Category: disinformation

Facebook takes down false claims of extremists starting Oregon wildfires

[ad_1] As with the company’s response to a Wisconsin militia group in light of a deadly shooting, though, there are concerns Facebook didn’t move quickly enough. Law enforcement warned about wildfire misinformation roughly two days before the crackdown, on September 10th, around the same time when a key Law Enforcement Today article spurred the false […]

Facebook blocks Brazil president’s allies after court order

[ad_1] Facebook has been eager to fight misinformation on its platform, but it’s concerned Brazil might have taken things a step too far. BBC News reports that Facebook has blocked the accounts of a dozen allies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro after the country’s Supreme Court ordered them blocked worldwide in May. The group, which […]

TikTok blocks QAnon hashtags amid larger crackdown

[ad_1] The company isn’t removing the videos using the hashtags, however. Followers will still see the affected clips in their feeds, and they could theoretically appear in the For You feed of suggested videos. We’ve asked TikTok if it can comment further on its decision. The approach isn’t as strict as with rivals that completely […]

Lawmakers request monthly COVID-19 misinformation reports from online platforms

[ad_1] “Over the past several months, we have seen a troubling rise of false or misleading information related to COVID-19 disseminated by domestic and foreign actors on platforms such as yours. This disinformation has ranged from false statements about certain groups being immune from contracting the virus to unsubstantiated assertions about masks and vaccines. This […]

Twitter test asks you to open an article before you share it

[ad_1] Twitter is about to deal with one of the greatest threats to meaningful discussions on the internet: people who forward articles they haven’t even read. It’s starting an Android test that asks you if you’d like to open an article you’re about to retweet. This should help foster “informed discussion,” the company said. The […]

Facebook will verify identities for suspiciously popular accounts

[ad_1] Facebook has been verifying the identities of Page managers for a while in its quest to stamp out misinformation, but now it’s shifting that attention to individual accounts. The social network will now verify the identities of people behind profiles that both have a “pattern of inauthentic behavior” and whose posts “rapidly go viral” […]

Twitter clamps down on coronavirus hoaxes and fake ‘experts’

[ad_1] Content that increases the chance that someone contracts or transmits the virus, including:– Denial of expert guidance– Encouragement to use fake or ineffective treatments, preventions, and diagnostic techniques– Misleading content purporting to be from experts or authorities — Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) March 18, 2020 Together, the new rules cover a wide variety of hoaxes […]

Twitter tests labeling and correcting misleading tweets from politicians

[ad_1] Twitter emphasized to NBC News the feature is “one possible iteration” of a new anti-misinformation policy the company plans to implement on March 5th, the same day its recently announced ban on deepfakes goes into effect. “We’re exploring a number of ways to address misinformation and provide more context for tweets on Twitter,” a […]

Reddit bans 61 accounts linked to ‘suspected campaign from Russia’

[ad_1] Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn presented leaked documents to back claims that the British government put its NHS on the table as part of trade talks with the US. Earlier this week, network analysis firm Graphika Labs linked the leak of the documents and the posts on Reddit from a month before to techniques […]

US sanctions two Russians for meddling in 2018 midterm elections

[ad_1] Thanks to the Mueller Report, we know that the IRA exposed 126 million Americans on Facebook to Russian-backed propaganda during the 2016 US presidential election. The group attempted to use disinformation to sway the 2018 midterm elections, too. US Cyber Command took the IRA offline on the day of the elections, and the Department […]