Category Archives: social media and social protests
“Vote-by-mail debate raises fears of election disinformation”
AP:
A bitterly partisan debate unfolding on whether more Americans should cast their votes through the mail during a pandemic is provoking online disinformation and conspiracy theories that could undermine trust in the results, even if there are no… Continue reading
“Protecting Elections from Disinformation: A Multifaceted Public-Private Approach to Social Media and Democratic Speech”
Yasmin Dawood has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Ohio State Technology Law Journal). Here is the abstract:
This Article argues for a multifaceted public-private approach to the challenge of protecting the electoral process from the harms of disinformation. Such… Continue reading
“Want to Find a Misinformed Public? Facebook’s Already Done It; While vowing to police COVID-19 misinformation on its platform, Facebook let advertisers target users interested in ‘pseudoscience'”
The Markup:
Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a post pledging to combat misinformation about COVID-19 circulating on Facebook.“We’ve taken down hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation related to COVID-19, including theories like drinking bleach cures the… Continue reading
“The anti-quarantine protests seem spontaneous. But behind the scenes, a powerful network is helping.”
WaPo:
The ads on Facebook sounded populist and passionate: “The people are rising up against these insane shutdowns,” they said. “We’re fighting back to demand that our elected officials reopen America.”But the posts, funded by an initiative called “Convention… Continue reading
“The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti-Lockdown Protests”
NYT:
An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop… Continue reading
Spencer Overton: “State Power to Regulate Social Media Companies to Prevent Voter Suppression”
Spencer Overton has written this article for the UC Davis Law Review. Here is the abstract:
Fake social media accounts and ads did not merely polarize the American electorate in 2016 — these tactics also targeted and suppressed Black votes.… Continue reading
“Zuckerberg says stay-at-home protests organized through Facebook qualify as ‘harmful misinformation'”
The Hill:
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that protests against stay-at-home orders organized through his social media site qualify as “harmful misinformation” and are taken down.“How do you deal with the fact that Facebook is… Continue reading
“China’s Been Flooding Facebook With Shady Ads Blaming Trump for the Coronavirus Crisis”
Vice:
Chinese state media has been flooding Facebook and Instagram with shady political ads praising Beijing and bashing “racist” President Trump as part of a wider campaign to rewrite its part in the global coronavirus pandemic.The undisclosed political ads, from… Continue reading
“How Russia’s Troll Farm Is Changing Tactics Before the Fall Election”
“What Happens When QAnon Seeps From the Web to the Offline World”
NYT:
What began online more than two years ago as an intricate, if baseless, conspiracy theory that quickly attracted thousands of followers has since found footholds in the offline world. QAnon has surfaced in political campaigns, criminal cases, merchandising… Continue reading
“Facebook Bans Deepfakes but Permits Some Altered Content”
In the WSJ:
Facebook said it would remove or label misleading videos that had been edited or manipulated in ways that would not be apparent to the average person. That would include removing videos in which artificial intelligence tools… Continue reading
Facebook exec’s internal memo on 2016 election
The NYT has published
an internal memo written by the Facebook exec overseeing advertising during
2016. The memo touches on Russian ad
spending, misinformation, Cambridge Analytica, and more.
I have yet to see a headline on stories reporting the memo… Continue reading
“Census 2020 Tests Social-Media Giants’ Ability to Combat Disinformation”
The Wall St. Journal highlights the social media fight against disinformation ahead of the 2020 census.