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Category: Social media

Punished by despotic regimes for nothing more than speaking out on social media

Punished by despotic regimes for nothing more than speaking out on social media

An editorial in the Washington Post says: On Feb. 27, 2022, Danuta Perednya, a 21-year old university student, reposted a message on the social media app Telegram criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for the war in Ukraine. On Dec. 28, 2020, a young Saudi woman, Salma al-Shehab, tweeted an appeal to release Loujain al-Hathloul, an activist who was in prison for seeking the right of women to drive in the kingdom. In October, a 19-year-old…

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Snowden and Hersh: Useful idiots, posing as political dissidents, promote disinformation for Russia

Snowden and Hersh: Useful idiots, posing as political dissidents, promote disinformation for Russia

TASS, the Russian state-owned news agency, reports: The situation around three unidentified flying objects that were shot down over North America is designed to distract reporters’ attention from the investigation into the sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, former NSA (National Security Agency) employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden said on Monday. “I wish it were aliens, but it’s not aliens,” Snowden wrote on Twitter on Monday, commenting on the downing of balloons and UFOs in the United States and…

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Steve Bannon’s ‘War Room’ podcast is top misinformation spreader, study says

Steve Bannon’s ‘War Room’ podcast is top misinformation spreader, study says

The New York Times reports: When Stephen K. Bannon, the White House strategist turned podcaster, was explaining the latest Covid-19 developments in 2021, he passed the microphone to a special guest: Clay Clark, an evangelist and anti-vaccine activist. For nearly 10 minutes, Mr. Clark rattled off one false and misleading statement after another. Covid is “100 percent treatable” with hydroxychloroquine and other drugs. (No.) Covid vaccines are filled with fetal tissue. (False.) Concentration camps are coming. (Nope.) Bill Gates owns…

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Twitter kept entire ‘database’ of Republican requests to censor posts

Twitter kept entire ‘database’ of Republican requests to censor posts

Rolling Stone reports: When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down. That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere…

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How deepfake videos are used to spread disinformation

How deepfake videos are used to spread disinformation

The New York Times reports: In one video, a news anchor with perfectly combed dark hair and a stubbly beard outlined what he saw as the United States’ shameful lack of action against gun violence. In another video, a female news anchor heralded China’s role in geopolitical relations at an international summit meeting. But something was off. Their voices were stilted and failed to sync with the movement of their mouths. Their faces had a pixelated, video-game quality and their…

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In social-media exile, Trump has increasingly amplified extremism

In social-media exile, Trump has increasingly amplified extremism

The New York Times reports: In September, former President Donald J. Trump went on Truth Social, his social network, and shared an image of himself wearing a lapel pin in the form of the letter Q, along with a phrase closely associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement: “The storm is coming.” In doing so, Mr. Trump ensured that the message — first posted by a QAnon-aligned account — would be hugely amplified, visible to his more than four million…

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Facebook was a cash cow for Trump. It could end up being a ‘bronze goose’

Facebook was a cash cow for Trump. It could end up being a ‘bronze goose’

Politico reports: Trump was suspended from Facebook for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot in early 2021. But the suspension wasn’t permanent and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said earlier this week that it would be lifted soon. “President Trump should have never been banned, so getting back on this platform allows the campaign access to that universe once again,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. “We are getting closer to the full spectrum of building…

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Elon Musk bows to pressure from India to censor BBC documentary critical of Modi

Elon Musk bows to pressure from India to censor BBC documentary critical of Modi

The Intercept reports: Twitter and YouTube censored a report critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in coordination with the government of India. Officials called for the Big Tech companies to take action against a BBC documentary exploring Modi’s role in a genocidal 2002 massacre in the Indian state of Gujarat, which the officials deemed a “propaganda piece.” In a series of posts, Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at the Indian government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, denounced the BBC documentary…

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Is Twitter broken?

Is Twitter broken?

New York Magazine and The Verge report: In April 2022, Elon Musk acquired a 9.2 ­percent stake in Twitter, making him the company’s largest shareholder, and was offered a seat on the board. Luke Simon, a senior engineering director at Twitter, was ecstatic. “Elon Musk is a brilliant engineer and scientist, and he has a track record of having a Midas touch, when it comes to growing the companies he’s helped lead,” he wrote in Slack. Twitter had been defined by the…

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What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report

What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report

The Washington Post reports: The Jan. 6 committee spent months gathering stunning new details on how social media companies failed to address the online extremism and calls for violence that preceded the Capitol riot. The evidence they collected was written up in a 122-page memo that was circulated among the committee, according to a draft viewed by The Washington Post. But in the end, committee leaders declined to delve into those topics in detail in their final report, reluctant to…

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Unreleased video reveals Twitter team warned of ‘shooting in the streets’ ahead of Jan. 6

Unreleased video reveals Twitter team warned of ‘shooting in the streets’ ahead of Jan. 6

Rolling Stone reports: Anika Collier Navoli was at her “wits’ end.” Twitter’s safety policy team had gathered via video conference to walk through what they expected to see the next day, Jan. 6, 2021, and began to argue. Safety policy staff had clashed repeatedly with Twitter’s management over whether to take a tougher stance on incitement to violence by Donald Trump and his legions of election deniers. She and colleagues were seeing worrying signs and feared what might happen the…

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Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use

Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use

The Guardian reports: A prominent pro-reform law professor in Saudi Arabia is facing the death penalty for alleged crimes including having a Twitter account and using WhatsApp to share news considered “hostile” to the kingdom, according to court documents seen by the Guardian. The arrest of Awad Al-Qarni, 65, in September 2017 represented the start of a crackdown against dissent by the then newly named crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Details of the charges brought against Al-Qarni have now been…

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Leaked Jan. 6 committee report exposes Twitter’s post-insurrection chaos

Leaked Jan. 6 committee report exposes Twitter’s post-insurrection chaos

Rolling Stone reports: In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, Twitter employees raged at their own company and its leadership, blaming them for the social media giant’s inept handling of Donald Trump and other top MAGA figures’ incitement to violence. “Do you want to have more blood on your hands?” one staffer asked a top executive, Del Harvey, when she questioned whether Trump could inspire more violence in the insurrection’s aftermath. The exchange, relayed by former Twitter employees…

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What’s gone at Twitter? A data center, janitors, some toilet paper

What’s gone at Twitter? A data center, janitors, some toilet paper

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk’s orders were clear: Close the data center. Early on Christmas Eve, members of the billionaire’s staff flew to Sacramento — the site of one of Twitter’s three main computing storage facilities — to disconnect servers that had kept the social network running smoothly. Some employees were worried that losing those servers could cause problems, but saving money was the priority, according to two people who were familiar with the move but not authorized…

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Elon Musk claims he’s not worried about the FTC, but he should be

Elon Musk claims he’s not worried about the FTC, but he should be

Mike Masnick writes: Soon after Elon took over Twitter and fired everyone, we wondered (somewhat jokingly) if there was anyone left at the company who was aware of the FTC’s consent decree with the company, signed originally in 2011, but which runs for 30 years, and which was updated back in May of 2022. These documents have some fairly strict requirements for the company around protecting the privacy of its users, and also limiting employees access to certain data. A…

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Twitter brings Elon Musk’s genius reputation crashing down to earth

Twitter brings Elon Musk’s genius reputation crashing down to earth

The Washington Post reports: Elon Musk was speechless. The Twitter CEO was on a live audio chat Tuesday night with software engineers when one user started quizzing him about the internal workings of the company’s systems. Musk, who hours earlier said he would keep control of Twitter’s software systems even though he plans to relinquish the CEO role, said the company’s code needed a complete rewrite. One of the participants asked what he meant — pushing for him to explain…

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