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Category: Social media

Trump’s Truth Social is now a public company. Experts warn its multibillion-dollar valuation defies logic

Trump’s Truth Social is now a public company. Experts warn its multibillion-dollar valuation defies logic

CNN reports: For the first time in almost 30 years, part of Donald Trump’s business empire has gone public. Trading started with a bang, but the frenzy eased considerably by the closing bell, with shares ending well off their highs of the day. Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of struggling social media platform Truth Social, began its long-delayed journey as a public company at Tuesday’s opening bell under the ticker symbol “DJT.” The stock surged about 56% at…

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How Trump’s allies are winning the war over disinformation

How Trump’s allies are winning the war over disinformation

The New York Times reports: In the wake of the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, a groundswell built in Washington to rein in the onslaught of lies that had fueled the assault on the peaceful transfer of power. Social media companies suspended Donald J. Trump, then the president, and many of his allies from the platforms they had used to spread misinformation about his defeat and whip up the attempt to overturn it. The Biden administration, Democrats…

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The West is still oblivious to Russia’s information war

The West is still oblivious to Russia’s information war

Ian Garner writes: A few weeks ago, a Russian autocrat addressed millions of Western citizens in a propaganda event that would have been unthinkable a generation ago—yet is so normal today as to be almost unremarkable. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin has now been viewed more than 120 million times on YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter. Despite the tedium of Putin’s two-hour-long lecture about an imaginary Russian and Ukrainian history, the streaming and promotion of…

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Russia is on a quest to divide U.S. voters. This time it’s immigration

Russia is on a quest to divide U.S. voters. This time it’s immigration

The Associated Press reports: For Vladimir Putin, victory in Ukraine may run through Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. In recent weeks, Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about United States immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Mr. Putin looks to…

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Online images may be turning back the clock on gender bias, research finds

Online images may be turning back the clock on gender bias, research finds

Berkeley Haas: A paper just published in the journal Nature finds that online images show stronger gender biases than online texts. Researchers also found that bias is more psychologically potent in visual form than in writing. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, and research has shown that the human brain does indeed better retain information from images than from text. These days, we are taking in more visual content than ever as we peruse picture-packed…

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Kremlin runs disinformation campaign to undermine Zelensky, documents show

Kremlin runs disinformation campaign to undermine Zelensky, documents show

The Washington Post reports: When news first emerged last month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was preparing to fire his top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, officials in Moscow seemed jubilant. They had been trying to orchestrate just such a split for many months, documents show. “We need to strengthen the conflict between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, along the lines of ‘he intends to fire him,’” one Kremlin political strategist wrote a year ago, after a meeting of senior Russian officials…

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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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