Disinformation
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An old Instagram hoax is back, and it's duping celebrities
An Instagram hoax that first circulated in 2012 is back, and celebrities from Usher to Waka Flocka Flame, Julianne Moore, Julia Roberts and Rob Lowe have allegedly fallen for it. The post claims Instagram is changing its rules and everything you've ever posted will become public, NBC News reports.
Alphabet subsidiary Jigsaw paid a Russian troll to spread disinformation
In the name of research, Alphabet subsidiary Jigsaw and a partner security firm paid a Russian troll $250 for a disinformation campaign. As Wired reports, the experiment was meant to prove how easy it is to purchase social media propaganda campaigns. But the experiment has attracted plenty of critics.
Google explains how it's fighting fake news
Like all online platforms, Google is not immune to the scourge of fake news that has dominated headlines over the last few years. The company has taken various steps in fighting the problem -- from partnering with fact-checking networks to launching the $300 million Google News Initiative. Now it's expanded its transparency efforts further by detailing at length the steps it takes to fight disinformation across its services.
Twitter banned 2,600 Iran-linked accounts for election meddling
Since September, Twitter has suspended 2,617 accounts linked to Iran, it said in a report on its US midterm election efforts. Some of the accounts claimed they were American news outlets and discussed US political and social issues. Twitter claims it proactively suspended most of the accounts prior to Election Day.
Facebook purges more than 500 Russian-led disinformation pages
"Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior" is such an anodyne way of describing weaponizing information to poison attitudes and democracies. That's the euphemism that Facebook is employing to talk about its latest purge of accounts and pages that may be part of a Russian disinformation campaign. More than 500 pages and accounts have recently been removed, according to a report by Facebook's cybersecurity policy chief.
Facebook suspends accounts for pushing false info in Alabama election
Facebook's attempt to thwart disinformation campaigns has typically focused on Russia and other hostile countries, but it's now grappling with that problem on its home soil. The site has confirmed to the Washington Post that it suspended five accounts for "coordinated inauthentic behavior" during the 2017 Alabama special election for the Senate, including the CEO of social media research company New Knowledge.
Facebook will send policy VP to testify in UK instead of Zuckerberg
Facebook might have turned down the UK parliament's request for Mark Zuckerberg to testify, but it will be sending someone in his place. The government's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee has confirmed that Facebook will send policy solutions VP Richard Allan (above) to testify to a collection of international parliaments on November 27th. DCMS "still believes" Zuckerberg is the best person to address questions about "data privacy, safety, security and sharing," but it has accepted Allen instead.
Mark Zuckerberg refuses to testify in the UK yet again
Mark Zuckerberg has yet again rebuked a UK parliamentary request for him to testify. An international committee had called for the Facebook CEO to appear before it later this month.
Twitter’s new midterm election page already includes fake news
Today, Twitter rolled out a new page focused on the US midterm elections, and on it, users can view supposedly relevant tweets through two tabs -- "Latest" and "Top Commentary." On mobile, there's also a "News" tab that includes separate sections for each state. However, while this page is clearly meant to be a place for users to find more information about the upcoming election, it's surfacing tweets from conspiracy theorists, people pushing disinformation and what appear to be bot accounts, BuzzFeed News reports.
Facebook, Twitter reportedly haven’t seen any China election meddling
Though President Trump and Vice President Pence have repeated claims that China is actively trying to meddle in the upcoming US midterm elections, officials at Facebook and Twitter have now said they haven't come across any such attempts. Anonymous press representatives at the two social media companies told Bloomberg that while disinformation campaigns have been uncovered and linked to Russia and Iran, none have been linked to China.
Facebook shut down a spam network in Brazil
Facebook's crackdown on misleading content continues, this time in Brazil. The social network gave the boot to 68 pages and 43 accounts -- all linked to a single marketing group -- for violating the company's policies on misrepresentation and spam.
US targets individual Russians in fight against election interference
The US isn't limited to fighting election interference campaigns on its own soil. The New York Times has learned that Cyber Command is conducting the country's first known overseas operation to protect American voting against online meddling. The initiative reportedly entails deterring individual Russian operatives spreading disinformation by making it clear that US agents are tracking their activity. In theory, this will force the Russians to change their behavior without prompting an escalation that could lead to power grid attacks and other much more serious campaigns.
Researchers say Facebook’s anti-fake news efforts might be working
Since the 2016 US presidential election, social network sites have acknowledged the issue of fake news as well as their roles in spreading it. Companies like Facebook and Twitter have made efforts to address the problem, instituting a number of measures aimed at stemming the spread of misinformation and disincentivizing those that spread it. But how useful have those efforts been? Researchers at Stanford University and New York University say at least in Facebook's case, they may be working.
Facebook pulls hundreds of 'inauthentic' pages linked to Iran and Russia
Once again, Facebook is notifying the media that it has mass-removed accounts exhibiting "coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram." This time around, Mark Zuckerberg said the cull caught up 652 pages that it says were linked to a campaign originating in Iran, as well as an unspecified number of accounts linked to Russian military intelligence services. Like Microsoft's announcement last night and Facebook's last notice in July, these changes are part of a push for security around elections happening in 2018, including the just-concluded events in Mexico, and the US midterms in November. While Facebook attributed the moves announced today to four separate investigations, it acknowledged that security company FireEye tipped it off to a network of sites starting with "Liberty Front Press." Facebook connected the page's backers to Iranian state media, saying that some of the accounts were created as early as 2013, while targeting viewers in the Middle East, UK, US and Latin America. One of the pages had 155,000 followers, and one of its Instagram accounts notched 48,000 followers. While some of the pages found pretended to be news and other organizations, a second group of "inauthentic" news pages showed evidence of attempts to hack accounts and spread malware.
How France beat Russian meddling (and we could, too)
Since we're all expecting Kanye West to be a Supreme Court justice by Monday, it will surprise no one to find out that the completely normal, perfectly-operating administration in the White House is blowing off a new threat of interference and hacking in the upcoming elections. "Robert Mueller and the nation's top intelligence official say Russia is trying to interfere in the midterm elections," Politico reported, "but Republican and Democratic lawmakers say the Trump administration is keeping them in the dark about whether the U.S. is ready."
Google will downrank Russian state news agencies
The extent to which fake news is propagating the internet has become increasingly clear in recent months. In October Facebook revealed some 3,000 politically-charged adverts had been placed in crucial swing states in the US, while Freedom House this month demonstrated that governments in no less than 30 countries are creating content to distort the digital landscape in their favour. Russia's influence appears time and again in these stories, and Google is now preparing to take action by "de-ranking" the Russian news sites it believes is at the heart of the issue.
Google also found evidence of Russian influence in US election
Et tu, Google? Search and ad giant Google has found evidence that Russian agents purchased ads on YouTube, Google Search, Gmail and the company's DoubleClick ad network, unnamed sources have told the Washington Post. That means Russian actors have penetrated all the large Silicon Valley ad firms, as Facebook and Twitter recently revealed similar attacks. However, the Google ads were reportedly not purchased by the same Vladimir Putin-affiliated group that bought ads on Facebook, meaning the problem could be more widespread than thought.
Twitter will also be at the Senate's Russia hearings
Social media played a huge part in determining the outcome of the 2016 election, and there's a suspicion that the ad-tracking tools those platforms offer could have been hijacked by nefarious forces. Shortly after news broke that Facebook will appear before a Senate hearing into Russian interference, Wired is reporting that Twitter will do the same.
