Posts Tagged ‘disinformation’

26
Jan
2021

truth decay

categories: Digital literacy, information technology, media literacy

https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-are-you-contributing-to-truth-decay/2021/01

2011 Ted Talk by Eli Pariser called Beware of Online Filter Bubbles

 

Besides the algorithms that contribute to this truth decay, there is something equally as powerful that contributes to it as well. That other contributor is our confirmation bias.

“At its core, Media Literacy (ML) is made up of several specific competencies, such as the abilities to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate media messages in a variety of forms. Experts and organizations typically define media literacy using this or similar collections of competencies, which in the past two decades have evolved to focus more on the active construction of media and participation in the information ecosystem.”

Huguet, A.; Kavanagh, J.; Baker, G.; Blumenthal, M. (2018). Exploring Media Literacy Education as a Tool for Mitigating Truth Decay. Rand Corporation.

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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news

15
Jan
2021

Herd Immunity to Internet Propaganda

categories: Digital literacy, information literacy, information technology, media literacy, social media

Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet…

Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021

Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021

Can We Develop Herd Immunity to Internet Propaganda?

Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet Institute and author of many books on disinformation. In an interview, he calls for greater transparency and regulation of the industry.
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/philip-howard/
Platforms like Parler, TheDonald, Breitbart and Anon are like petri dishes for testing out ideas, to see what sticks. If extremist influencers see that something gets traction, they ramp it up. In the language of disease, you would say these platforms act as a vector, like a germ that carries a disease into other, more public forums.
at some point a major influencer takes a new meme from one of these extremist forums and puts it out before a wider audience. It works like a vector-borne disease like malaria, where the mosquitoes do the transmission. So, maybe a Hollywood actor or an influencer who knows nothing about politics will take this idea and post it on the bigger, better known platform. From there, these memes escalate as they move from Parler to maybe Reddit and from there to Twitter, Facebook,  Instagram and YouTube. We call this “cascades of misinformation.“
Sometimes the cascades of misinformation bounce from country to country between the U.S., Canada and the UK for example. So, it echoes back and forth.
Within Europe, two reservoirs for disinformation stick out: Poland and Hungary.
Our 2020 report shows that cyber troop activity continues to increase around the world. This year, we found evidence of 81 countries using social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics. This has increased from last years’ report, where we identified 70 countries with cyber troop activity.
identified 63 new instances of private firms working with governments or political parties to spread disinformation about elections or other important political issues. We identified 21 such cases in 2017-2018, yet only 15 in the period between 2009 and 2016.
Why would well-funded Russian agencies buy disinformation services from a newcomer like Nigeria?
(1) Russian actors have found a lab in Nigeria that can provide services at competitive prices. (2) But countries like China and Russia seem to be developing an interest in political influence in many African countries, so it is possible that there is a service industry for disinformation in Nigeria for that part of the world.
Each social media company should provide some kind of accounting statement about how it deals with misuse, with reporting hate speech, with fact checking and jury systems and so on. This system of transparency and accountability works for the stock markets, why shouldn’t it work in the social media realm? 
We clearly need a digital civics curriculum. The 12 to 16 year olds are developing their media attitudes now, they will be voting soon. There is very good media education in Canada or the Netherlands for example, and that is an excellent long-term strategy. 

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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news

30
Dec
2020

disinformation cybersecurity

categories: Digital literacy, social media, technology literacy, Twitter, WhatsApp

It’s time to accept that disinformation is a cyber security issue from r/technology

https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Its-time-to-accept-that-disinformation-is-a-cyber-security-issue

Misinformation and disinformation are rife, but so far it’s been seen as a challenge for policy-makers and big tech, including social media platforms.

The sheer volume of data being created makes it hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. From destroying 5G towers to conspiracies like QAnon and unfounded concern about election fraud, distrust is becoming the default – and this can have incredibly damaging effects on society.

So far, the tech sector – primarily social media companies, given that their platforms enable fake news to spread exponentially – have tried to implement some measures, with varying levels of success. For example, WhatsApp has placed a stricter limit on its message-forwarding capability and Twitter has begun to flag misleading posts.

the rise of tech startups that are exploring ways to detect and stem the flow of disinformation, such Right of Reply, Astroscreen and Logically.

disinformation has the potential to undermine national security

Data breaches result in the loss of value, but so can data manipulation

03
Dec
2020

fake-believe

categories: Digital literacy, information literacy, information technology, media literacy

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/29/how-to-deal-with-a-conspiracy-theorist-5g-covid-plandemic-qanon

Fake authority

You may see articles by Vernon Coleman, for instance. As a former GP he would seem to have some credentials, yet he has a history of supporting pseudoscientific ideas, including misinformation about the causes of Aids. David Icke, meanwhile, has hosted videos by Barrie Trower, an alleged expert on 5G who is, in reality, a secondary school teacher. And Piers Corbyn cites reports by the Centre for Research on Globalisation, which sounds impressive but was founded by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

“pre-suasion” – essentially, removing the reflexive mental blocks that might make them reject your arguments.

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more on conspiracy theories in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=conspiracy

more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news

11
Nov
2020

Steve Bannon misinformation

categories: Digital literacy, Facebook, information literacy, information technology, media literacy

Steve Bannon Caught Running Facebook Misinformation Network from r/technology

Steve Bannon Caught Running a Network of Misinformation Pages on Facebook

https://gizmodo.com/steve-bannon-caught-running-a-network-of-misinformation-1845633004

the Bannon-related pages tended to publish content at the same time and linked to the Populist Press, an even more right-wing Drudge Report copycat trafficking in disproven election fraud claims.

“If 2016 was an accident,” Quran added, “2020 has been negligence.”

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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news

11
Nov
2020

From Steve Bannon To Millennial Millie

categories: Digital literacy, information literacy, media literacy, social media, YouTube

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933235773/from-steve-bannon-to-millennial-millie-facebook-youtube-struggle-with-live-video

nearly 300,000 others kept an eye on the YouTube channel of 29-year-old Millie Weaver, a former correspondent for the conspiracy theory website Infowars, who offered right-wing analysis to her followers in a live-stream that carried on for almost seven hours the day after the election.

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fake news
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news

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