Group items tagged

"Breaking: Twitter said it will require President Trump's campaign account to remove a post containing coronavirus misinformation, banning the account from tweeting until it does so."

"The pictures, analyzed by HuffPost, show a picture of Biden had been edited to make him look older, by darkening his skin and emphasizing imperfections. On Monday the campaign's Trump War Room Twitter account tweeted a manipulated video that appeared to show Biden saying, "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America." The video was labelled "manipulated media" by Twitter."

"Twitter has said that tweets wishing for Donald Trump's death in the wake of the president's diagnosis with Covid-19 violate its policies and could result in suspension."

"As Americans continue to grapple with media distrust, conspiracy theories, bots, trolls, and general panic amid multiple unprecedented crises, Twitter is once again trying a new method of identifying misinformation. A new feature in development at the social media platform, called "Birdwatch," was first reported by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong (h/t Tech Crunch) in early August. "

"Some have argued for much greater policing of content online, and companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have talked about hiring thousands to staff up their moderation teams.8 8. April Glaser, Want a Terrible Job? Facebook and Google May Be Hiring,Slate (Jan. 18, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/facebook-and-google-are-building-an-army-of-content-moderators-for-2018.html (explaining that major platforms have hired or have announced plans to hire thousands, in some cases more than ten thousand, new content moderators).On the other side of the coin, companies are increasingly investing in more and more sophisticated technology help, such as artificial intelligence, to try to spot contentious content earlier in the process.9 9. Tom Simonite, AI Has Started Cleaning Up Facebook, But Can It Finish?,Wired (Dec. 18, 2018), https://www.wired.com/story/ai-has-started-cleaning-facebook-can-it-finish/.Others have argued that we should change Section 230 of the CDA, which gives platforms a free hand in determining how they moderate (or how they don't moderate).10 10. Gohmert Press Release, supra note 7 ("Social media companies enjoy special legal protections under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, protections not shared by other media. Instead of acting like the neutral platforms they claim to be in order obtain their immunity, these companies have turned Section 230 into a license to potentially defraud and defame with impunity… Since there still appears to be no sincere effort to stop this disconcerting behavior, it is time for social media companies to be liable for any biased and unethical impropriety of their employees as any other media company. If these companies want to continue to act like a biased medium and publish their own agendas to the detriment of others, they need to be held accountable."); Eric Johnson, Silicon Valley's Self-Regulating Days "Probably Should Be" Over, Nancy Pelosi Says, Vox (Apr. 11, 2019), https:/

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically-now it seems that almost no one is happy. Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of trolling, bigotry, and hatred.1 1. Zachary Laub, Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons, Council on Foreign Rel. (Jun. 7, 2019), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons.Meanwhile, others feel that these platforms have become too aggressive in policing language and are systematically silencing or censoring certain viewpoints.2 2. Tony Romm, Republicans Accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of Bias. Democrats Called the Hearing 'Dumb.', Wash. Post (Jul. 17, 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/17/republicans-accused-facebook-google-twitter-bias-democrats-called-hearing-dumb/?utm_term=.895b34499816.And that's not even touching on the question of privacy and what these platforms are doing (or not doing) with all of the data they collect."

"Among the most urgent questions facing Twitter in its new era as a private company under Elon Musk, a self-declared "free speech absolutist", is how the platform will handle moderation. After finalizing his takeover and ousting senior leadership, Musk declared on Friday that he would be forming a new "content moderation council" that would bring together "diverse views" on the issue."

"The collapse of SVB was the second-largest bank failure in the history of the United States. The largest, Washington Mutual in 2008, took place over the course of eight months. SVB's collapse played out in barely two days. Anxious Twitter posts and WhatsApp exchanges, coupled with the ease of access that online banking provides, are seen by analysts as a serious catalyst for the current crisis. Experts suggest that in the social media age, the psychological behaviour behind a bank run - mass fear from depositors of losing their savings - may be amplified and go viral quicker than bank officers and regulators can successfully respond."

"The family of a California design student killed in November's terror attacks in Paris have sued Twitter Inc, Google and Facebook Inc, claiming the social media companies provide "material support" to the militant group Islamic State."

"The new tools appear to allow Twitter users to share images with text overlays, stickers, and other modifications. Twitter's existing tools merely allow people to crop images or run them through filters that greatly change their appearance, whether it's by upping the contrast or making them look like old Polaroid shots."

People are posting fake news on twitter

"In an act of cyber vandalism that appeared more embarrassing than destructive, the Twitter and YouTube accounts for US military forces in the Middle East and South Asia were hacked by supporters of Islamic State militants on Monday."

"With news that the 15 million Twitter users in the UK can now be targeted at individual postcode levels, the micro-blogging platform is selling its advertising opportunities as ultra-geographically precise, and therefore ultra-cost effective. "The key benefit of geo-targeting is that it enables advertisers, or in this case political parties, the ability to reach users in specific regions, metropolitan areas and now postcodes," Twitter said in a blog post. "

"The change is part of the company's ongoing efforts to improve the Twitter API"

"Facebook and Twitter took steps on Wednesday to limit the spread of a controversial New York Post article critical of Joe Biden, sparking outrage among conservatives and stoking debate over how social media platforms should tackle misinformation ahead of the US election"

"According to a report by Sophos, malware and spam are on the rise on social networks such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn. In the last year, 57% of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites, an increase of 70.6% compared to last year. Furthermore, 36% of users claim they've been sent malware via social networking sites, which is a rise of 69.8% from last year. On the other hand, CEOs of companies are concerned that their employees' usage of social networks is posing a security risk for their company. Sophos has surveyed more than 500 organizations, discovering that 72% of them think social networks are a danger for their companys, with 60% of them tagging Facebook as the biggest security risk, followed by MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, says that Facebook is the biggest threat because it's the biggest social network out there, but he also places some of the blame on Facebook's own privacy rules. "When Facebook rolled-out its new recommended privacy settings late last year, it was a backwards step, encouraging many users to share their information with everybody on the internet," he says. Interestingly enough (and contrasted to some of the reports we've seen lately), Cluley thinks that simply barring access to Facebook is not the solution. "Social networks can be an essential part of the business mix today," he says, "and the answer is not to bar staff from participating in them but to apply some 'social security' instead.""

"Twitter's image cropping algorithm prefers younger, slimmer faces with lighter skin, an investigation into algorithmic bias at the company has found. The finding, while embarrassing for the company, which had previously apologised to users after reports of bias, marks the successful conclusion of Twitter's first ever "algorithmic bug bounty"."

"Activists swiftly warned that the policy as it was published would backfire. The policy was vague and had been put together without much input from the communities most vulnerable to harassment and doxxing, the activists argued. They had little faith in Twitter's reporting and appeals process, which they described as unreliable, automated and allowing for little discussion about the enforcement of policies."

"Censorship, or rather his stance against it, is a key reason why Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44bn last year. His social media company's lawsuit against an anti-hate speech group refers to censorship, or variations on the word, eight times. But for critics of his complaint against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), it is Musk who is doing the censoring. "The intent is definitely to get the centre to shut up. That's the whole point of this suit, to prevent the centre from exercising any speech that Musk doesn't like," says Prof Brian Quinn from Boston College law school."