A manager at Google allegedly cautioned a lower-level employee for questioning the company’s stance on “fake news,” telling him that the company had to stop fake news and “hate speech,” because “that’s how Trump won,” according to a post aired publicly by another Google employee on social media. Mike Wacker, a software engineer at Google, published on social media a redacted email he claims he received from a fellow employee in 2017, which alleged political bias at the company. According to Wacker’s post, his colleague at Google wrote:Also, I posted a comment on a meme regarding fake news on Search and someone reported it to [Human Resources]. I didn’t say I was in favor or against, just cautioned that we need to be car[e]ful. My manager brought it up in our 1:1 last week. Made me feel very uncomfortable for having an opposing view. He said we need to stop hate [speech] and fake news because that’s how Trump won the … [Read more...] about Google Manager Said Company Must Stop ‘Fake News’ Because ‘That’s How Trump Won’
Fake news meme
What a Kamala Harris Meme Can Teach Us About Fighting Fake News in 2020
Will fake news tarnish the 2020 election as much as it did in 2016? It’s tempting to think that we’ve started to solve the problem. After the 2016 election, the big social media platforms pledged to root out mis- and disinformation through self-regulation. Facebook is tripling the size of its safety and security teams to help protect election integrity. YouTube promised to reduce the spread of “borderline content.” Twitterpublished large data sets of potential foreign information operations for researchers to analyze. And Reddit increased the scope of itsquarantine and ban policies for content such as Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories and misogyny. But if you look at how fake news really works—how ideas and memes take root and spread across the digital universe—it’s becoming clear that these measures won’t be enough. Story Continued Below As the 2020 campaign gets underway, manipulated, disruptive and misleading content has already … [Read more...] about What a Kamala Harris Meme Can Teach Us About Fighting Fake News in 2020
The good news about elderly people sharing so much fake news
Who shares fake news? Until today, conventional wisdom held that posting misinformation to Facebook and other platforms was largely a byproduct of ideology. The more conservative you were in 2016, the argument goes, the more likely you were to share hoaxes. But a fascinating new paper published today in the journal Science Advances suggests that something else is afoot. I wrote about it today at The Verge: 11 percent of users older than 65 shared a hoax, while just 3 percent of users 18 to 29 did. Facebook users ages 65 and older shared more than twice as many fake news articles than the next-oldest age group of 45 to 65, and nearly seven times as many fake news articles as the youngest age group (18 to 29). “When we bring up the age finding, a lot of people say, ‘oh yeah, that’s obvious,’” co-author Andrew Guess, a political scientist at Princeton University, told The Verge. “For me, what is pretty striking is that the relationship holds even when … [Read more...] about The good news about elderly people sharing so much fake news
Facebook, Twitter fight against the surge of fake news during 2018 US midterm election
Two big names of the social media world, Facebook and Twitter, were busy in a battle against misinformation and fake news on their platforms during the mid-term US election on Tuesday, November 6. USA Today reported on Tuesday that Mark Zuckerberg's company, which faced serious issues this year, has removed "misinformation, such as posts and memes, urging Republicans and Democrats to vote on the wrong day and claims that federal immigration agents would be patrolling polling places". CNET reported that Facebook took actions against misleading and inaccurate posts that showed different voting days and told the Democrats and Republicans to vote on those dates. As per a Facebook spokesperson, "The team is closely monitoring the election from our war room and are in regular contact with our partners in government. So far we haven't seen anything unexpected. We will continue to monitor activity closely and act quickly against content that violates our policy." Reports also stated that the … [Read more...] about Facebook, Twitter fight against the surge of fake news during 2018 US midterm election
Russia has given up on outright fake news for meddling in midterms, experts say — but is using more subtle techniques instead
caption Early voters cast their ballots in Atlanta, Georgia in the 2018 midterm elections in October. source Jessica McGowan/Getty Images Russia is stepping away from using fake news and has adopted different tactics to bait and divide Americans and influence elections, experts say. The apparent playbook for interfering in the midterm elections is harder for people and social media companies to detect, experts told Reuters. New tricks include boosting existing partisan memes from both political extremes, and promoting divisive posts online which originate from Americans. Experts say that this strategy relies less on pure fiction, and makes it much more difficult to detect. Russians believed to be connected to the government are still interfering in the US midterm elections, experts say – but have moved on crude tactics like fake news to new, more subtle efforts to bait and divide Americans. Government investigators, academics and … [Read more...] about Russia has given up on outright fake news for meddling in midterms, experts say — but is using more subtle techniques instead