Collaborate Disseminate
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a virtual hearing on the topic of Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories with an august panel of specialists well-steeped in how disinformation and misinformation are created, amplified and con… Continue reading HPSCI Takes Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories Hearing Online
Disinformation works on you, too. Coordinated social media campaigns aimed at influencing public opinion, both in the U.S. and abroad, represent such a threat to democratic discourse because propagandists seize on emotional conversations with little accountability. By using Facebook and Twitter to plant misinformation, attackers implicitly nudge readers into the kind of tunnel vision that accelerates a cycle of mistrust, according to two researchers who have spent years examining the issue. Graham Brookie, the director and managing editor of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Nina Jankowicz, author of “How to Lose the Information War,” said during a panel Tuesday that stopping disinformation requires the kind of cooperation that increasingly is difficult to find in American society. “The tricky thing about disinformation is that everybody thinks of it as somebody else’s problem, right?” Brookie said Tuesday during CyberTalks, a virtual summit hosted by CyberScoop. “We’re all looking at social […]
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A phone call to an Internet provider in Oregon on Sunday evening was all it took to briefly sideline multiple websites related to 8chan/8kun — a controversial online image board linked to several mass shootings — and QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory which holds that a cabal of Satanic pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against President Donald Trump. Following a brief disruption, the sites have come back online with the help of an Internet company based in St. Petersburg, Russia. Continue reading QAnon/8Chan Sites Briefly Knocked Offline
Facebook has removed more than 790 groups, 100 pages and 1,500 advertisements affiliated with QAnon, the social media movement that spreads an unfounded conspiracy theory accusing President Donald Trump’s critics of child sex trafficking. The company said Wednesday it also would limit the reach of more than 10,000 Instagram pages and 2,000 Facebook groups in connection with a conspiracy theory that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has described as a domestic terror threat. Facebook also said it would take action against militia organizations and users who encouraged violence at domestic protests. The announcement added that Facebook has removed 980 groups, 520 pages and 160 advertisements connected to adherents of Antifa, the anti-facist political movement. Facebook’s QAnon removal comes after groups increased by 671% since March, in some cases including more than 1 million members, according to research from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. The influx coincided with shelter-in-place […]
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The number of posts that Facebook removed for violating its policies around hate speech in the second quarter of 2020 more than doubled than the number of posts during the previous quarter, the company said. Facebook scrubbed 22.5 million pieces of hate speech — defined as violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, slurs or calls for exclusion or segregation — from its platform, up from 9.6 million pieces of content in the first three months of the year. The uptick coincided with the removal of 14 networks that Facebook associated with “hate and/or white supremacist groups” such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Proud Boys and avowed neo-Nazi groups Atomwaffen and Blood & Honour. The update comes as part of the firm’s regular community standards enforcement report. Facebook also removed 1.5 billion fake accounts during the same period. The numbers come after civil rights attorneys Facebook hired to audit its […]
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Millions of Americans who already struggle to keep pace with the daily barrage of news are now becoming accustomed to another challenge that’s only becoming more complicated: weaponized misinformation. Misinformation, which has existed for centuries, has emerged as a major theme of the current moment, though, as conspiracy theories, propaganda and disinformation, or the intentional spread of deceptive material, thrive on social media. Now, as Americans contend with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and growing suspicion in societal institutions, false and fabricated narratives have become attached to essentially every major news story. It’s part of the new reality, complicated by the fact that users on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere re-post sensational material, believing they’re acting in good faith. “A lot of people seem to be sincere believers in the content they’re spreading, even if it’s not real,” said Kate Starbird, an associate professor at the University of Washington focused on […]
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Facebook said Thursday its scrubbed hundreds of accounts from networks that impersonated Black Americans who appeared to support President Donald Trump. The group, based in Romania, was behind 35 Facebook accounts, three pages, and 88 Instagram accounts which aimed to inflate engagement on topics like the upcoming presidential election, conservative ideology and the Trump campaign. The same network also posted its support for QAnon, the far right conspiracy movement that’s categorized Democratic politicians and celebrities as Satan-worshipping child sex traffickers. The accounts formed one of nine inauthentic networks that Facebook said it removed Thursday as part of its monthly takedowns. The company has repeatedly stressed that it removes accounts based on behavior, such as masquerading as a fictitious person on the other side of the world, rather than posted content. Facebook does remove posts that encourage violence, or violate the company’s rules against harmful health misinformation. Facebook on Wednesday removed […]
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The only thing social media companies can seemingly agree upon when it comes to moderating content on their platforms is that QAnon crosses the line. TikTok has removed a number of hashtags associated with the far-right conspiracy theory group is poised to limit the spread of the group that the FBI has described as a domestic terrorism threat. The company has made it more difficult for users to search for popular hashtags, reportedly including “QAnon” and “QAnonTruth,” among others, following a similar announcement from Twitter that it would remove 7,000 accounts and limit 150,000 more. QAnon has pushed the unfounded conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump is fighting a “deep state” of government officials, celebrities and business leaders who secretly work as child sex traffickers and control global order. Its supporters frequently harass Trump critics, while believers have been linked to real-world acts of violence throughout the country. One supporter […]
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Tweets containing false information about COVID-19 will now include a label or warning that the message contradicts messaging from public health experts, the company said Monday in its latest effort to slow disinformation around the pandemic. In a blog post, Twitter’s head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, and director of public policy strategy, Nick Pickles, said that depending on the severity of the erroneous information, tweets will be accompanied by a link encouraging readers to “Get the facts about COVID-19.” More obvious examples of wrong information will be hidden entirely behind a note saying “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet conflicts with guidance from public health experts regarding COVID-19.” Here’s Twitter’s criteria for flagging specific claims. This announcement comes amid ongoing disinformation surrounding the coronavirus and its fallout. Conspiracy theorists affiliated with the pro-Trump group QAnon and Reopen America, a movement that’s used inauthentic techniques to […]
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Facebook said Tuesday it has removed a number of pages and accounts dedicated to a far-right conspiracy theory that’s gained traction among President Trump’s supporters. In the company’s first action against the QAnon group, Facebook says it removed 20 accounts, six groups and five pages caught fabricating personas to like and comment on their own posts to build engagement. Some 133,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages, while 30,000 accounts were involved in at least one of the groups, according to Facebook. That large influence network came without the individuals behind the effort spending more than $1 on Facebook ads. Including that action, the company said Tuesday it removed a total of eight networks of inauthentic user sites, including 732 accounts and 793 pages, that were operating in 15 languages and focused on 30 countries through all of April. Much of the activity was linked to individuals in Russia, Iran […]
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