LAT: Election officials and social media firms already flummoxed by hackers, trolls and bots are bracing for a potentially more potent weapon of disinformation as the 2020 election approaches — doctored videos, known as “deep fakes,” that can be nearly impossible to … Continue reading
Category Archives: social media and social protests
Brendan Nyhan for NYT’s The Upshot: The nature of the news misinformation problem may be changing. As consumers become more skeptical about the national news they encounter online, impostor local sites that promote ideological agendas are becoming more common. These … Continue reading
NYT oped: If Facebook’s leaders were willing to level with us, they would stop defending themselves by appealing to lofty values like free speech. They would focus instead on more practical realities: Facebook is incapable of vetting political ads effectively … Continue reading
NYT: Twitter said on Wednesday that it would ban all political ads, putting a spotlight on the power and veracity of online advertising and ramping up pressure on Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, to reverse his hands-off stance.Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief … Continue reading
NYT: The letter was aimed at Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his top lieutenants. It decried the social network’s recent decision to let politicians post any claims they wanted — even false ones — in ads on the site. It asked … Continue reading
WaPo: Thousands of Facebook users in Arizona may have been startled to see a strange warning appear in their social feeds earlier this month.“Official records show that your voter registration is incomplete,” began the post. “Follow the link below to … Continue reading
CNN: A left-leaning PAC ran a Facebook ad falsely claiming that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham endorsed the Green New Deal. The ad came after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week about the company’s policy of allowing politicians … Continue reading
Sarah Haan in Slate: In his speech on “free expression” Thursday at Georgetown University, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, made an important assertion: Facebook has found that its “best” speech-regulating strategy is “focusing on the authenticity of the speaker rather than … Continue reading
AP: Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election has generally been seen as two separate, unrelated tracks: hacking Democratic emails and sending provocative tweets. But a new study suggests the tactics were likely intertwined.On the eve of the release of … Continue reading
WaPo: As Trump and his allies have aimed increasingly caustic language at Schiff in recent days, the attacks have been echoed by supporters on social media who often take the message a step further — invoking physical violence against one … Continue reading
The report is here. In light of the Ukraine news, this first recommendation for the Executive Branch is notable: … Continue reading
Judd Legum: The “I Love America” Facebook page boasts 1.1 million fans, with viral content that reaches more Facebook users than some of the largest media outlets in the United States. A typical post is a celebration of the U.S. … Continue reading
WSJ: U.S. national-security officials traveled to Silicon Valley last week to forge deeper ties with big tech companies in hopes of better protecting the 2020 election from foreign intervention. It didn’t go entirely as planned.At the meeting organized by Facebook Inc. at its … Continue reading
WaPo: Federal law enforcement officials huddled with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter on Wednesday to discuss election security ahead of the 2020 presidential race, according to several U.S. and industry sources, amid heightened concerns that social-media sites are still vulnerable … Continue reading
WaPo: Russia’s Twitter campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election in Maryland began in June 2015, 17 months before Election Day, when the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency opened an account it called @BaltimoreOnline and began tweeting about local news … Continue reading
Reuters: A group of philanthropies working with Facebook Inc (FB.O) to study the social network’s impact on democracy threatened on Tuesday to quit, saying the company had failed to make data available to researchers as pledged.The funders said in a … Continue reading
NYT: A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists.It is the latest … Continue reading
NYT: Each day, in an office outside Phoenix, a team of young writers and editors curates reality.In the America presented on their news and opinion website, WesternJournal.com, tradition-minded patriots face ceaseless assault by anti-Christian bigots, diseased migrants and race hustlers concocting hate crimes. Danger and … Continue reading
Axios: For years, Facebook and other social media companies have erred on the side of lenience in policing their sites — allowing most posts with false information to stay up, as long as they came from a genuine human and … Continue reading
NYT: hina has aggressively stirred up anti-Western and nationalist sentiment using state and social media as part of an information war in the Hong Kong protests.On Monday, Facebook and Twitter said they had found evidence of just how active China has been … Continue reading
A hole in Arizona campaign disclosure laws. … Continue reading
Cass Sunstein has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: What is the constitutional status of falsehoods? From the standpoint of the First Amendment, does truth or falsity matter? These questions have become especially pressing with the increasing … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump’s re-election campaign has harnessed Facebook advertising to push the idea of an “invasion” at the southern border, amplifying the fear-inducing language about immigrants that he has also voiced at campaign rallies and on Twitter.Since January, Mr. Trump’s … Continue reading
Axios reports. … Continue reading
This new draft has a much more extensive discussion of First Amendment issues related to the regulation of deep fakes: Deep Fakes, Bots, and Siloed Justices: American Election Law in a Post-Truth World This Essay forms the basis for the … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN. I will be delivering a version of this paper as the 2019 Richard J. Childress Memorial Lecture at St. Louis University on October 11. There will be a great line up of commentators … Continue reading
The SacBee reports. … Continue reading
NYT: From top to bottom, the website, JoeBiden.info, breezily mocks the candidate in terms that would warm the heart of any Bernie Sanders supporter: There are GIFs of Mr. Biden touching women and girls, and blurbs about his less-than-liberal policy … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
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