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Category: Social media

Majority of traffic from Elon Musk’s X may have been fake during the Super Bowl, report suggests

Majority of traffic from Elon Musk’s X may have been fake during the Super Bowl, report suggests

Mashable reports: This week, Super Bowl 2024 shattered records, with the NFL championship broadcast on CBS becoming the most-watched televised event in U.S. history. Also riding high from the big game? Elon Musk’s X. The company formerly known as Twitter published its own press release, lauding Super Bowl LVIII as one of the biggest events ever on the social media platform with more than 10 billion impressions and over 1 billion video views. The (video first) roar of the stadium…

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Meta considering increased censorship of the word ‘Zionist’

Meta considering increased censorship of the word ‘Zionist’

The Intercept reports: Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is contemplating stricter rules around discussing Israeli nationalism on its platforms, a major policy change that could stifle criticism and free expression about the war in Gaza and beyond, five civil society sources who were briefed on the potential change told The Intercept. “Meta is currently revisiting its hate speech policy, specifically in relation to the term ‘Zionist,’” reads a January 30 email sent to civil society groups by Meta policy…

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A Palestinian posted a message on Oct. 7. Then came the death threats

A Palestinian posted a message on Oct. 7. Then came the death threats

The Washington Post reports: Dalal Abu Amneh insists she didn’t mean to take sides with her Facebook message on Oct. 7: “The only victor is God.” The Palestinian citizen of northern Israel — a neuroscientist and a folk singer renowned in the Arab world — was starting a silent retreat at a Christian monastery in Jerusalem when word of the Hamas massacre began to spread. She immediately checked in on Jewish friends in southern Israel, she said. At the request…

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The rise of techno-authoritarianism

The rise of techno-authoritarianism

Adrienne LaFrance writes: If you had to capture Silicon Valley’s dominant ideology in a single anecdote, you might look first to Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, had given him access to reams of personal information about his fellow students: Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuckerberg: Just ask. Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures,…

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New Russian disinformation campaigns prove the past is prequel

New Russian disinformation campaigns prove the past is prequel

Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren write: On Dec. 13, 2023, Lauren Witzke, a documented QAnon promoter and former Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware, posted a barrage of criticism toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The post suggested Zelenskyy was preparing to retire to a $20 million home in Vero Beach, Florida, and claimed that “our leaders are buying mansions for elite leaches who facilitate their money laundering operations and crimes against the American people ……

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How YouTube’s climate deniers turned into climate doomers

How YouTube’s climate deniers turned into climate doomers

Grist reports: Imagine if you could walk from your house to anywhere you needed to go in less than 15 minutes: the pharmacy, the bakery, the gym, and then back to the bakery. In a certain, conspiracy-addled corner of the internet, this urban planning concept of “15-minute cities” gets a shady, sinister gloss. Conspiracy theorists evoke COVID restrictions and tout efforts to create walkable cities as steps toward “climate lockdowns.” They warn of a plot by the World Economic Forum…

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Jan. 6 was an example of networked incitement − a media and disinformation expert explains the danger of political violence orchestrated over social media

Jan. 6 was an example of networked incitement − a media and disinformation expert explains the danger of political violence orchestrated over social media

Social media and cellphones connected President Trump to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images By Joan Donovan, Boston University The shocking events of Jan. 6, 2021, signaled a major break from the nonviolent rallies that categorized most major protests over the past few decades. What set Jan. 6 apart was the president of the United States using his cellphone to direct an attack on the Capitol, and those who stormed the Capitol being wired and ready for…

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The EU should support Ireland’s bold move to regulate social media

The EU should support Ireland’s bold move to regulate social media

Zephyr Teachout and Roger McNamee write: Dublin, Ireland, was stunned a month ago by riots that transformed its downtown into chaos, the worst rioting in decades, stemming from far-right online rumors about an attack on children.  The riots, like Jan. 6, appear to be a direct outgrowth of the amplification ecosystem supported by social media networks such as TikTok, Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram, which likely keep their European headquarters in Dublin for tax reasons.  Ireland, long ridiculed for bowing…

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Meta: Systemic censorship of Palestine content

Meta: Systemic censorship of Palestine content

Human Rights Watch: Meta’s content moderation policies and systems have increasingly silenced voices in support of Palestine on Instagram and Facebook in the wake of the hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 51-page report, “Meta’s Broken Promises: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook,” documents a pattern of undue removal and suppression of protected speech including peaceful expression in support of Palestine and public debate about…

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Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s top-secret Hawaii compound

Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s top-secret Hawaii compound

Wired reports: According to plans viewed by WIRED and a source familiar with the development, the partially completed compound consists of more than a dozen buildings with at least 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms in total. It is centered around two mansions with a total floor area comparable to a professional football field (57,000 square feet), which contain multiple elevators, offices, conference rooms, and an industrial-sized kitchen. In a nearby wooded area, a web of 11 disk-shaped treehouses are planned,…

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Trump’s meme team serves as a shadow online ad agency

Trump’s meme team serves as a shadow online ad agency

The New York Times reports: The video, called “Let’s Get Ready to Bumble,” is a slick mash-up of President Biden’s verbal slip-ups and his stumbles set to a thumping 1990s dance track. And when it was played on a big screen at Trump rallies late last year, it consistently drew laughs and jeers from the crowd. But Donald J. Trump thought he could improve it. So the former president asked an adviser to pass along a few notes to one…

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Elon Musk has boosted the ‘pizzagate’ conspiracy theory five times in the last two weeks

Elon Musk has boosted the ‘pizzagate’ conspiracy theory five times in the last two weeks

NBC News reports: Elon Musk continued to boost a debunked conspiracy theory Tuesday, posting and later deleting a meme on X that referred to a fringe, far-right claim that sought to connect members of the Democratic Party with child abuse. Musk wrote “does seem at least a little suspicious” alongside a meme drawing from the TV show “The Office,” which included fake dialogue superimposed on images of a character arguing that “Pizzagate is real,” a reference to a conspiracy theory…

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At Meta, millions of underage users were an ‘open secret,’ states say

At Meta, millions of underage users were an ‘open secret,’ states say

The New York Times reports: Meta has received more than 1.1 million reports of users under the age of 13 on its Instagram platform since early 2019 yet it “disabled only a fraction” of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint against the company brought by the attorneys general of 33 states. Instead, the social media giant “routinely continued to collect” children’s personal information, like their locations and email addresses, without parental permission, in violation of a federal…

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Far-right conspiracy theorists accused a 22-year-old Jewish man of being a neo-Nazi. Then Elon Musk got involved

Far-right conspiracy theorists accused a 22-year-old Jewish man of being a neo-Nazi. Then Elon Musk got involved

CNN reports: Ben Brody says his life was going fine. He had just finished college, stayed out of trouble, and was prepping for law school. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Elon Musk used his considerable social media clout to amplify an online mob’s misguided rants accusing the 22-year-old from California of being an undercover agent in a neo-Nazi group. The claim, Brody told CNN, was as bizarre as it was baseless. But the fact he bore a vague resemblance to…

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Advertisers flee X as outcry over Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic post grows

Advertisers flee X as outcry over Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic post grows

The New York Times reports: The blowback over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X gathered steam on Friday, as several major advertisers on his social media platform cut off their spending after his comments. Disney said it was pausing spending on X, as did Lionsgate, the entertainment and film distribution company. Apple, which spends tens of millions of dollars a year on X, also suspended advertising on the platform, a person with knowledge of the situation…

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Another day, another antisemitic conspiracy theory for Elon Musk and X

Another day, another antisemitic conspiracy theory for Elon Musk and X

Vanity Fair reports: The wealthiest man in the world is spreading the same antisemitic conspiracy theory a mass shooter in 2018 referenced to justify the slaughter of 11 worshippers at a Pennsylvania synagogue. On Wednesday, Elon Musk endorsed a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, accusing Jewish communities of “pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post went on to claim that “Western…

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