One-third of Americans believe that misinformation swayed the results of the election, with three-quarters of Republicans expressing the same belief, according to a Knight Foundation/Gallup study released Monday.
Twitter regularly refuses to verify conservative figures on its platform leaving them vulnerable to impersonation and the actual spread of misinformation. Here’s how to spot hoaxers pretending to be conservative figures like James O’Keefe on Twitter.
In another sign that Big Tech’s rules on “disinformation” only run one-way, Twitter failed to act on a viral message posted on its platform containing a doctored image purporting to be a text message between Rudy Giuliani and Ivanka Trump. Rachel Maddow and an army of Twitter verified leftists spread the image, which deleted after the student that originally tweeted it called it a “parody.”
Twitter has allowed the conspiracy theory that Post Office mailboxes are being “locked” to prevent Americans mailing in their ballots to spread unchecked on the platform, despite intensifying censorship of conservatives, including President Donald Trump, on dubious grounds of “misinformation” over the past few months.
Newly-appointed French prime minister Jean Castex has made it clear that he is no fan of anonymity on the Internet, claiming that it distorts political debates online.
The Republican Party of Arizona this week accused the Democrat Phoenix mayor of “spreading lies and misinformation” about an allegedly non-existent lack of resources that is forcing medical centers to decide who lives and dies.
China’s state-run Xinhua news service on Friday took great interest in an American researcher’s call for more aggressive censorship by Big Tech companies to reduce “misinformation.”
Communist officials in China have hidden the severity of the coronavirus outbreak within their borders, under-reporting both total cases and fatalities linked to the disease, the U.S. intelligence community reportedly confirmed in a classified report to the White House.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s misleading tweets about the Wuhan coronavirus have been left on Twitter’s platform despite the social media platform’s promise to crack down on misinformation. Musk tweeted that children are “essentially immune” to the Chinese virus, which is not true.
Thailand prosecuted two citizens on Friday for allegedly spreading “disinformation” about the novel Chinese coronavirus.
A report by the CBC reveals that Facebook advertisers are able to write their own headlines when sharing news stories, given many users the impression that the advertiser’s headline is part of the original piece. Facebook says it is adding “additional safeguards” to the advertising tool.
Hollywood left-wing activist Cher took to Twitter Thursday to rant about an already debunked claim that Georgia’s “heartbeat” abortion law will send women who have miscarriages to jail.
A Google Search bug reportedly allows any user to add misinformation to search results. In one case, tech site TechCrunch managed to create a Google search result showing rapper Snoop Dogg as President of the United States.
The online dictionary’s 2018 pick follows last year’s “complicit,” and 2016’s “xenophobia.”
