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Category: Social media

Could WordPress with Tumblr create an alternative to Facebook?

Could WordPress with Tumblr create an alternative to Facebook?

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Mathew Ingram writes: When Verizon announced earlier this week that it was selling Tumblr, the blogging platform Yahoo acquired in 2013 for $1.1 billion, most of the attention focused on the price: according to Axios, the communications conglomerate sold Tumblr for just $3 million (Vox says closer to $2 million). In other words, Yahoo vaporized about 99 percent of the platform’s theoretical value in the six years it owned the company. But apart from this massive bonfire of value, one…

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FBI agents livid that Trump is amplifying ‘bullshit theories’ about Jeffrey Epstein’s death ‘that have no basis in reality’

FBI agents livid that Trump is amplifying ‘bullshit theories’ about Jeffrey Epstein’s death ‘that have no basis in reality’

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Business Insider reports: “The Epstein case was hypercharged from the get-go,” one current FBI agent, who requested anonymity to freely discuss Trump’s actions, told INSIDER. “The last thing investigators need is the president of the United States fanning the flames with these bulls— theories that have no basis in reality.” Frank Montoya, Jr., a recently retired FBI special agent, characterized Trump’s actions as “crazy talk coming from no less than the President of the United States.” “This would be a…

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Epstein suicide conspiracy theories: Twitter’s central role in directing the flow of disinformation

Epstein suicide conspiracy theories: Twitter’s central role in directing the flow of disinformation

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Charlie Warzel writes: Epstein’s apparent suicide is, in many ways, the post-truth nightmare scenario. The sordid story contains almost all the hallmarks of stereotypical conspiratorial fodder: child sex-trafficking, powerful global political leaders, shadowy private jet flights, billionaires whose wealth cannot be explained. As a tale of corruption, it is so deeply intertwined with our current cultural and political rot that it feels, at times, almost too on-the-nose. The Epstein saga provides ammunition for everyone, leading one researcher to refer to…

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The founder of 8chan calls it a terrorist refuge in plain sight

The founder of 8chan calls it a terrorist refuge in plain sight

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The Washington Post reports: The El Paso massacre began like the fatal attacks earlier this year at mosques in New Zealand and a San Diego-area synagogue: with a racist manifesto and announcement on the anonymous message board 8chan, one of the Web’s most venomous refuges for extremist hate. Like after the shootings in Christchurch and the Chabad of Poway synagogue, the El Paso attack was celebrated on 8chan as well: One of the most active threads early Sunday urged people…

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Facebook algorithm changes suppressed journalism and meddled with democracy

Facebook algorithm changes suppressed journalism and meddled with democracy

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How do you feel about Facebook? fyv6561/Shutterstock.com By Jennifer Grygiel, Syracuse University Facebook’s News Feed algorithm determines what users see on its platform – from funny memes to comments from friends. The company regularly updates this algorithm, which can dramatically change what information people consume. As the 2020 election approaches, there is much public concern that what was dubbed “Russian meddling” in the 2016 presidential election could happen again. But what’s not getting enough attention is the role Facebook’s algorithm…

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Neo-Nazi blogger, Andrew Anglin, celebrates Trump’s latest racist tweets

Neo-Nazi blogger, Andrew Anglin, celebrates Trump’s latest racist tweets

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The ADL reports: President Trump’s recent racist tweet, posted on Sunday, July 14, was greeted with enthusiasm by white supremacists and other extremists. Mr. Trump’s inference that four U.S. Representatives who are women of color – Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayana Pressley (D-MA) – are not U.S. citizens, and that they should “go back” to their “original” countries, was echoed and applauded online by a raft of racist extremists. Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin was apparently…

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Neo-Nazi blogger, Andrew Anglin, ordered to pay $14 million to woman targeted in racist ‘troll storm’

Neo-Nazi blogger, Andrew Anglin, ordered to pay $14 million to woman targeted in racist ‘troll storm’

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BuzzFeed reports: A federal judge ruled more than $14 million should be awarded to a woman who was barraged with anti-Semitic and threatening messages online after a neo-Nazi blogger instructed his followers to target her and her family with a “troll storm.” The ruling was handed down Monday against Andrew Anglin, a white supremacist and publisher of the website The Daily Stormer. In his decision, judge Jeremiah Lynch found that Anglin “acted with actual malice” when he told followers: “Let’s…

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Twitter finds no fault in Trump’s racism

Twitter finds no fault in Trump’s racism

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CNN reports: President Trump’s weekend tweets in which he used racist language to attack four progressive Democratic congresswomen are not against Twitter’s rules, a company spokesperson told CNN Business Monday — a conclusion apparently contradicted by Twitter’s written policies. The episode represents a tough first test for a new stance Twitter announced less than a month ago, in which it will label and down-rank tweets from Trump and other world leaders that break its rules, rather than removing them. Trump…

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Instagramming ourselves to death

Instagramming ourselves to death

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Unbelievable. Five people have accidentally plunged to their death off the Horseshoe Bend canyon viewpoint in AZ since it became a favorite Instagram spot two years ago. (No one had died for 7 yrs prior). We are literally Instagramming ourselves to death. https://t.co/ZBbsoFnkuI — Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) July 13, 2019 The Wall Street Journal reports: A decade ago, fewer than 40,000 people a year came to Horseshoe Bend, officials in Page said. Now an estimated two million converge annually on…

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Trump can’t block critics from his Twitter account, appeals court rules

Trump can’t block critics from his Twitter account, appeals court rules

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The New York Times reports: President Trump has been violating the Constitution by blocking people from following his Twitter account because they criticized or mocked him, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The ruling could have broader implications for how the First Amendment applies to the social-media era. Because Mr. Trump uses Twitter to conduct government business, he cannot exclude some Americans from reading his posts — and engaging in conversations in the replies to them — because he…

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Tim Wu explains why Facebook should be broken up

Tim Wu explains why Facebook should be broken up

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Nicholas Thompson interviewed Tim Wu: Nicholas Thompson: What I’m going to do here is present the arguments that Mark Zuckerberg gave on antitrust yester­day in the fairest way I can, and then, Tim, I want you to respond. So it’ll be a bit like Tim being on stage yesterday. Mark made two arguments, and the company often makes a third. Number one, if you break the large platforms into smaller companies, they will not compete on the stuff you want….

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Russian Twitter propaganda predicted 2016 U.S. election polls

Russian Twitter propaganda predicted 2016 U.S. election polls

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Trump’s poll numbers went up after high levels of Russian troll activity, though Clinton’s didn’t go down. AP/Mary Altaffer, Chuck Burton By Damian Ruck, University of Bristol When Robert Mueller completed his long-awaited investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, he left many questions unanswered. But one conclusion was unequivocal: Russia unleashed an extensive campaign of fake news and disinformation on social media with the aim of distorting U.S. public opinion, sowing discord and swinging the election in…

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The looming information apocalypse

The looming information apocalypse

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Charlie Warzel reports: In mid-2016, Aviv Ovadya realized there was something fundamentally wrong with the internet — so wrong that he abandoned his work and sounded an alarm. A few weeks before the 2016 election, he presented his concerns to technologists in San Francisco’s Bay Area and warned of an impending crisis of misinformation in a presentation he titled “Infocalypse.” The web and the information ecosystem that had developed around it was wildly unhealthy, Ovadya argued. The incentives that governed…

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Twitter’s new labels for tweets that break its rules may have stark implications for Trump’s account

Twitter’s new labels for tweets that break its rules may have stark implications for Trump’s account

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The Washington Post reports: Twitter on Thursday said it would begin labeling tweets from national political figures, including President Trump, that the company would have taken down under other circumstances for violating its rules, a move that could appease some longtime critics at the cost of opening a new political rift with the White House. The new policy applies to political candidates and government officials who have more than 100,000 followers, Twitter said. Before users can view tweets that the…

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Facebook doesn’t want to continue serving as an instrument of genocide

Facebook doesn’t want to continue serving as an instrument of genocide

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NBC News reports: Steps away from the glass-enclosed office suite of Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s No. 2 executive, a team of employees has been taking shape with a mission that’s become critical to the tech giant’s future: avoid contributing to another genocide. The driving force behind the team is the company’s blotted legacy in Myanmar, the southeast Asian nation where, according to United Nations researchers, Facebook became the go-to tool for spreading propaganda that helped drive a genocide of a religious…

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At a Facebook content moderation site, one contractor has died, and others say they fear for their lives

At a Facebook content moderation site, one contractor has died, and others say they fear for their lives

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Casey Newton reports: Keith Utley loved to help. First, he served in the Coast Guard, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander. He married, had a family, and devoted himself utterly to his two little girls. After he got out of the military, he worked as a moderator for Facebook, where he purged the social network of the worst stuff that its users post on a daily basis: the hate speech, the murders, the child pornography. Utley worked…

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