Social media cannot ensure they only publish truths. But what about deliberate falsehoods designed to damage?Are social media companies responsible for the lies their users tell? Both the obvious answers, “yes” and “no”, are clearly wrong. Complete responsibility is a bad idea, and impossible in practice: even in China, the home of the largest and most sophisticated censorship apparatus on the web, the internet is expected to slow down markedly in the coming weeks under the burden of combing through it to ensure that no references to the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre are published. And, as the Chinese example shows, there are also considerable difficulties that arise when any one organisation can decide what counts as truth or falsehood. Yet it can’t be right, either, to say that social media companies have no responsibility to exercise the powers they have to remove obnoxious material from their servers. Videos of murder, child abuse and other horrors are routinely and rightly removed. It will be objected that these are horrible precisely because they are not lies – they record things that really happened. But that doesn’t stand up. It is no defence, either in British law, or in any moral sense, to say that a video of atrocity is faked. If it works as propaganda for jihadis, or for child abusers, it will be censored and its originators punished if that’s possible.The platforms have been much more reluctant to act against lies which promote causes... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-05-27 17:25:07 UTC ]
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Facebook received 110,634 government requests for user data in the second half of 2018, up 7% from 103,815 in the first half of 2018, according to its latest Transparency Report, which was released Thursday. The social network said the uptick in the second half of last year was normal compared... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-05-23 23:00:44 UTC ]
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Facebook also said its automated detection software that eliminates illicit content is improving: It now automatically detects and removes more than half of the hate speech on its platform. Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-05-23 21:53:49 UTC ]
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Social media giant says it has seen a "steep increase" in the creation of abusive, fake accounts. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2019-05-23 21:23:34 UTC ]
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Facebook’s latest report lays out the sheer scale of its battle against fake accounts, spam, and other abuses. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2019-05-23 21:09:55 UTC ]
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Facebook disabled more than 2 billion fake accounts on Facebook in the first quarter of 2019 alone, nearly the same amount of total monthly active users the company has, the company said Thursday in a report about how it is enforcing its platform rules. The company pulled almost 2.2 billion fake... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-05-23 20:09:09 UTC ]
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Facebook issued its latest report on enforcing decency standards on the social network Thursday, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the opportunity to criticize calls for the company to be broken up by regulators. In its "Community Standards Enforcement Report" posted online, Facebook provided... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-05-23 19:54:32 UTC ]
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Mark Zuckerberg hits back at calls to break up Facebook, as it reveals it removed a record number of hateful posts. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2019-05-23 19:06:33 UTC ]
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If you look at images posted to Facebook by news organizations, you are far more likely to see men than women, according to a new study from Pew Research Center. Pew analyzed images posted (publicly) to the social network by 17 national news outlets between April 1 and June 30, 2018, using a... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-05-23 18:45:42 UTC ]
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Facebook isn't just interested in cracking down on fake accounts. While discussing the firm's latest Community Standards Enforcement Report, company VP Justin Osofsky revealed during a call that the social network will run a pilot program where some... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2019-05-23 18:11:00 UTC ]
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A new study of the images accompanying news stories posted publicly on Facebook by prominent American news media outlets finds Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-05-23 17:30:15 UTC ]
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Facebook removed more than three billion fake accounts from October to March, twice as many as the previous six months, the social networking company said Thursday. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2019-05-23 16:32:45 UTC ]
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The company, which reports 2.39 billion monthly active users, says it zapped 3 BILLION fake accounts in two quarters alone, and that it caught only “most of them.” Facebook held a press call today to report to the world that it has removed 3 billion fake accounts during the last quarter of 2018... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2019-05-23 15:50:14 UTC ]
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Party is comfortably biggest spender on online election ads, as other parties hold backChange UK has run a last-minute Facebook advertising campaign to try to shore up its support amid dismal poll ratings for the European elections, but most other parties have mostly avoided large spending on... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-05-23 05:00:40 UTC ]
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The Guardian has discovered that American readers are willing donors, and the news publisher hopes that a bigger focus on Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-05-22 15:28:49 UTC ]
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As measles cases continue to rise in Canada and the U.S., experts are calling on social media platforms to ban anti-vaccination posts, saying the risks to public health created by misinformation outweigh the right to free speech. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2019-05-22 08:00:00 UTC ]
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Fake accounts spread white-nationalist messages and amassed larger followings than actual far-right parties before being taken down, according to a new report. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2019-05-22 05:00:00 UTC ]
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American readers provide 30% of the Guardian's audience, but they account over 50% of the donations the news publisher has received this year. The post How The Guardian is looking to boost reader donations in the US appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2019-05-22 04:01:58 UTC ]
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Avaaz uncovers 500 accounts using fake news to spread white supremacy messageA web of far-right Facebook accounts spreading fake news and hate speech to millions of people across Europe has been uncovered by the campaign group Avaaz.Facebook, which is struggling to clean up the platform and... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-05-22 04:00:20 UTC ]
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The world’s largest election has become something of a test case in how technology giants handle fake news after years Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-05-21 19:00:27 UTC ]
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Google and Facebook pressured and “arm-wrestled” a group of experts to soften European guidelines on online disinformation and fake news, Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-05-21 15:02:38 UTC ]
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