A midterms election study of political disinformation being fenced by Facebook’s platform supports the company’s assertion that a clutch of mostly right-leaning and politically fringe Pages it removed in October for sharing “inauthentic activity” were pulled for gaming its engagement metrics. Though it remains unclear why it took Facebook so long to act against such prolific […]
View More Study of political junk on Facebook raises fresh questions about its metricsCategory: Fake News
Facebook’s election interference problem exponentially worse on eve of midterms, study suggests
An analysis of political advertisers running extensive campaigns on Facebook targeting users in the United States over the past six months has flagged a raft of fresh concerns about its efforts to tackle election interference — suggesting the social network’s self regulation is offering little more than a sham veneer of accountability. Dig down and […]
View More Facebook’s election interference problem exponentially worse on eve of midterms, study suggestsTwitter removes thousands of accounts that tried to dissuade Democrats from voting
Twitter has deleted thousands of automated accounts posting messages that tried to discourage and dissuade voters from casting their ballot in the upcoming election next week. Some 10,000 accounts were removed across late September and early October after they were first flagged by staff at the Democratic Party, the company has confirmed. “We removed a […]
View More Twitter removes thousands of accounts that tried to dissuade Democrats from votingZuckerberg gets joint summons from UK and Canadian parliaments
Two separate parliamentary committees, in the UK and Canada, have issued an unprecedented international joint summons for Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear before them. The committees are investigating the impact of online disinformation on democratic processes and want Zuckerberg to answer questions related to the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook user data misuse scandal, which both have been […]
View More Zuckerberg gets joint summons from UK and Canadian parliamentsThe skills kids need to avoid getting fooled by fake news
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Welcome to Small Humans, an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’s 2018 and we have the entire internet to contend with.
One day your kids are learning to walk and the next they’re on their own sharing Russian propaganda on Youtube and Facebook.
You might think your great-uncle using an old desk top to “surf the internets” is the person at risk of accidentally spreading “fake news” on social networks, but kids these days aren’t always faring so much better.
A large-scale study by the Stanford Graduate School of Education found that young people at every stage from middle school to college were consistently unable to differentiate news from advertising, or false information from the truth, a state of affairs the researchers described as “bleak.” Read more…
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View More The skills kids need to avoid getting fooled by fake newsTwitter’s U.S. midterms hub is a hot mess
Today, Jack Dorsey tweeted a link to his company’s latest gesture toward ongoing political relevance, a U.S. midterms news center collecting “the latest news and top commentary” on the country’s extraordinarily consequential upcoming election. If curated and filtered properly, that could be useful! Imagine. Unfortunately, rife with fake news, the tool is just another of […]
View More Twitter’s U.S. midterms hub is a hot messTwitter suspends accounts linked to mail bomb suspect
At least two Twitter accounts linked to the man suspected of sending explosive devices to more than a dozen prominent Democrats were suspended on Friday afternoon. Facebook moved fairly quickly to suspend Sayoc’s account on the platform, though two Twitter accounts that appeared to belong to Sayoc remained online and accessible until around 2:30 p.m. […]
View More Twitter suspends accounts linked to mail bomb suspectIn its first cyberoperation against Russian trolls, U.S. takes a gentle approach
Russia has been blamed for shutting down power grids, hacking into critical systems, and more recently launching a massive misinformation campaign aimed at meddling with past and upcoming elections. Now, the U.S. is striking back ahead of the midterm elections in an unconventionally gentle way. U.S. Cyber Command, the military wing tasked with offensive cyberoperations, […]
View More In its first cyberoperation against Russian trolls, U.S. takes a gentle approachFake news ‘threat to democracy’ report gets back-burner response from UK gov’t
The UK government has rejected a parliamentary committee’s call for a levy on social media firms to fund digital literacy lessons to combat the impact of disinformation online. The recommendation of a levy on social media platforms was made by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee three months ago, in a preliminary report following […]
View More Fake news ‘threat to democracy’ report gets back-burner response from UK gov’tFacebook rolls out checks for UK political ads
Facebook has announced it rolled out a system of checks on political ads run on its platform in the UK which requires advertisers to verify their identity and location to try to make it harder for foreign actors to meddle in domestic elections and referenda. This follows similar rollouts of political ad transparency tools in […]
View More Facebook rolls out checks for UK political adsFacebook cracks down on voter suppression ahead of U.S. midterm elections
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Facebook is expanding its fight against fake news and tackling the most direct way it affects elections: voter suppression.
In a post titled “Expanding Our Policies on Voter Suppression,” Facebook’s public policy manager Jessica Leinwand explains how the social media platform is ramping up its battle against any content that is “designed to deter or prevent people from voting.”
While the company already had policies in place to combat voter suppression tactics from spreading on the site, this latest update extends Facebook’s rules to include spreading fake news about the methods in which users can vote. Read more…
More about Facebook, Election, Fake News, Tech, and Social Media Companies
View More Facebook cracks down on voter suppression ahead of U.S. midterm electionsAhead of midterm elections, Facebook expands ban on posts aimed at voter suppression
Facebook is expanding its ban on false and misleading posts that aim to deter citizens from voting in the upcoming midterm elections. The social media giant is adding two more categories of false information to its existing policy, which it introduced in 2016, in an effort to counter new types of abuse. Facebook already removes verifiably […]
View More Ahead of midterm elections, Facebook expands ban on posts aimed at voter suppression