An exodus of young people from Facebook has seen fake news spread to Generation Z through memes on Instagram, a leading journalism academic has said.Nic Newman, a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and former world editor of the BBC News website, said many young people had switched from Facebook.Fake news is now spreading to young people through “memes and visual storytelling” on Instagram, he told a conference on Tuesday.Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is mainly used for sharing photos and has not traditionally been a major source of news for social media users.But genuine news and fake news are making their way on to the platform, Mr Newman said. The Reuters Institute’s annual Digital News Report assesses the state of online news access across the world.This year’s findings will show a continuing trend in the popularity of Instagram.“Facebook themselves have been showing people less news, and less … [Read more...] about Fake news ‘spreading to young people through Instagram memes’
Fake news meme generator
AI researchers debate the ethics of sharing potentially harmful programs
A recent decision by research lab OpenAI to limit the release of a new algorithm has caused controversy in the AI community. The nonprofit said it decided not to share the full version of the program, a text-generation algorithm named GPT-2, due to concerns over “malicious applications.” But many AI researchers have criticized the decision, accusing the lab of exaggerating the danger posed by the work and inadvertently stoking “mass hysteria” about AI in the process. The debate has been wide-ranging and sometimes contentious. It even turned into a bit of a meme among AI researchers, who joked that they’ve had an amazing breakthrough in the lab, but the results were too dangerous to share at the moment. More importantly, it’s highlighted a number of challenges for the community as a whole, including the difficulty of communicating new technologies with the press, and the problem of balancing openness with responsible disclosure. The program at the … [Read more...] about AI researchers debate the ethics of sharing potentially harmful programs
‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates
A wide-ranging disinformation campaign aimed at Democratic 2020 candidates is already under way on social media, with signs that foreign state actors are driving at least some of the activity. The main targets appear to be Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), four of the most prominent announced or prospective candidates for president.Story Continued Below A POLITICO review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms, as well as interviews with data scientists and digital campaign strategists, suggests that the goal of the coordinated barrage appears to be undermining the nascent candidacies through the dissemination of memes, hashtags, misinformation, and distortions of their positions. But the divisive nature of many of the posts also hint at a broader effort to sow discord and chaos within the Democratic presidential primary. The cyber propaganda — which … [Read more...] about ‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates
The ‘Complete’ Cancer Cure Story Is Both Bogus and Tragic
Is there any more tantalizing headline than “Scientists discover a cure for cancer”? Some version of this fantastical claim has been dropped into the news cycle with the regularity of a super blood wolf moon for the better part of a century. In 1998, James Watson told the New York Times a cancer cure would arrive by Y2K. This magazine hasn’t been immune either, running an “End of Cancer” headline a few years later. Each instance stirs up hope for patients and their families desperate to find a solution, no matter the risk or cost. And yet, here we are in 2019, with that constellation of complex, diverse diseases we lump together and call “cancer” for convenience's sake still killing one in eight men and one in 11 women, according to the World Health Organization’s latest stats. You’d think creators and consumers of news would have learned their lesson by now. But the latest version of the fake cancer cure story is even more … [Read more...] about The ‘Complete’ Cancer Cure Story Is Both Bogus and Tragic
Teens deserve more than $20 for giving all their phone data to Facebook
One popular criticism of Facebook and other tech platforms is that they never compensate users for their time, their data, or their contributions. Facebook is one of the richest companies in the world because of the data we hand over to it for free, the argument goes. Why doesn’t it pay up? Today we learned that Facebook has heard these criticisms — and if you’re aged 13 to 35, it would like to give you a $20 gift card. In exchange, all you have to give up is total access to all data on your phone, and also maybe screenshot your Amazon purchases and fork that over too. Josh Constine has the scoop in TechCrunch: Since 2016, Facebook has been paying users ages 13 to 35 up to $20 per month plus referral fees to sell their privacy by installing the iOS or Android “Facebook Research” app. Facebook even asked users to screenshot their Amazon order history page. The program is administered through beta testing services Applause, BetaBound and uTest to cloak … [Read more...] about Teens deserve more than $20 for giving all their phone data to Facebook