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misinfo

10 21  disambig from disinfo mostly putin foreign vs domestic lies purposely for $ (or political gain/brand building?)

10 22 drilled panel  media pollution --> brain pollution

Deepfake Warren Buffett is selling bitcoin scams to TikTok users | Media Matters for America

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok

11 22

tikTok, known in China as Douyin (Chinese: 抖音; pinyin: Dǒuyīn), is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese company ByteDance.[2] It hosts a variety of short-form user videos, from genres like pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, dance, and entertainment[3][4] with durations from 15 seconds to ten minutes.[5][6][7][8] TikTok is an international version of Douyin, which was originally released in the Chinese market in September 2016.[9] TikTok was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of mainland China; however, it became available worldwide only after merging with another Chinese social media service, Musical.ly, on 2 August 2018.

TikTok and Douyin have almost the same user interface but no access to each other's content. Their servers are each based in the market where the respective app is available.[10] The two products are similar, but their features are not identical. Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people's faces for more videos of them and other features such as buying, booking hotels and making geo-tagged reviews.[11] Since their launch in 2016, TikTok and Douyin rapidly gained popularity in virtually all parts of the world.[12][13] TikTok surpassed 2 billion mobile downloads worldwide in October 2020.[14][15][16]

Morning Consult ranked TikTok as the third fastest growing brand of 2020, after only Zoom and Peacock.[17] Cloudflare ranked TikTok as the most popular website of 2021, surpassing Google.[18]

TikTok has been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction, as well as controversies over inappropriate content, misinformation, censorship and moderation, and user privacy.

History

Evolution

Douyin was launched by ByteDance in Beijing, China in September 2016, originally under the name A.me, before rebranding to Douyin (抖音) in December 2016.[19][20] ByteDance planned on Douyin expanding overseas. The founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, stated that "China is home to only one-fifth of Internet users globally. If we don’t expand on a global scale, we are bound to lose to peers eyeing the four-fifths. So, going global is a must."[21] Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.[22][23]

The app was launched as TikTok in the international market in September 2017.[24] On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked first among free application downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries.[25]

TikTok has been downloaded more than 130 million times in the United States and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide,[26][27] according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower (those numbers exclude Android users in China).[28]

In the United States, celebrities, including Jimmy Fallon and Tony Hawk, began using the app in 2018.[29][30] Other celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Will Smith, and Justin Bieber joined TikTok as well and many other celebrities have followed.[31]

On 3 September 2019, TikTok and the U.S. National Football League (NFL) announced a multi-year partnership.[32] The agreement occurred just two days before the NFL's 100th season kick-off at Soldier Field, where TikTok hosted activities for fans in honor of the deal. The partnership entails the launch of an official NFL TikTok account, which is to bring about new marketing opportunities such as sponsored videos and hashtag challenges. In July 2020, TikTok, excluding Douyin, reported close to 800 million monthly active users worldwide after less than four years of existence.[33]

In May 2021, TikTok appointed Shou Zi Chew as their new CEO[34] who assumed the position from interim CEO Vanessa Pappas, following the resignation of Kevin A. Mayer on 27 August 2020.[35][36][37] On 3 August 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok in the United States on 15 September if negotiations for the company to be bought by Microsoft or a different "very American" company failed.[38] On 6 August, Trump signed two executive orders banning U.S. "transactions" with TikTok and WeChat to its respective parent companies ByteDance and Tencent, set to take effect 45 days after the signing.[39] A planned ban of the app on 20 September 2020[40][41] was postponed by a week and then blocked by a federal judge.[42][43][44][45] President Biden revoked the ban in a new executive order in June 2021.[46] The app has been banned by the government of India since June 2020 along with 223 other Chinese apps in view of privacy concerns.[47] Pakistan banned TikTok citing "immoral" and "indecent" videos on 9 October 2020 but reversed its ban ten days later.[48][49][50] In March 2021, a Pakistani court ordered a new TikTok ban due to complaints over "indecent" content.

In September 2021, TikTok reported that it had reached 1 billion users.[51] In 2021, TikTok earned $4 billion in advertising revenue.[52]

In October 2022, TikTok was reported to be planning an expansion into the ecommerce market in the US, following the launch of TikTok Shop in the United Kingdom. The company posted job listings for staff for a series of order fulfillment centers in the US and is reportedly planning to start the new live shopping business before the end of the year.[53]

...

https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/misinformation-about-midterm-elections-already-flourishing-tiktok

https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/go-woke-go-broke-right-wing-media-call-boycotting-paypal-over-proposed-misinformation

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-considers-eliminating-its-covid-19-misinformation-policies-even-dangerous-content

an 6 22 pro publ

The dummied-up flyer bore the hallmarks of a real WANTED poster. A grainy photo of a woman outside an election office in the suburbs of Atlanta stamped with the word “WANTED.” An image of a sheriff’s badge and the phone number for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office. The implication was clear: The woman was being sought by the local sheriff for voter fraud.

The flyer was fake, and though the sheriff’s office eventually called it out, the false poster went viral, amassing tens of thousands of shares, views and threatening comments on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok and raising fears that harm could come to the unidentified woman.

Stolen-election activists and supporters of former President Donald Trump have embraced a new tactic in their ongoing campaign to unearth supposed proof of fraud in the 2020 presidential race: chasing down a fictional breed of fraudster known as a “ballot mule” and using social media to do it.

Inspired by a conservative documentary film that has won praise from Trump and his allies — and debunking from critics including former Attorney General William Barr — self-styled citizen sleuths are posting and sharing photos of unnamed individuals and accusing them of election crimes. They are calling on their followers to help identify these “ballot mules,” who are accused of having violated laws against dropping off multiple absentee ballots during the 2020 election. A state lawmaker in Arizona has even encouraged people to act as “vigilantes” and catch future “mules.”

Promoting such false information violates the policies of Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. Facebook’s “Community Standards” says its policy is to remove content that incites harassment or violence or impersonates government officials. Twitter and TikTok have similar rules and guidelines for what can and can’t appear on their platforms.

ProPublica identified at least a dozen additional posts on Twitter, Facebook and TikTok that accuse unnamed individuals of being “ballot mules” and engaging in allegedly illegal activity. Some of these posts echo the “WANTED”-style language seen in the Gwinnett County meme, while others include similar calls to action to identify the individuals.

None of the posts reviewed by ProPublica include evidence that any of the people depicted in the posters engaged in illegal activity. Yet the social media companies have reacted slowly or not at all to such posts, some of which clearly violate their policies, experts say.

Disinformation researchers from the nonpartisan clean-government nonprofitCommon Causealerted Facebook and Twitter that the platforms were allowing users to post such incendiary claims in May. Not only did the claims lack evidence that crimes had been committed, but experts worry that poll workers, volunteers and regular voters could face unwarranted harassment or physical harm if they are wrongfully accused of illegal election activity.

So far, there is no sign that any of the people depicted have been identified or suffered any threats.

Emma Steiner, a disinformation analyst with Common Cause who sent warnings to the social-media companies, says the lack of action suggests that tech companies relaxed their efforts to police election-related threats ahead of the 2022 midterms.

“This is the new playbook, and I’m worried that platforms are not prepared to deal with this tactic that encourages dangerous behavior,” Steiner said.

Spokespeople for Facebook and TikTok said they would remove posts flagged by ProPublica for violating their respective community standards policies. A Twitter spokesperson did not comment.

Thirty-one states allow a third party to collect and return an absentee ormail-in balloton behalf of another voter. These laws help voters who are disabled or infirm, live in spread-out rural areas or reside on tribal lands with limited access to polling places or ballot drop boxes. In states with a history of absentee voting, both Democratic and Republican operatives have engaged in organized ballot-collection drives.

Critics, labeling the practice “ballot harvesting,” have sought to restrict its use, warning about the potential for fraud. However, incidents of proven fraud related to ballot collection are extremely rare. A database maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation identifies just 238 cases of “fraudulent use of absentee ballots” since 1988. One high-profile case of fraud involving absentee ballots occurred in a 2018 North Carolina congressional race. A Republican operativeengaged in a ballot-tampering scheme involving hundreds of ballots. The state election board later threw out the election result and ordered a redo. It was likely the first federal election overturned due to fraud, according to historians and election-law experts.

The phrases “ballot mules” and “ballot trafficking” — with their intentional echoes of the language of drugs and cartels — started to gain traction online in 2021, according to Mike Caulfield, a misinformation researcher at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. An analysis by Caulfield and his colleagues found that prominent Republicans including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel invoked “ballot trafficking” last spring.

But it wasn’t until conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza and a discredited conservative group called True the Vote last fall began to tease findings that would later appear in D’Souza’s movie “2000 Mules” that uses of “ballot trafficking” and “ballot mules” shot up, according to Caulfield’s research.

The “2000 Mules” film claims that a network of thousands of people illegally stuffed ballot boxes in swing states to steal the presidency for Joe Biden. It draws heavily on the work of True the Vote, which purported to use surveillance footage and geolocation data to make its claims of illegal ballot activity.

Numerous fact-checks of the film have cast serious doubt over its central premise. In a deposition with the Jan. 6 select committee, Barr said he found the conclusions of “2000 Mules” far from convincing. “My opinion then and my opinion now,” he said, “is that the election was not stolen by fraud, and I haven’t seen anything since the election that changes my mind on that, including the ‘2000 Mules’ movie.”

D’Souza and True the Vote did not respond to requests for comment.

Despite its flimsy conclusions, “2000 Mules” found an enthusiastic audience in Trump and his supporters. In early May, Trump screened the film at his Mar-a-Lago private club. The film has since earned nearly $1.5 million at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo. In a recent 12-page letter responding to the public hearings organized by the Jan. 6 select committee, Trump cited “2000 Mules” nearly 20 times.

As the film’s dubious claims have spread online, stolen-election activists are creating and sharing online content purporting to reveal more “mules” and accusing those individuals of illegal behavior without actual evidence of wrongdoing.

The most striking example is the meme that depicts an older white woman leaving a ballot drop box in Georgia’s suburban Gwinnett County. The word “WANTED” appears above her head as does the image of a sheriff’s badge labeled “Gwinnett County” and the sheriff office’s phone number.

“Ballot mule,” the meme says. “If you can ID her, call Gwinnett Co. sheriff’s office.”

A spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office says the meme is fake. The sheriff’s office hasn’t received calls purporting to identify the woman. The spokeswoman said that the office was investigating who created the meme.

ProPublica was unable to identify the woman in the “WANTED” meme. A spokesman for the Gwinnett County elections office confirmed that the name tag worn by the woman in the meme matched those worn by county election workers in 2020. He also verified that the drop box in the video was located outside of the county’s election headquarters.

The origins of the woman’s photo in the “WANTED” meme appear to point back to a Georgia businessman and self-described election-fraud investigator named David Cross.

For months Cross has posted short clips of surveillance footage showing people depositing ballots at drop boxes in Gwinnett County. Cross sometimes narrates these videos and makes unverified accusations of illegal ballot harvesting. In a clip that Cross posted online on May 3, an older white woman — the same woman in the “WANTED” meme — deposits multiple ballots into the drop box outside the headquarters for Gwinnett County’s elections office. In his narration, Cross accuses the woman of depositing as many as 35 ballots, though it’s not at all clear from the video exactly how many ballots the woman deposited. “Totally illegal,” he says in the video. (Cross did not respond to requests for comment.)

Georgia law prohibits many third parties from submitting a ballot that’s not their own. However, the law makes exceptions for caregivers for the elderly and the disabled, immediate family members, members of the same household, in-laws, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and more.

Cross, the Georgia activist, has filed complaints with the State Election Board and secretary of state’s office alleging illegal ballot deliveries and citing his surveillance footage clips. Last month, the State Election Board dismissed three complaints alleging “ballot harvesting” after an investigation by the secretary of state’s office found that the alleged “mules” were voters dropping off ballots for themselves and family members.

A spokesman for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told ProPublica that the office has a pending investigation into the woman in the “WANTED” meme. The spokesman, Walter Jones, stressed that no one should assume that an individual shown in a video delivering multiple ballots is automatically guilty of a crime, nor would the ballots in question be invalidated even if someone had violated the state’s ballot-collection law.

The video published by Cross of the woman at the Gwinnett County drop box spread rapidly online. Twitter users accused the woman of being one of the “2000 mules” and urged their followers to “MAKE HER FAMOUS!” — in other words, reveal her identity and share it widely.

One Twitter user shared the woman’s image with the “WANTED” text and the fake Gwinnett County sheriff’s badge. “Once we find out who paid these people the whole story will become clear,” the account wrote. That tweet amassed more than 9,000 retweets and more than 14,000 likes before Twitter removed it.

The “WANTED” post spread across Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. A Facebook group called “Celebrities for Trump” shared it. “We need more if [sic] these,” the post said, referring to the WANTED sign. “Keep your eyes open. Report them all it is a crime.”

Several days after the “WANTED” flyer surfaced and reached a large audience, the Gwinnett County sheriff stated that the post was “false.” Yet despite the post impersonating a law-enforcement agency, social-media companies have been slow to remove it.

While Twitter removed dozens of posts with the “WANTED” sign, ProPublica was able to find instances of it still on the platform.

Disinformation researchers tell ProPublica that they also identified posts accusing people of being ballot mules in other states with laws that restrict third parties from submitting people’s ballots. “Mule right here in PA,” one TikTok post read. “Make this Upper Dublin resident famous #2000Mules #2000MulesDocumentary #2000MulesTheMovie.”

In Arizona, a Republican state senator named Kelly Townsend has encouraged people to camp out at ballot drop boxes and write down license plate numbers of people deemed to be suspicious. “I have been so pleased to hear of all you vigilantes that want to camp out at these drop boxes,” Townsend recently said. “So, do it. Do it.”

Even if “2000 Mules” were accurate — which experts stress it almost certainly is not — the ballot-trafficking theory put forward by the film would not change the result of any election. Rick Hasen, a professor and election-law expert at the University of California, Irvine, says he believes the rigged-election message in “2000 Mules” is just the latest attempt to more broadly lay the groundwork for challenging and overturning the outcome of a future election.

“If you believe the last election was stolen, you’re going to be more likely to take steps to steal the next one back,” Hasen said. “It’s pretty obvious that what’s going on here is using false claims of fraud as a potential pretext to engage in election subversion in 2024 or another future election. That’s very dangerous for American democracy.”

david mamet get off my lawn sez attempt at office of disinfo was accidentally honest = red meat trumpista demoniz of dems

an 6 22

When the COVID-19 pandemic was at its worst in 2020 and 2021, a combination of far-right conspiracy theorists, Christian nationalists and so-called “wellness influencers” added to the death count by pushing bogus, unscientific “cures” and falsely claiming that the lifesaving vaccines being offered by Moderna, Pfizer and others were dangerous. But COVID-19, although still highly infectious, hasn’t been in the headlines as much in recent months — and some fake “wellness influencers” and conspiracy theorists, according to Daily Beast reporter Cécile Simmons, have turned their attention to monkeypox.

“Though little is understood about the mysterious outbreaks of the monkeypox virus in Europe and North America,” Simmons reports in an article published by the Beast on June 15, “scientists agree on one thing: It’s nothing like COVID. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped some influencers in the alternative health and wellness community from repurposing COVID misinformation and using this new public health crisis to further their own agendas.”

Simmons adds, “In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, alt-health and wellness online influencers — from yoga teachers to fitness instructors — became some of the most active propagators of conspiracy theories about COVID-19. With cases now on the decline in much of the West — thanks in no small part to widespread vaccination campaigns — monkeypox has provided new material to rehash the narratives that brought these influencers attention in the early days of COVID, including claims that monkeypox is a plot engineered by global elites to profit from diseases and restrict individual freedoms.”

One of the conspiracy theorists who promoted dangerously false information about COVID-19 during the worst parts of the pandemic was anti-vaxxer Sayer Ji,founder of the alternative medicine website GreenMedInfo.com. In 2022, Simmons reports, Ji has turned his attention to monkeypox.

“Sayer Ji has dedicated his social media channels to making repeated unproven claims about nightmarish vaccine side effects, including death, and that COVID vaccination is a plot masterminded by big pharma and ‘the global government,’” Simmons explains. “And now, with monkeypox on the rise, Sayer Ji has taken to his Telegram channel and Twitter to spread ludicrous claims that monkeypox is the mainstream media’s way of covering up side-effects caused by COVID vaccines to his roughly 50,000 and 11.5k followers, respectively. His Telegram channel includes multiple posts claiming that cases of monkeypox have coincided with the purchase of vaccines by the U.S., among other bizarre theories.”

Another “wellness” influencer/conspiracy theorist pushing wacky claims about monkeypox is Hiighhopess,who, according to Simmons, “recently used her Instagram stories to describe monkeypox as a profiteering ploy manufactured by Bill Gates, and shared claims that the U.S. government is stockpiling vaccines and planning to impose vaccination against monkeypox.”

During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Simmons notes, Hiighhopess, an anti-vaxxer, “used her Instagram channel to share anti-vaccine and anti-mask content, including posts depicting vaccination as a plot by elites to manipulate the public into submission.”

“This repurposing of the COVID playbook by alternative health and wellness gurus should come as no surprise,” Simmons observes. “COVID has provided a blueprint for conspiracy theories, allowing influencers to develop broad-ranging anti-elite and anti-institutional narratives that can be adapted to emerging public health crises.It has also allowed conspiracy-spreaders to use various techniques, including decontextualizing scientific data and cherry-picking facts to give themselves a veneer of credibility.”

posted on realclear investigations oct 2021

https://www.axios.com/googles-climate-denial-crackdown-misinformation-e0925b26-76ff-4c1d-8b11-c498cc8527d9.html

interesting this is axios, good news [for planet anyway] tho they think it will be read as big tech censorship?!

google's new policy of demonetizing climate denial content marks a significant step in its efforts to rein in climate misinformation.

Why it matters: Videos promoting clear falsehoods about the existence of global warming or its causes have long found a home on YouTube, which Google owns.

Driving the news: The company's announcement Thursday that the new policy takes effect Nov. 1, during the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, could cool the political polarization around climate in the U.S.

How it works: Per a Google statement, the policy affects the monetization of "content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."

Our thought bubble, from Axios' Scott Rosenberg: Facebook and Google have both faced censorship accusations from conservatives who object to measures that have sought to limit misinformation on COVID, elections and other topics.

Between the lines: The policy also brings Google's ad revenue strategy more in line with its sustainability agenda.

What's next: The policy will immediately be put to the test with COP26 taking place.

What we're watching: Whether Google's move boosts pressure on Facebook to modify its efforts to limit climate misinformation.

From the IPCC to the SOTU, people are picking up on climate disinformation

Published on March 3rd, 2022

TAGGED: CLIMATE, DISINFORMATION, IPCC, SOTU

Climate misinformation is having a moment! With an ample selection of news stories deserving attention, you might have to look pretty closely to notice. But hey, that’s what we’re here for, right? Because tucked into the latest IPCC report are a few key mentions of climate misinformation. Flipping through to page 2,515, Section 14.3 covers the “perception of climate change hazards, risks and adaptation in North America,” describing how the “consensus that mean global temperature has increased and human activity is a major cause” is “the context for public policy action.”

[tom toles climate change denial fire]

(Cartoon by Tom Toles from the Washington Post – get his book on climate change co-written with Dr Michael Mann, The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy)]

By Climate Denier Roundup

But “despite expert scientific consensus,” there is still “ongoing debate… in the public and policy domains,” because “rhetoric and misinformation on climate change and the deliberate undermining of science have contributed to misperceptions of the scientific consensus.”

And though the report doesn’t use the word “disinformation,” and doesn’t go quite as far as it could to “name names” as Simon Lewis told DeSmog. But it does address it, describing how “vested economic and political interests have organized and financed misinformation and ‘contrarian’ climate change communication.” (If the misinformation is deliberately “organized and financed” by “vested economic and political interests,” then it’s not false content innocently and unknowingly shared as misinfo, it’s intentionally deceptive disinformation!)

As Geoffrey Supran told press, “these two paragraphs in the latest IPCC report are significant because they are the first-of-their-kind, finally throwing the weight of the global scientific community behind the mountain of social science scholarship on climate obstructionism.”

In past reports, “the history of climate disinformation, lobbying, and propaganda by fossil fuel interests has been consistently ignored,” Supran explained.

That’s why the WGII report, meant to summarize the latest climate science, dips back all the way to the mid-00’s when referencing studies about, the report states, how “the journalistic norm of ‘balance’ (giving equal weight to climate scientists and contrarians in climate change reporting) biases coverage by unevenly amplifying certain messages that are not supported by science, contributing to politicization of science, spreading misinformation, and reducing public consensus on action.”

These days the problem is more social media than legitimate outlets, and more up-to-date studies reflect that, the report finds: “Much online social media discussion of climate change … takes place in ‘echo chambers’’ – a social network amongst like-minded people in communities dominated by a single view that contributes to polarization (Williams et al., 2015; Pearce et al., 2019), and the spread of misinformation (Treen et al., 2020).”

The IPCC report’s inclusion of misinformation is important, Supran said, “because the IPCC reports are the most visible climate reports in the world. They frame the climate problem, its significance, and its solutions for the public and policymakers worldwide.”

And indeed, as international negotiators and scientists were in the home stretch of finalizing the Summary for Policymakers for the report (which didn’t happen to fit misinformation into its 36 page summary of the 3,675 page full report) some policymakers in the White House were getting a misinformation briefing of their own.

According to an official press release, the “2-hour virtual roundtable” brought together “White House leaders and 17 scientists and communications experts” in order “to discuss the scientific understanding of why arguments for delaying action on climate change are appealing and how they can be countered effectively.”

Among the participants was Naomi Oreskes, whose studies the IPCC referenced. According to the readout, she noted that extreme weather “made worse by climate change” is making it harder and harder to deny the reality of the climate crisis. “People may say ‘let’s wait and see.’ The truth is, we have waited, and we have seen.”

To put it in decidedly less White House-appropriate terms, thanks to Big Oil’s disinformation, we’ve spent decades fucking around. And now, the latest IPCC report makes clear, we’re finding out.

(Originally appeared at DailyKos)

good pt hard to filter deplat if no text 20 intimacy --> trust

algo boost?

an 1 22

Rogan's controversial interview with anti-vaccination virologist Dr. Robert Malone caused such an uproar that more than scientists, doctors, and other health professionals signed an open letter to Spotify as a petition for his podcast to be removed from the platform.

While Rogan's spread of misinformation is quite alarming, a new analysis published by NPR's Shannon Bond explains how the controversy surrounding his situation underscores a bigger problem; one that appears to be a bit more difficult to regulate. In the open letter, health professionals and members of the scientific community argue that online platforms like Spotify have enabled right-wing figures who have become adept at spreading misinformation.

"We are in a global health emergency, and streaming platforms like Spotify that provide content to the public have a responsibility not to add to the problem," said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Public Health.

"Their friends and family were sending it to them as evidence that the vaccines are dangerous and that they shouldn't get it," she said. "It provides a sense of false balance, like there's two sides to the scientific evidence when, really, there is not. The overwhelming evidence is that the vaccines are safe and that they're effective."

Researchers specializing in the study of misinformation have suggested that it was inevitable for podcasts to become a point of contention. Like social media platforms, Bond notes that podcasts give individuals the ability to reach build large audiences. But despite the long reach, podcasts have not faced the type of scrutiny social media platforms have. So, why is that? Podcasts give influencers the ability to spread misinformation by way of audio.

Evelyn Douek, a research fellow for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, explained why podcasts are far more difficult to regulate as it becomes a matter of words compared to audio.

"Wherever you have users generating content, you're going to have all of the same content moderation issues and controversies that you have in any other space," said Douek.

According to Bond, Douek also noted that "it's also harder to ferret out falsehoods and hate speech in podcasts compared with posts written on Facebook and Twitter."

Valerie Wirtschafter, a senior data analyst at the Brookings Institution, also weighed in with a similar perspective noting the distinction of audio and the potential problem it poses in the podcast world. "Audio can be a powerful way to spread misinformation because of all the qualities that make the format so compelling to listeners," said Wirtschafter.

Wirtschafter also stressed the importance of scrutinizing audio in the same manner written social media posts are.

an 1 22  https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/gretchen-carlson/

no lnx vid

Watch: Former Fox News anchor explains how network's viewers have been brainwashed into believing conspiracy theories

Meaghan Ellis January 28, 2022

Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson offered a damning assessment of the network as she explained just how bad its spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation has become.

During an appearance on the CNN segment, "Democracy in Peril," Carlson discussed many aspects of Fox News' critical role in the spread of misinformation and falsehoods. Since former President Donald Trump took office, conspiracy theories have been on the rise and Fox News has become a driving force for it.

Conservative primetime news anchor Tucker Carlson has been at the center of misinformation and the power of his opinion has begun to influence Republican members of Congress.

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“This is the result of fake news,” Carlson said. “You know, we're seeing not only the fallout from fake news during the Trump era, but what happened with the insurrection on January 6th. Now it's moving into other areas. Not just news, now it’s hitting science with vaccines, and now it’s into Cold War politics.”

Carlson also touched on another significant topic as she shed light on the actions of herformer Fox News colleagues, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. While they reportedly sent pleas to the White House for the violence to stop on Jan. 6, they still put up a united front on-air and circulated a completely different narrative about the series of events that unfolded.

“I think the bigger story coming out of that is how disingenuous it was to be sending those texts of warning while then going on the air to the American people and doing a complete injustice and disservice by saying something completely opposite,” Carlson said, “and ginning up this whole reaction that it was just fine and patriotic for people to be there on January 6th.”

She went on to express concern about the journalistic state of her former network since the rise of Trump. Carlson also noted how conspiracy theories have become a fallacious replacement for opinion.

“Slowly but surely, this has morphed into eradicating any other point of view since the Trump era that is not just opinion,” Carlson said. “It's gone from an opinion, which was fine, to completely devolving into non-fact-based conspiracy theories and outright dangerous rhetoric, in my mind, and I think it’s a complete disservice to our country.”

Noting the dangers of biased journalism, Carlson explained how dangerous it is to only get information from one news source. She also stressed how imperative it is for Republican leaders and lawmakers to use their platforms to offer clarity regarding some of the dangerous false narratives perpetuated by Fox News.

“For the safety of the Republican Party and for our democracy, I wish more would, because this is not going to end well, in my mind,” Carlson said. “It's really hard to change people's opinions because they're only watching what they want to hear, you know? And that's the other problem that we have in society with the media right now, is that we're so siloed into only watching what we agree with. And so every day that thought process just gets reinforced time after time.”

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Carlson also conceded that conservative media has changed considerably over the last five years as there is no longer a clear line between opinion and conspiracy theory. “Conservative television news is certainly not the conservative news that was out there even just five years ago,” Carlson said, later adding, “There’s a big difference between having a conservative opinion and having one that supports conspiracy theories.”

...Tenpenny has been added to the Center for Countering Digital Hate's infamous**"disinformation dozen**," a group described as "12 people it said were responsible for spreading a majority of anti-vaxxer falsehoods on Facebook."

ref report

https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.filesusr.com/ugd/f4d9b9_750e5af82aea4920a270b1c5a8b094c2.pdf

no lnx

KEY FINDINGS

Analysis of a sample of anti-vaxx content that was shared or posted on Facebook and

Twitter showed up to 65% of anti-vaccine content can be traced to the leading online

anti-vaxxers, who we label the Disinformation Dozen.

? Individuals were selected based upon their high social media followings and high

volume production of anti-vaccine content.

? Our sample of anti-vaccine content was shared or posted onFacebook or Twitter a

total of 812,000 times between February 1 and March 16 2021, with 65% of that

sample attributable to the Disinformation Dozen.

? In the last two months, our analysis of anti-vaxx content posted or shared to

Facebook 689,000 times shows that up to 73% of that content originates from

the leading anti-vaxxers included in this report.

? Analysis of 120,000 anti-vaccine tweets and shares during this period finds that

up to 17% feature the Disinformation Dozen.

Deplatforming repeat offenders is the most effective way of stopping the proliferation of

dangerous misinformation.

?The Disinformation Dozen -- including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joseph Mercola, and

Ty and Charlene Bollinger, among others -- continually violate the terms of service

agreements on Facebook and Twitter. While some anti-vaxxers identified by

CCDH have been removed from a single platform, comprehensive action has yet to

be taken, and most remain active on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

? CCDH’s ongoing tracking of 425 anti-vaxx accounts finds that the total following

across platforms reached 59.2 million in December 2020, an increase of 877,000

since June

https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen

Misinformation and disinformation' have caused COVID-19 infections to 'soar' in Alaska: Emergency room doctor

Alex Henderson

October 28, 2021

At least 75% of U.S.-based adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have been either partially or fully vaccinated for COVID-19. But in Alaska, the Mayo Clinic reports, the number is only 59...

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