Facebook will lift its ban on political ads on Thursday, ending a self-imposed prohibition that began immediately after the November 2020 general election and remained active for months. Politico reports: Facebook informed top political advertisers of its decision by phone and email on Wednesday, according to sources with knowledge of the announcement. The social media giant banned political and social issue-related…
Tag: misinformation
Ghana Scientist Tries Gene Editing To Create Healthier Sweet Potatoes
The Cornell Alliance for Science seeks to build “a significant international alliance of partners” to “correct misinformation and counter conspiracy theories” slowing progress on climate change, synthetic biology, agricultural innovations, and other issues. Slashdot reader wooloohoo shares their article about research on Ghana’s first gene-edited crop — a high-yielding sweet potato with increased beta carotone content. “For sweet potatoes, we want…
Did Facebook Change Its Rules to Placate the Right?
Former lobbyist/political advisor Joel Kaplan joined Facebook in 2011 to lead its Washington D.C. outreach, reports BuzzFeed news. But some employees said they were very unhappy with decisions made by both Kaplan and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: In April 2019, Facebook was preparing to ban one of the internet’s most notorious spreaders of misinformation and hate, Infowars founder Alex Jones. Then…
Twitter’s Misinformation-Fighting Tool ‘Birdwatch’ Makes Mistakes
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit journalism school and research organization, analyzed Twitter’s 1,000-user pilot test of its Birdwatch fact-checking platform. Their conclusion? It makes mistakes. On February 5, Twitter flagged a post from controversial YouTuber Tim Pool that said the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged. The platform noted that the claim was disputed and turned off engagement…
Misleading Viral Claims Show Dangers of Preprint Servers, Researchers Warn
Scientific researchers worry that the capacity for spreading misinformation “goes far beyond the big-name social media sites,” warns the Washington Post. Citing pre-print servers and unvetted “research repositories,” they note that “Any online platform without robust and potentially expensive safeguards is equally vulnerable.” “This is similar to the debate we’re having with Facebook and Twitter. To what degree are we creating…
Facebook will start showing some of its users less political content
Facebook will start reducing the amount of political content users see while scrolling their primary feeds. From a report: The social media platform will “temporarily reduce the distribution of political content in News Feed for a small percentage of people” in Brazil, Indonesia and Canada this week, it said in a blog post on Wednesday. The changes will be applied to…
Facebook Says It Plans To Remove Posts With False Vaccine Claims.
Facebook said on Monday that it plans to remove posts with erroneous claims about vaccines from across its platform, including taking down assertions that vaccines cause autism or that it is safer for people to contract Covid-19 than to receive the vaccinations. From a report: The social network has increasingly changed its content policies over the past year as the coronavirus…
Wall Street Is Keeping Very Close Tabs On WallStreetBets
Registered Coward v2 writes: Wall Street has decided if you can’t beat them, at least watch them. They’re paying for data that shows which stocks are most talked about on Reddit stock forums, ostensibly to allow them to adjust their positions or take advantage of opportunities to trade based on Reddit. Nothing could go wrong there, since Reddit would decide to…
Corporate Trolls? A Covert, Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign on Social Media
“Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s technology industry, has suffered from a sustained American campaign to keep its equipment from being used in new 5G networks around the world,” reports the New York Times. Now they’ve identified “a covert pro-Huawei influence campaign in Belgium about 5G networks.” [Alternate URL here] It began when trade lawyer Edwin Vermulst was paid to write…
Is Misinformation on Nextdoor Impacting Local Politics?
Was Nextdoor’s impact on the world exemplified by a crucial funding referendum for the Christina School District of Newark, Delaware? Medium’s tech site OneZero reports: As the 2019 referendum approached, I saw Nextdoor posts claiming that the district was squandering money, that its administrators were corrupt, and that it already spent more money per student than certain other districts with higher…