Bookmarks (24) clear filters

Summary List PlacementFormer national security advisor Michael Flynn, who worked briefly under former President Donald Trump, said Monday that there was "NO reason" for a military coup in the United States — one day after he appeared to suggest the opposite at a QAnon-themed convention over the weekend. "Let me be VERY CLEAR – There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America,...

Summary List PlacementIf you haven't heard by now, Facebook's Oversight Board — an independent "Supreme Court" created by the company last year — decided to uphold former President Donald Trump's indefinite suspension for violating the platform's content policies. But they kicked it back to Facebook's executives to decide within six months whether to ban Trump permanently and create clearer rules around "indefinite" suspensions. The...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the nuances of counter-speech are what makes it difficult to moderate content online, in comments made during a misinformation hearing on Thursday.By relying on machines to moderate posts, nuance can get lost, a point he made when Democratic congresswoman Doris Matsui of California ...

In a recent Clubhouse discussion about COVID-19 vaccines, a woman digitally raised her hand, entered the conversation, and spoke at length about how the virus could be treated more effectively with herbal and natural remedies than with vaccines. She told dozens of listeners: "A pharmaceutical company is an industry,...

Summary List PlacementTwitter has introduced a series of features aimed to slow the spread of misinformation and disinformation on the platform.  In January 2021, the social media company launched its pilot Birdwatch feature, which lets users flag and fact-check tweets they believe include inaccurate or deceptive information, as well as add notes to tweets that need additional context.  The feature is only available to...

Summary List PlacementYouTube has removed a video of an Ohio committee hearing which it said contained COVID-19 misinformation. The video featured Thomas Renz, an attorney for Ohio Stands Up, a group that aims to challenge the State of Emergency originally implemented by state Governor Mike DeWine on March 9, 2020. In it, he set out a 35-minute legislative testimony during a hearing on a bill...

Summary List PlacementNikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, insisted that former President Donald Trump "genuinely" believes the 2020 presidential election was rigged and compared his refusal to accept his own loss to a physical disability.   "I understand the president. I understand that genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged. This is not him making it up," Haley told...

Summary List PlacementFacebook is gearing up to be a major player in the newsletter subscription service world, according to The New York Times. Three sources familiar with the company's move told The Times that the social media company planned to plunge into a burgeoning space currently dominated by platforms like Substack around the summer.  The Times reported that Facebook's initiative would work symbiotically with...

Summary List PlacementYouTube has temporarily blocked Rudy Giuliani from earning money on his videos after he repeatedly violated its policies against spreading election misinformation, the company said Tuesday. YouTube said it suspended Giuliani from its YouTube Partner Program, which gives the platform's more popular creators some of the revenue generated by ads on their videos, as well as more extensive resources and customer support....

Summary List PlacementFive top anti-vaccine advocacy organizations that have spread medical misinformation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic received funding from the Trump administration's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), The Washington Post reported Monday. The loans from the Small Business Administration totaled more than $850,000, according to the report. K. "Vish" Viswanath, a professor of health communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told...

Summary List PlacementAnthony Quinn Warner, who the FBI says was responsible for the suicide bombing that hit Nashville on Christmas Day, may have been motivated by 5G conspiracy theories to carry out the attack, as local NBC affiliate, WSMV, reported.  Although the federal investigation is ongoing, a source told the Daily Mail that investigators theorize Warner believed that 5G was responsible for his father's...

Summary List Placement Canada and the UK will work with Facebook, Google, and Twitter on ways to stop misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine from spreading online.  British fact checking charity Full Fact will coordinate the effort. Fact checking websites based in India, Argentina, and Spain will convene alongside the tech companies and federal representatives from the UK and Canada.  Facebook will fund the effort...

Summary List Placement Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company declined to ban Steve Bannon's account, after the former Trump advisor posted a video calling for the beheadings of federal officials, because Bannon had not violated enough policies, CNBC reported Thursday. "We have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely," Zuckerberg told...

Summary List Placement The FBI issued a warning last month for Americans to stay on the lookout for fake voting websites and emails that were set up by cybercriminals to spread misinformation and confuse people around the US presidential election. While the FBI didn't disclose specific fake websites, cybersecurity researchers have identified examples of the scam in action — and scam sightings have continued...

Summary List Placement Twitter has suspended multiple fake accounts that claimed to be Black supporters of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party for violating its policies against platform manipulation and spam, The Washington Post reported Tuesday and Business Insider confirmed. "Our teams are working diligently to investigate this activity and will take action in line with the Twitter Rules if Tweets are found...

Summary List Placement Engagement from misleading websites on Facebook has tripled since the 2016 US presidential election. The total number of user interactions with articles from "deceptive outlets" has increased by 242% between the third quarter of 2016 and the third quarter of 2020, according to a study published Monday by the German Marshall Fund Digital, the digital wing of the Washington, DC-based public...

Summary List Placement In the hours following President Donald Trump's announcement that he and the first lady had tested positive for coronavirus, confusion and misinformation emerged as the nation tuned in to updates on the president's condition. A history of inconsistencies and lack of transparency in the Trump administration's approach to the pandemic have heightened distrust in updates on the president's health which have...

Summary List PlacementLast week, Facebook announced a raft of new policies meant to spread awareness of climate change and fight misinformation that denies the existence of global warming. This week, several high-profile environmentalist groups said their Facebook pages were suspended without warning.  Climate activist groups including Greenpeace USA, Rainforest Action Network, and Climate Hawks Vote were locked out of their Facebook pages over the...