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News on Targeted Disinformation
The girl with the loudspeaker doesn’t look much older than 15. “I’ve spoken at these demonstrations [before],” she says, before launching into a tirade against the German government’s lockdown restrictions and vaccination programme. “They say, ‘We have to lock them up! Have them vaccinated! Only then will they be allowed out again!’” she bellows, adding […]
By BBC TrendingIn September 2020, Facebook (which owns Instagram) committed to “tackling climate misinformation” and announced it would apply warning labels to both Facebook and Instagram posts containing climate change misinformation. Despite Facebook’s announcement, a First Draft analysis identified thousands of Instagram posts associated with the hashtags #climatehoax, #globalwarminghoax, #globalwarmingisahoax, #carbonkleptomania, #globalcooling, #climatechangehoax, #globalwarmingisfake, #noclimateemergency and #climatescam […]
By Rory SmithBy now, those of us working in news media know what online violence looks like. It manifests as sexist abuse, threats to life and limb, doxing and trolling. Recent well publicized incidents include attacks against New York Times media reporter Taylor Lorenz, who was targeted after being singled out by Fox’s Tucker Carlson; Brazilian journalist […]
By Elisa Lees MunozTwitch is finally coming to terms with its responsibility as a king-making microcelebrity machine, not just a service or a platform. Today, the Amazon-owned company announced a formal and public policy for investigating streamers’ serious indiscretions in real life, or on services like Discord or Twitter. Last June, dozens of women came forward with allegations […]
By Cecilia D'AnastasioAs Mississippi’s rollout of COVID-19 vaccines began to ramp up in early 2021, a troubling truth was revealed about the shots being put into people’s arms across the state: Black Mississippians weren’t getting their fair share. Two months after the first doses were administered in the state, Black Mississippians had received just 19% of the […]
By Will StriblingThis six-episode podcast series explores the interplay between freedom of expression, hate speech and artificial intelligence (AI). While covering these topics broadly, this series also take a deeper look discussing new field developments such as the #SAIFE project, Jillian York’s latest book “Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism,” Sahana Udupa’s AI4Dignity […]
By Katie PentneyIn the early days of the pandemic, a Facebook page for Earthley promised an easy way to avoid getting COVID-19. The wellness company promoted a vitamin D cream and an elderberry elixir to strengthen the body’s immune response and “help fight off the possibility of you or your family getting the coronavirus.” The post appeared […]
By Daniel FunkeThe news: Ahead of a landmark vote that could lead to the formation of the first-ever labor union at a US-based Amazon warehouse, new Twitter accounts purporting to be Amazon employees started appearing. The profiles used deepfake photos as profile pictures and were tweeting some pretty laughable, over-the-top defenses of Amazon’s working practices. They didn’t seem […]
By Karen HaoWhen China-linked networks of social media bots and trolls appeared on the global disinformation scene in 2019, most analysts concluded that their impact and reach were fairly limited, particularly in terms of engagement by real users and relative to more sophisticated actors in this realm, like the Russian regime. As many China watchers anticipated, that […]
By Sarah CookFor months, journalists, politicians and health officials – from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to Dr. Anthony Fauci – have invoked the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study to explain why Black Americans are more hesitant than white Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine. “It’s ‘Oh, Tuskegee, Tuskegee, Tuskegee,’ and it’s mentioned every single time,” says Karen […]
By KQEDWhen COVID-19 vaccines began arriving in Memphis, Tenn., late last year, some Black residents had questions. Did the vaccines cause infertility? Did they alter a person’s DNA? They don’t. And local community leaders worked hard to counter these and other vaccine myths as they came up in public forums around town or appeared online. Even […]
By Jon Hamilton