public Radio: The fantasy of Texas national independence has been stoked for decades but in recent years it has found an ally with Russia. An investigation into a popular pro-Texas secession Facebook page found that it was run by Russians. … Continue reading
Brendan Nyhan and Yusaku Horiuchi for the Monkey Cage: One promising approach is summary fact-checking — an increasingly popular format that presents an overview of fact-checking ratings for a politician. This is distinct from focusing on whether a single statement is true or false; rather, … Continue reading
Brendan Nyhan for NYT’s The UpShot: Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook has taken a number of actions to prevent the continued distribution of false news articles on its platform, most notably by labeling articles rated as false or misleading … Continue reading
NYT: Senator John McCain and two Democratic senators moved on Thursday to force Facebook, Google and other internet companies to disclose who is purchasing online political advertising, after revelations that Russian-linked operatives bought deceptive ads in the run-up to the … Continue reading
Sobering stuff. … Continue reading
Chapinblog. … Continue reading
Daily Beast: The co-authors of McCain-Feingold’s House companion bill, Reps. Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Marty Meehan (D-MA), were not pleased. They sued the FEC in part due to that omission, and successfully invalidated 15 FEC regulations. In response, the commission … Continue reading
Weigel: Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Senate in Alabama, gained then lost thousands of apparently fake Twitter followers in the space of a few hours — a situation that his campaign blamed on Democrats. “We highly doubt that reporters … Continue reading
WaPo: Democratic lawmakers are pushing for new legislation that would require greater disclosure of political ads that run on Internet platforms, despite a pledge by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg that the company will voluntarily pull back the curtain on political advertising … Continue reading
Daily Beast: Suspected Russia propagandists on Facebook tried to organize more than a dozen pro-Trump rallies in Florida during last year’s election, The Daily Beast has learned. The demonstrations—at least one of which was promoted online by local pro-Trump activists— brought dozens … Continue reading
New syndicated George Will column: Volokh anticipated today’s a la carte world of instant, inexpensive electronic distributions of only such content as pleases particular individuals. In 1995, he said that “letting a user configure his own mix of materials” can … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: The personal Facebook page of Vice President Mike Pence is also running a version of the ad. One difference between the Pence and Trump ads is the VP’s refers to “Fake News media,” while Trump’s calls out the “mainstream … Continue reading
Chris Elmendorf and Abby Wood have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: It is common to think of political elites—candidates, legislators, party officials, and campaign advisers—as specialists in learning the preferences of voters. But recent studies find … Continue reading
Reuters reports. … Continue reading
CNN: How extensive was Russia’s use of Facebook to meddle with the presidential election? Even Facebook doesn’t know. One week after it told the country that it had sold $100,000 worth of ads to a Russian troll farm during the … Continue reading
Today’s must-read from Ben Smith. … Continue reading
I have written this oped for Sunday’s Los Angeles Times Opinion section. It begins: The Internet and social media did not create white supremacist movements in the United States, such as the hate groups that rallied in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend … Continue reading
Pacific Standard interviewed me about my new “cheap speech” paper. … Continue reading