When we met in early March, Jonathan Albright was still shrugging off a sleepless weekend. It was a few weeks after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had killed 17 people, most of them teenagers, and promptly turned the internet into a cesspool of finger pointing and conspiracy slinging. Within days, ultraconservative YouTube stars like Alex Jones had rallied their supporters behind the bogus claim that the students who survived and took to the press to call for gun control were merely actors. Within a week, one of these videos had topped YouTube’s Trending section. Albright, the research director for Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, probes the way information moves through the web. He was amazed by the speed with which the conspiracies had advanced from tiny corners of the web to YouTube’s front page. How could this happen so quickly? he wondered. So that weekend, sitting alone in his studio apartment at the northern tip of … [Read more...] about Shadow Politics: Meet the Digital Sleuth Exposing Fake News
Fake news meme
San Antonio native recognized her own son’s photo in Roseanne fake news story
S. M. Chavey, San Antonio Express-News Updated 1:39 pm, Friday, June 8, 2018 window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-c', container: 'taboola-interstitial-gallery-thumbnails-5', placement: 'Interstitial Gallery Thumbnails 5', target_type: 'mix' }); _taboola.push({flush: true}); window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-c', container: 'taboola-interstitial-gallery-thumbnails-10', placement: 'Interstitial Gallery Thumbnails 10', target_type: 'mix' }); _taboola.push({flush: true}); window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-c', container: 'taboola-interstitial-gallery-thumbnails-15', placement: 'Interstitial Gallery Thumbnails 15', target_type: 'mix' }); _taboola.push({flush: true}); window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-c', container: 'taboola-interstitial-gallery-thumbnails-20', placement: 'Interstitial Gallery … [Read more...] about San Antonio native recognized her own son’s photo in Roseanne fake news story
Inside the government agency designing tech to fight fake news
Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. SUBSCRIBE In the world of internet memes, Instagram filters, and Photoshop, seeing is no longer believing. Everyone is a photographer or videographer once they have a smartphone in their hands, which often comes equipped with alteration tools already installed. But manipulations that started with cropping and teeth-whitening have spurred into the spread of misinformation. Take this photo of Parkland shooting survivor, Emma Gonzalez, seemingly ripping up the U.S. Constitution. The image went viral following last month's March For Our Lives, where Gonzalez attracted widespread media attention after addressing hundreds of thousands of supporters of gun control. The photo sparked outrage on social media, criticizing Gonzalez's motives and her patriotism. But the image had been doctored. In the original photo, Gonzalez was tearing up a shooting range target, and was part of a Teen … [Read more...] about Inside the government agency designing tech to fight fake news
Facebook’s problem with fake news: It’s the memes, stupid
Mark Zuckerberg just spent two days in marathon question-and-answer sessions on Capitol Hill in Washington, tackling complex topics like privacy, data protection and election security. Facebook's CEO vowed to protect election integrity, use artificial intelligence to fight off fake news and hoaxes, and hire 10,000 more content moderators to handle the flood of disinformation. "The most important thing that I care about right now is making sure that no one interferes in the various 2018 elections around the world," Zuckerberg said during a hearing before the Senate on Tuesday. In that session and Wednesday's appearance before members of the House of Representatives, Zuckerberg answered a combined total of roughly 600 questions during nearly 10 hours of testimony. Yet he never mentioned memes.The omission is glaring because memes, which are often associated with jokes -- like the American Chopper guys yelling or a distracted boyfriend -- are also a significant driver of misinformation … [Read more...] about Facebook’s problem with fake news: It’s the memes, stupid
Why AI isn’t going to solve Facebook’s fake news problem
Facebook has a lot of problems right now, but one that’s definitely not going away any time soon is fake news. As the company’s user base has grown to include more than a quarter of the world’s population, it has (understandably) struggled to control what they all post and share. For Facebook, unwanted content can be anything from mild nudity to serious violence, but what’s proved to be most sensitive and damaging for the company is hoaxes and misinformation — especially when it has a political bent. So what is Facebook going to do about it? At the moment, the company doesn’t seem to have a clear strategy. Instead, it’s throwing a lot at the wall and seeing what works. It’s hired more human moderators (as of February this year it had around 7,500); it’s giving users more information in-site about news sources; and in a recent interview, Mark Zuckerberg suggested that the company might set up some sort of independent body to rule on … [Read more...] about Why AI isn’t going to solve Facebook’s fake news problem