Twitter announced a pair of big upcoming features today: the ability for users to charge their followers for access to additional content, and the ability to create and join groups based around specific interests. From a report: They’re two of the more substantial changes to Twitter in a while, but they also fit snugly into models that have been popular and…
Tag: Facebook groups
Report Finds Extremists Did Use Facebook to Plan Capitol Attack
NBC News reports: A number of pro-Trump extremists used Facebook to plan their attack on the U.S. Capitol, a watchdog organization has found, contradicting claims by Facebook’s leadership that such planning was largely done on other sites. Private Facebook groups spent months advising one another about how to “take down” the U.S. government, particularly after Joe Biden was elected president, according…
Threatening Bans, Facebook Will Now Require Moderation For Groups Spreading Misinformation
“While the election may have now been called for Joe Biden, our misinformation nightmare is far from over,” quips Mashable: As unsubstantiated pro-Trump conspiracies about election fraud continue to spread on the internet, Facebook is taking further action with Facebook Groups, a feature that is often weaponized by misinformation spreaders. According to Facebook, the social networking company will now put certain…
QAnon Groups Hit by Facebook Crack Down
Facebook on Wednesday banned about 900 pages and groups and 1,500 ads tied to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon, part of a sweeping action that also restricted the reach of over 10,000 Instagram pages and almost 2,000 Facebook groups pushing the baseless conspiracy theory that has spawned real-world violence. From a report: Facebook also took down thousands of accounts, pages and…
Misleading Virus Video, Pushed By the Trumps, Spreads Online
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: In a video posted Monday online, a group of people calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” and wearing white medical coats spoke against the backdrop of the Supreme Court in Washington, sharing misleading claims about the virus, including that hydroxychloroquine was an effective coronavirus treatment and that masks did not slow…
Looted skulls and human remains are being sold in black markets on Facebook
A Live Science investigation unlocked a world inside private Facebook groups in which human remains are often sold with little information about their origins — raising questions about how they were acquired. Source: https://www.livescience.com/human-bone-trade-facebook.html
Dozens More Arson Attacks on UK Phone Masts Over 5G Conspiracy Theory
“Mobile phone masts in the UK are still being attacked by arsonists on a daily basis,” reports Wired, “because of a conspiracy theory linking 5G to the spread of coronavirus.” New data seen by WIRED UK reveals that dozens of attacks have taken place in the last fortnight, with conspiracy theorists targeting both infrastructure and key workers in the misguided belief…
Trump’s Disinfectant Talk Trips Up Sites’ Vows Against Misinformation
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said in March that promoting bleach as a cure for the coronavirus was “misinformation that has imminent risk of danger” and that such messages would immediately be removed from the social network. President Trump has now put Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments to the test. From a report: At a White House briefing last week, Mr. Trump suggested…
Some ‘Reopen’ Domains Could Be Phishing and Malware Campaigns
CNET reports on new research from a threat-intelligence company into the more than 540 domain names registered this month with the word “reopen” in their URL. While hundreds of them are “designed to lend credibility to anti-lockdown protests,” and 98 more were purchased to thwart that effort, there’s still many other domains that “come from suspicious sources or resellers looking to…
Broadband Engineers Threatened Due To 5G Coronavirus Conspiracies
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Telecoms engineers are facing verbal and physical threats during the lockdown, as baseless conspiracy theories linking coronavirus to the roll-out of 5G technology spread by celebrities such as Amanda Holden prompt members of the public to abuse those maintaining vital mobile phone and broadband networks. Facebook has removed one anti-5G group in…