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+4 +1
Source credibility is key to derailing fake news
Fake news is a threat to American democratic institutions, whether through online election interference or, in extreme cases, inciting violence. It also can destroy a person’s reputation and career. Social media companies are spending huge amounts of money to combat the problem but with little success.
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+29 +1
Put Another Zero on Facebook’s Fine. Then We Can Talk.
How can I describe the fine of between $3 billion and $5 billion that Facebook is likely to pay to the Federal Trade Commission — which will doubtlessly be touted as its largest ever — to settle the government’s inquiry into what the social networking giant called “our platform and user data practices”? How about: It’s a parking ticket. Not a speeding ticket. Not a DUI — or a DUI(P), data under the influence of Putin. A parking ticket.
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+29 +1
Baby boomers share nearly 7 times as many 'fake news' articles on Facebook as adults under 30, new study finds
A recently published study found that Facebook users over 65 years old were far more likely than other adults to share disinformation on social media. Researchers at both Princeton and New York University concluded that though the practice of spreading so-called fake news was rare overall, a person's likelihood of sharing it correlated more strongly with age than it did education, sex, or political views.
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+24 +1
Facebook will limit reach of groups that share misinformation
Updates to groups, the News Feed, and Messenger are meant to reduce harmful content.
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+5 +1
Old, Online, And Fed On Lies: How An Aging Population Will Reshape The Internet
It’s late morning and roughly 25 senior citizens are learning how to talk to Siri. They pick up their iPads and press the home button, and pings echo around the room as Siri asks what she can do to help. “Siri, what’s the closest coffee shop?” one woman asks. “Sorry I’m having trouble with the connection, please try again?” Siri says.
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+14 +1
Republicans launch propaganda sites designed to look like local news outlets
An investigation by the fact-checking outlet Snopes found that several new local news websites are actually being launched by Republican consultants whose company is funded in part by the candidates the sites cover. Politico first reported last year that Tea Party-linked conservative activists Michael Patrick Leahy, Steve Gill and Christina Botteri were behind the "Tennessee Star,” a website that purported to be a local news website but mostly posted content licensed from groups linked to big Republican donors.
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+11 +1
Fake news sites are simply changing their domain name to get around Facebook fact-checkers
Facebook has been cracking down on the fake news that gets shared on its platform. One problem: one of the biggest fake news websites has found a workaround. In order to avoid Facebook’s fact checking system, the site formerly known as YourNewsWire, one of the most well-known purveyors of fake news online, has simply rebranded. The site now goes by News Punch and posts fake news content similar to what it published under their former name, according to a report by Poynter.
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+12 +1
Want to squelch fake news? Let the readers take charge
Would you like to rid the internet of false political news stories and misinformation? Then consider using — yes — crowdsourcing. That’s right. A new study co-authored by an MIT professor shows that crowdsourced judgments about the quality of news sources may effectively marginalize false news stories and other kinds of online misinformation.
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+16 +1
Majority of Americans were not exposed to ‘fake news’ in 2016 U.S. election, Twitter study suggests
In the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a website calling itself “WTO5 News” posted the headline “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president.” Pope Francis never made such an endorsement, but that didn’t stop the story from being shared, liked, or commented on nearly 1 million times on social media. Another site, the “Denver Guardian,” posted a story titled “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apparent murder suicide” the day before the election. Social media users engaged in some way with that story more than half a million times.
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+16 +1
Microsoft's mobile Edge browser begins issuing fake news warnings
The NewsGuard tool was previously only available as a desktop plug-in.
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+32 +1
In the Fake News Era, Native Ads Are Muddying the Waters
Research at Boston University revealed that most people can’t tell sponsored content apart from actual news articles.
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+20 +1
'We live in an Idiocracy': How lies become truth in online America
The only light in the house came from the glow of three computer monitors, and Christopher Blair, 46, sat down at a keyboard and started to type. His wife had left for work and his children were on their way to school, but waiting online was his other community, an unreality where nothing was exactly as it seemed. He logged onto his website and began to invent his first news story of the day.
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+20 +1
Meet the man who makes fake news for millions of Trump supporters
Christopher Blair runs a parody website designed to fool conservative Americans with fake news stories
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+14 +1
Reddit co-founder: Policing fake news will never be done
Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of Reddit and Initialized Capital, talks to CNN's Samuel Burke about concerns facing the tech industry - including sexual harassment, hate speech and gender equality.
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+29 +1
Don’t Want to Fall for Fake News? Don’t Be Lazy
An MIT professor argues that misinformation boils down to one simple thing: mental laziness, exacerbated by social media.
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+11 +1
Spotting Disinformation Online Before the Midterm Elections
Rumors. Inflammatory and divisive messages. Doctored photos. Kevin Roose, technology columnist, explains how he has waded into that shadowy world to write about it.
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+27 +1
Psychologists discover what type of person is most likely to believe fake news
Researchers identified two styles of thought which affected the likelihood of someone believing fake news.
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+20 +1
Study uncovers how echo chambers provide the initial fuel for misinformation to go viral
New research sheds light on how the structure of online social networks causes misinformation to go viral on the internet. The findings, published in PLOS One, indicate that social “echo chambers” act like kindling that gives misinformation the initial flare up it needs to quickly spread. “While the link between ‘echo chambers’ and ‘fake news’ has been both widely discussed and been the subject of significant research effort, this discussion has largely left out the impact of the complex network dynamics that are so quintessential to online social media,” said study author Petter Törnberg, a sociologist from the University of Amsterdam.
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+9 +1
Saudi Media Are Promoting A Ludicrous “Fake Fiancé” Conspiracy Theory About Missing Journalist Jamal Khashoggi
Amid international outrage over Saudi Arabia’s role in the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi media outlets are spreading a ludicrous conspiracy theory that Khashoggi has a “fake fiancé.” This appears to be an attempt to discredit accusations from Turkish and American intelligence sources that he was killed after visiting the Saudi Consulate in Turkey.
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+22 +1
AI catches fake news by gauging the accuracy of its source
You wouldn't have to check on a story-by-story basis.
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