Tag: Facebook
His approach to political speech has come under fire in recent weeksScoop: Mark Zuckerberg met Trump during visit to D.C.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held an unannounced meeting with President Trump during his visit to Washington on Thursday, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: With Facebook under pressure from regulators and lawmakers on privacy and other issues, Zuckerberg turned to personal diplomacy with the president on his first visit to D.C. since he testified before Congress last April. Zuckerberg also ate dinner with a group of senators on Wednesday and held a number of meetings on Capitol Hill.
View the complete September 19 article by Mike Allen on the Axios website here.
Facebook tightens rules for U.S. political advertisers ahead of 2020 election
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc is tightening its political ad rules in the United States, it said on Wednesday, requiring new disclosures for its site and photo-sharing platform Instagram ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November 2020.
The social media giant is introducing a “confirmed organization” label for U.S. political advertisers who show government-issued credentials to demonstrate their legitimacy.
All advertisers running ads on politics or social issues will also have to post their contact information, even if they are not seeking the official label.
View the complete August 28 article by Elizabeth Culliford on the Reuters website here.
Disinformation moves from fringe sites to Facebook, YouTube
Report: Extremists promoting conspiracies are using same tactics as foreign actors
Lawmakers and regulators focusing their attention on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for the platforms’ role in propagating disinformation may be missing a big chunk of other online sites and portals that drive conspiracies and outright falsehoods, according to a nonprofit group that is studying how disinformation works.
Sites and discussion portals such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit and Gab, as well as smaller social media sites such as Pinterest and even payment sites such as PayPal and GoFundMe, and online retailers such as Amazon and others are all part of a large online ecosystem that helps domestic and foreign agents shape disinformation and launch adversarial campaigns, the Global Disinformation Index said in a reportreleased last week.
The group is funded by USAID, the United Kingdom, and philanthropic entities.
View the complete August 8 article by Gopal Ratnam on The Roll Call website here.
Facebook’s role in Brexit — and the treat to democracy
Facebook reveals evidence to Congress of new disinformation campaign ahead of midterm elections
The following article by Ali Breland was posted on the Hill website July 31, 2018:
Facebook has revealed a new coordinated disinformation campaign ahead of November’s elections that used dozens of fake accounts and pages on its platform.
The company said it has removed 32 pages and accounts across Facebook and Instagram involved in “inauthentic behavior” after discovering them last week.
It has briefed lawmakers on its discoveries and has been working with the FBI on the matter since discovering the accounts last week.
Minnesota’s Clark, Castile cases were used in Russian-made Facebook posts
The following article by Libor Jany and Matt DeLong was posted on the StarTribune website May 14, 2018:
Campaign used police shootings of Castile, Clark to deepen Minnesota’s racial divide.
Thousands of newly disclosed fake Facebook posts and ads show for the first time how Russia’s campaign to influence the 2016 election directly targeted Minnesotans with divisive, racially charged messages.
Among the scores of often incendiary ads released last week by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, about a dozen referenced Minnesota events, including the police shootings of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile, a Star Tribune analysis shows. Dozens more mentioned controversies elsewhere, but were funneled to Facebook users in Minnesota.
The ads appeared to be part of what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as a sophisticated Russian campaign meant to use the social media giant’s platforms to sow discord in the lead-up to the 2016 election. Continue reading “Minnesota’s Clark, Castile cases were used in Russian-made Facebook posts”
The Cybersecurity 202: The Facebook ad dump shows the true sophistication of Russia’s influence operation
The following article by Derek Hawkins was posted on the Washington Post website May 11, 2018:
The massive trove of Facebook ads House Intelligence Committee Democrats released Tuesday provides a stunning look into the true sophistication of the Russian government’s digital operations during the presidential election.
We’ve already heard a lot from the U.S. intelligence community about the hacking operation Russian intelligence services carried out against Democratic party computer networks to influence the election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump.
But this is the first time we have a swath of empirical and visual evidence of Russia’s disinformation campaign, in the form of more than 3,000 incredibly specific and inflammatory ads purchased by an Internet troll farm sponsored by the Kremlin. Continue reading “The Cybersecurity 202: The Facebook ad dump shows the true sophistication of Russia’s influence operation”
‘Pro-Beyoncé’ vs. ‘Anti-Beyoncé’: 3,500 Facebook ads show the scale of Russian manipulation
The following article by Tony Romm was posted on the Washington Post website May 10, 2018:
Russian-backed Facebook ads sought to influence the American democratic process from abroad. (Joyce Koh, Deirdra O’Regan/The Washington Post)
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released about 3,500 Facebook adspurchased by Russian agents around the 2016 presidential election on issues from immigration to gun control, a reminder of the complexity of the manipulation that Facebook is trying to contain ahead of the midterm elections.
The ads, from mid-2015 to mid-2017, illustrate the extent to which Kremlin-aligned forces sought to stoke social, cultural and political unrest on one of the Web’s most powerful platforms. With the help of Facebook’s targeting tools, they delivered their disinformation to narrow categories of users – from black or gay users to fans of Fox News. Continue reading “‘Pro-Beyoncé’ vs. ‘Anti-Beyoncé’: 3,500 Facebook ads show the scale of Russian manipulation”
A data mining company allegedly used Facebook to distort users’ reality
The following article by Tracey Lien was posted on the Los Angeles Times website March 20, 2018:
Many Facebook users rely on the social network to figure out what’s going on in the world. But what if the world Facebook shows them is wildly distorted?
That’s the question raised after a former employee of a data mining firm that worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign alleged the company used Facebook to bombard specific individuals with misinformation in hopes of swaying their political views.
The accusations raised alarm across the Atlantic on Monday, sparking an investigation into the firm, Cambridge Analytica, by the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office. In the U.S., Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter asking Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg whether the social media giant was aware of other data violations on its platform, and why it failed to take action sooner. Continue reading “A data mining company allegedly used Facebook to distort users’ reality”