Tag: social media

Google’s New Patent: Using Machine Learning to Identify “Misinformation” on Social Media

Google has filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for a tool that would use machine learning (ML, a subset of AI) to detect what Google decides to consider as “misinformation” on social media.

Google already uses elements of AI in its algorithms, programmed to automate censorship on its massive platforms, and this document indicates one specific path the company intends to take going forward.

The patent’s general purpose is to identify information operations (IO) and then the system is supposed to “predict” if there is “misinformation” in there.

Judging by the explanation Google attached to the filing, it at first looks like blames its own existence for proliferation of “misinformation” – the text states that information operations campaigns are cheap and widely used because it is easy to make their messaging viral thanks to “amplification incentivized by social media platforms.”

But it seems that Google is developing the tool with other platforms in mind.

The tech giant specifically states that others (mentioning X, Facebook, and LinkedIn by name in the filing) could make the system train their own “different prediction models.”

Machine learning itself depends on algorithms being fed a large amount of data, and there are two types of it – “supervised” and “unsupervised,” where the latter works by providing an algorithm with huge datasets (such as images, or in this case, language), and asking it to “learn” to identify what it is it’s “looking” at.

(Reinforcement learning is a part of the process – in essence, the algorithm gets trained to become increasingly efficient in detecting whatever those who create the system are looking for.)

The ultimate goal here would highly likely be for Google to make its “misinformation detection,” i.e., censorship more efficient while targeting a specific type of data.

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Substackers Battle Over Banning Nazis

Once again, we’re debating about “platforming Nazis,” following the publication of an article in The Atlantic titled “Substack Has a Nazi Problem” and a campaign by some Substack writers to see some offensive accounts given the boot. And once again, the side calling for more content suppression is short-sighted and wrong. 

This is far from the first time we’ve been here. It seems every big social media platform has been pressured to ban bigoted or otherwise offensive accounts. And Substack—everyone’s favorite platform for pretending like it’s 2005 and we’re all bloggers again—has already come under fire multiple times for its moderation policies (or lack thereof).

Substack differs from blogging systems of yore in some key ways: It’s set up primarily for emailed content (largely newsletters but also podcasts and videos), it has paid some writers directly at times, and it provides an easy way for any creator to monetize content by soliciting fees directly from their audience rather than running ads. But it’s similar to predecessors like WordPress and Blogger in some key ways, also—and more similar to such platforms than to social media sites such as Instagram or X (formerly Twitter). For instance, unlike on algorithm-driven social media platforms, Substack readers opt into receiving posts from specific creators, are guaranteed to get emailed those posts, and will not receive random content to which they didn’t subscribe.

Substack is also similar to old-school blogging platforms in that it’s less heavy-handed with moderation. On the likes of Facebook, X, and other social media platforms, there are tons of rules about what kinds of things you are and aren’t allowed to post and elaborate systems for reporting and moderating possibly verboten content. 

Substack has some rules, but they’re pretty broad—nothing illegal, no inciting violence, no plagiarism, no spam, and no porn (nonpornographic nudity is OK, however).

Substack’s somewhat more laissez faire attitude toward moderation irks people who think every tech company should be in the business of deciding which viewpoints are worth hearing, which businesses should exist, and which groups should be allowed to speak online. To this censorial crew, tech companies shouldn’t be neutral providers of services like web hosting, newsletter management, or payment processing. Rather, they must evaluate the moral worth of every single customer or user and deny services to those found lacking.

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EU Hits Musk With X Probe On Possible ‘Disinformation’

European Commissioner Thierry Breton announced an investigation into Elon Musk’s ‘free speech’ social media platform X for failure to combat ‘illicit content and disinformation.’ This is the first major probe the EU has opened up on X since last year’s passing of a new law called the “Digital Services Act.” 

“Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X” under the Digital Services Act, European Commissioner Breton wrote in a post on Monday morning on X. 

“The Commission will now investigate X’s systems and policies related to certain suspected infringements,” spokesman Johannes Bahrke told reporters in Brussels, adding, “It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation.”

The investigation is centered on whether X failed to stop the spread of ‘illegal content’ (in other words, non-approved government narratives) and whether the Community Notes feature is enough to combat “information manipulation.” 

An investigation into X’s business practices was signaled by the EU as early as October, following the Israel-Gaza conflict in which officials warned that “terrorist and violent content and hate speech” was spreading on the social media platform. 

“The time of big online platforms behaving like they are ‘too big to care’ has come to an end,” Breton stated. 

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Deepfake Society: 74% of Americans Can’t Tell What’s Real or Fake Online Anymore

Americans believe only 37 percent of the content they see on social media is “real,” or free of edits, filters, and Photoshop. Between AI and “deepfake” videos — a survey of 2,000 adults split evenly by generation reveals that almost three-quarters (74%) can’t even tell what’s real or fake anymore.

Americans are wary of both targeted ads (14%) and influencer content (18%), but a little more than half (52%) find themselves equally likely to question the legitimacy of either one. This goes beyond social media and what’s happening online. The survey finds that while 41 percent have more difficulty determining if an item they’re looking to purchase online is “real” or “a dupe,” another 36 percent find shopping in person to be just as challenging.

While the average respondent will spend about 15 minutes determining if an item is “real,” meaning a genuine model or a knockoff, millennials take it a step further and will spend upwards of 20 minutes trying to decide.

Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of De Beers Group, results reveal that Americans already own a plethora of both real and fake products.

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Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey Launches Official Investigation Into Media Matters

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has launched an investigation into Media Matters for America (“Media Matters”), a pro-censorship media monitoring organization, citing allegations of potentially unlawful business practices. The focus of the probe revolves around Media Matters’ strategies in targeting advertisers on social media platforms and their approach to content aimed at impacting various businesses and organizations.

Key areas of the investigation include the preservation of internal communications related to strategies for targeting advertisers on X (formerly known as Twitter), interactions with major corporations like IBM, Lionsgate Entertainment, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Sony, Ubisoft, and Walmart, and communications with third parties about these subjects. The Attorney General’s office is also scrutinizing Media Matters’ internal policies and operations concerning the generation of content intended to “cancel,” “deplatform,” “demonetize,” or interfere with Missouri-based businesses or those utilized by Missouri residents.

The letter states: “As you are no doubt aware, a federal lawsuit has been filed against Media Matters, raising serious allegations that your firm falsely and deceptively manipulated the algorithm on X (formerly known as Twitter) through coordinated, inauthentic behavior and that you did so in an attempt to defame the organization and cause advertisers to pull their support from the platform, thus harming free speech.”

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Is TikTok brainwashing the kids about Gaza? No, this is just an old moral panic in a new form

In a famous two-frame meme from The Simpsons, Principal Skinner asks himself: “Am I so out of touch?” “No,” he decides, with resolve. “It’s the children who are wrong.” It’s the easiest thing, dismissing the views of young people when they question our beliefs. It’s even easier when those views are mainly expressed on a social media platform that can also be dismissed as a lawless land of misinformation and clickbaiting. And so as Palestine- and Gaza-related content explodes on TikTok, predictable responses have arrived, and some have been pretty out there.

The Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley called for the banning of TikTok altogether when she said in a primary campaign debate last week that “for every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok, every day they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that”. Last month, a Republican congressman said that TikTok was “digital fentanyl”, brainwashing young Americans against their country and its allies. Over at the Telegraph, we are told that the app’s “threat is real”.

TikTok responded by stating that it’s just how the algorithm works. It does not “take sides” but simply personalises the user’s news feed to show more of the kind of content they interact with. And as Israel, Palestine and Gaza began to dominate the news cycle, users naturally began to search and consume more content relating to them. That has resulted in a whole churn of videos. Some informative, such as Gaza map breakdowns; some poorly sourced and propagandistic on both sides; and some competitively supportive of one party or another. Within those interactions, there are nuances, such as breakdown of support by location and age profile. The overall picture, though, shows a much higher appetite for content that is supportive of Palestine; views attached to pro-Palestine hashtags vastly outnumber those such as #istandwithisrael.

Dismissing this as “brainwashing” is to write off not only millions of young people, but also an entire social media development that is not just a fad, but a new way of consuming news and information. TikTok is the most downloaded app for 18- to 24-year-olds, and the way they use the platform to navigate their daily lives means it is no longer just for viral dance videos, but increasingly a search engine that users turn to instead of Google. Instagram has evolved in the same way. Prabhakar Raghavan, a Google senior vice president, in an acknowledgment of the encroachment of these apps on Google’s territory, said that according to Google’s own studies, “almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram”.

Ignoring these developments also assumes that all information on TikTok is bad, self-generated and highly manipulable garbage. The reality is that news reports about Gaza from mainstream media are frequently clipped and circulated on TikTok, extending their window of relevance and consumption. Over the past few days the most-watched clip on CNN’s TikTok account, which has more than 3 million followers, is one of its news anchor Jake Tapper taking Mark Regev, senior adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, to task over the killing of the family of one of CNN’s producers in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes. On the Guardian’s TikTok account, the most-watched video of the past six weeks, with more than 7m views, is of a protester interrupting the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and calling for a ceasefire.

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Al Gore Says People Having Access to Non-Mainstream Information ‘Threatens Democracy’

Al Gore says that people having access to information outside of mainstream media sources is a threat to “democracy” and that social media algorithms “ought to be banned.”

Yes, really.

Gore made the comments during an appearance at the Cop28 climate change hysteria conference in Dubai.

Gore whined that social media had “disrupted the balances that used to exist that made representative democracy work much better.”

The former Vice President said that functioning democracy relied on a “shared base of knowledge that serves as a basis for reasoning together collectively” but that “social media that is dominated by algorithms” upsets this balance.

According to Gore, people are being pulled down “rabbit holes” by algorithms that are “the digital equivalent of AR-15s – they ought to be banned, they really ought to be banned!”

Gore claimed, “It’s an abuse of the public forum” and that people were being sucked into echo chambers.

“If you spend too much time in the echo chamber, what’s weaponized is another form of AI, not artificial intelligence, artificial insanity! I’m serious!” he added.

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Democrats Demand Social Media Platforms Censor Abortion “Misinformation” With Direct Letters to Musk and Zuckerberg

House Democrats have issued a strong call to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, urging them to address what they call the widespread issue of abortion “misinformation” on their social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and X.

These concerns were expressed in two letters from the House Oversight Committee.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The letters, spearheaded by Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the committee’s Ranking Member, request that Musk’s and Zuckerberg’s platforms urgently tackle the spread of false abortion information and provide Congress with briefings on this matter by December 14.

“Your company’s decision to keep these posts visible seems at odds with your Terms of Service that allow you to remove unlawful conduct on your platform,” the letter states. “Even more concerning is your company’s apparent double-standard when it comes to removing posts that you label ‘abortion advocacy’ or posts that offer legitimate medical and logistical advice for someone considering abortion, while allowing crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion advocates to spread false and misleading information regarding abortion.”

The committee, in its letters, highlights the nature of the allegedly misleading medical information and false content about abortion that is proliferating, especially on the platforms managed by Musk and Zuckerberg. This alleged misinformation, according to the committee, can lead to people doubting their healthcare providers and even their own judgment, posing significant health and safety risks.

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Report: Insider Blows the Whistle on ‘Cyber Threat Intelligence League’ Domestic Censorship Program

A whistleblower has reportedly brought to light startling revelations about the Pentagon’s involvement in a domestic censorship program, as detailed in newly disclosed files from the Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL).

Public reports that according to a whistleblower’s files, the Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL), previously thought to be an independent entity, was heavily influenced by government and military personnel. This involvement is far more extensive than previously known, as evidenced by Slack messages and other internal communications.

The CTIL Slack channels, specifically those tagged for “disinformation” and “law enforcement escalation,” reportedly included current and former FBI employees, Michigan Cyber Command Center personnel, members of the US Defense Digital Service (DDS), and representatives from at least one European government. The DDS, headquartered at the Pentagon and established in 2015, has been particularly highlighted for its role in these operations.

According to Public, the latest whistleblower files from CTIL reveal that the organization worked with both governments and social media companies to censor Americans:

The new whistleblower’s files provide insight into the group’s inner workings, which Terp described as a “parallel effort.” Neither we nor the whistleblower know what the “parallel effort” refers to.

In these new files, Eric Brogdon, a cybersecurity director for a private firm, and others appear to have attempted to interfere with physical gatherings, with Brogdon implying that he had the ability to get social media users suspended. When one member shared news about a call for anti-lockdown protests, Brogdon responded, “Let me see if I can get the Facebook user suspended.”

This is the second report on CTIL published by Public. As Breitbart News previously reported:

The CTIL documents fill gaps left by previous disclosures, painting a detailed portrait of the so-called “Censorship Industrial Complex.” This network, comprising over 100 government agencies and NGOs, has been instrumental in pushing for censorship on social media platforms and spreading targeted propaganda. The documents include detailed accounts of digital censorship programs, military and intelligence community involvement, partnerships with civil society organizations and media, and the deployment of covert techniques like sock puppet accounts.

The whistleblower’s revelations highlight the pivotal role of CTIL in the creation and expansion of the Censorship Industrial Complex. Spearheaded by Sara-Jayne “SJ” Terp, a former UK defense researcher, and others, CTIL developed a comprehensive censorship framework in 2019. This framework was later adopted by various governmental and non-governmental organizations, including DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The Department of Defense, in a public statement, mentioned the merging of DDS with other agencies into the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) in 2022. They claimed CDAO currently has no involvement with CTIL activities, nor awareness of past projects that predate the merger.

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Documents Show DHS Agency “Real-Time Narrative Tracking” of Social Media Posts in 2020

Judicial Watch has come forward with newly acquired evidence of an intriguing alliance during the US 2020 election. The investigative body was able to obtain, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit, a series of records demonstrating a comprehensive synergy between the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and a controversial entity, the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP).

These files reveal a concerted effort to execute “real-time narrative tracking” on principal social media networks during the critical days leading up to the 2020 election. Interestingly, these records illustrate instances of social media post “takedowns” and an intentional avoidance of creating public records that would be subject to the FOIA process.

These records also allow us a peek into the operations of EIP. Originally known as the Election Misinformation Partnership, it invested in monitoring online election discourse round the clock, especially prioritizing “disinformation that is going viral.”

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