Monthly Archives: April 2019

Last week, the major online platforms have published their monthly report on the EU Code of Practice against disinformation.

Elections coming, ads leaving; It’s Mueller’s time!; Hoaxes around the Lady of Paris.

On May 28-29 in Brussels, join the community working against disinformation: case studies, civil society initiatives and tools will be presented. Pre-registrations for EU Disinfolab conference are open. Take a look at the updated agenda.

They don’t stop to intervene

Recently, media channels have reported numerous cases when foreign entities have tried to influence internal policies in the context of elections. For instance, Alyza Sebenius has revealed how Russian internet trolls appear to be shifting strategy in their efforts to disrupt the 2020 U.S. elections or influence the upcoming elections in Finland. In the context of the presidential elections in Israel, Twitter has also suspended dozens of Hebrew-language accounts run by a strange Chinese religious sect. Even though the Communications Security Establishment’s Report did not refer to any specific threat from Russia, Foreign Minister of Canada has recently expressed her concerns about possible Russian meddling in this October’s elections. Lastly, a BBC investigation has revealed that at least six candidates were offered money by Russians in the lead up to last year’s presidential elections in Madagascar.

UK news

While negotiating the new Brexit deadline which is now set for Halloween 2019, the UK Government Communication Service has published guidance for government departments to tackle disinformation. Nowadays, governments communications troops need to be well equipped for battle in the escalating disinformation war. After the UK government has released the Online Harms White Paper last week, The Guardian has published a critical opinion of six civil liberties organisations’ representatives explaining how the UK White paper would make China’s state censors proud and would give the UK the widest and most prolific internet censorship in an apparently functional democracy.

You can be better, better 

Facebook is taking actions to manage problematic content across the Facebook family of apps. The platform has also announced sweeping changes to its anti-misinformation policies. This includes reducing the reach of groups that repeatedly spread misinformation, exploring the use of crowdsourcing to determine which news outlets users trust most and adding new indicators to Messenger, groups and News Feed to inform users about the content they’re seeing. Meanwhile, in his recent article, Henk van Ess from Bellingcat explains how you can verify content on Instagram using 10 specific tools.

EU elections news and fact checks of the week

• Data Analyst Luca Hammer has started a continuous Twitter thread about the upcoming EUelections.
• The news site called V4NA was registered in London in December 2018, by the director of Duna TV, which is a Hungarian media channel close to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. 
• With the EU elections approaching, right-wing populists are being offered help from Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. In filmmaker Alison Klayman’s ‘The Brink’, viewers will follow Bannon through the 2018 midterm elections in the US, and how he mobilizes far-right parties in order to win seats in the May 2019 European Parliamentary elections.
• FactCheckEU has explained false claims about the deployment of soldiers during French Yellow Vests protests.
• EUFactCheck has proven right the news that Britain began issuing passports without the words “European Union” on the cover.

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• Blogger Wishcrys has traced the forms and mechanics of K-pop fan labour involved in generating or refuting misinforming content online.
• WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was arrested last Thursday, almost seven years after he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
• For the first time since 1848, Switzerland’s Supreme Court has ordered a revote in a referendum. Country’s highest court has explained that voters were informed erroneously by the Federal Council before voting on different points and that the revote was a necessity.
• To reduce the number of its old stories that get recirculated as new, The Guardian is making a story’s age more prominent, both to readers and to those who might only see a link on social media without clicking through.

Calendar and announcements 

• The Bad News Game is now live in 13 different languages, and most of them have junior versions.
• 17 April – EU DisinfoLab Webinar on Rating Sources to Understand Disinformation with Global Disinformation Index. The link to the video conference can be found here.
• 28-29 May @ Brussels: The program of the Annual EU DisinfoLab Conference has been updated. Check it out here and don’t forget to pre-register.
• 6-7 June @ Brussels: Annual Conference on European Media Law 2019.
• 19-20 June @ UNESCO Headquarters in Paris: 63rd meeting of the International Programme for the Development of Communication.
• 2-6 September @ Paphos, Cyprus: International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Please find the Call for Papers and Participation for the “Workshop on Challenging Misinformation: Exploring the Limits and Approaches”.

See all past and upcoming events in our agenda

On May 28-29 in Brussels, join the community working against disinformation: case studies, civil society initiatives and tools will be presented. Pre-registrations for EU Disinfolab conference are open. Take a look at the agenda.

En Marche Disinformation: when karma fights back

Last week, French newspaper Le Monde revealed that the communications team of “En Marche”,in close coordination with former Emmanuel Macron advisor Ismaël Emelien,used anonymous accounts to share false claims and manipulated videos to protect French President’s security officer Alexandre Benalla. The latter has been accused (among other things) to beat up demonstrators in Paris in May 2018. Ismaël Emelien justified these actions on TV by saying “you know, on Twitter, it’s the rule”. Eventually, En Marche and the President’s team used similar disinformation techniques to the ones they usually criticise. This story is inconsistent with the strategy of the French government, which pushed for the implementation of the new law against manipulated information during elections period.

French Government vs. Twitter

Last week, Twitter blocked the online campaign (#Ouijevote) of French government inciting people to vote in the upcoming European elections. According to the platform, this was not in compliance with both French law on disinformation adopted in December 2018 (which requires online political campaigns to disclose who paid for them and the amount spent), and Twitter’s own terms and conditions. Few days later, after meeting with government representatives, the social media platform announced being ready to authorise online campaigns encouraging participation in elections in France. It is also important to note that the targeting criteria for this campaign have not been disclosed.

The UK regulating social media platforms

The long awaited “Online Harms White Paper” released today by the British government wants the UK to be the safest place to go online. In the framework of the new legislative proposal, a consultation has been launched to gather views on various aspects of the government’s plans for tackling online harms. The new regulation describes a set of online harms and defines a duty of care that internet companies must provide, together with a code of best practices. Moreover, the plan argues that the regulator should have the power to demand information about the impact of algorithms in selecting content for users. The Webinar of EU DisinfoLab with Facebook Tracking Exposed initiative has well developed the logic behind the personalisation of Facebook algorithms. 

EU elections news and fact checks of the week

• Representation of the European Commission in France has started its new initiative ‘Les Décodeurs de l’Europe’, aiming to answer false claims made against the European institutions and regulations. On his Twitter account, journalist Samuel Laurent from Le Monde argues thatcommunications departments shouldn’t try to replicate journalism.
• In his interview with the French newspaper, Le Monde, the head of cybersecurity at Facebook said he has detected no suspicious activity related to the European elections in May.
• FactCheck EU has proven wrong the recent statement of Georgios Tsaousis to Sputnik that  Berlin will send at least 50,000 foreigners back to Greece in 2020.
• EU FactCheck has proven wrong the assumption that the Dutch have become considerably richer since the euro entered into circulation while Belgians have become poorer.

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• In the footsteps of Facebook personalisation algorithms: Summary article of the Webinar with Facebook Tracking Exposed is now available. 
• Facebook will soon introduce a new feature enabling its users to understand the reason behind the promoted posts and advertising campaigns.
• A report prepared for the European Commission by three Special Advisers on the future challenges of digitisation for competition policy, suggests how future tech deals might face greater scrutiny, for example by requiring dominant players to ensure data interoperability.
• According to a fact-checking website Poynter, misinformation is making people more violent, nevertheless, tech platforms don’t plan to prevent the worst.
• Research experts from the University of Southern California and the public-interest advocacy group Upturn have shown how Facebook delivers certain ads in a way that aligns with race and gender stereotypes.
• According to a recent analysis of The Guardian, pro-Brexit advertising posts on Facebook were overseen by Sir Lynton Crosby’s lobbying company. It is to note that Sir Crosby is an Australian political strategist who helped to run the last four Conservative general election campaigns.

Calendar and announcements

• 17 April – EU DisinfoLab Webinar: Rating Sources to Understand Disinformation with Global Disinformation Index. The link to join the video conference can be found here.
• 2-6 September @ Paphos, Cyprus: International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Please find the Call for Papers and Participation for the “Workshop on Challenging Misinformation: Exploring the Limits and Approaches”.
• 6-7 June @ Brussels: Annual Conference on European Media Law 2019.
• 19-20 June @ UNESCO Headquarters in Paris: 63rd meeting of the International Program for the Development of communication.

On May 28-29 in Brussels, join the community working against disinformation: case studies, civil society initiatives and tools will be presented. Pre-registrations for EU Disinfolab conference are open. Take a look at the agenda.

Don’t Put In, Put Out Please

Ukrainians, being confronted with Russian interference in domestic politics, have recently received a fake email about the election rules that was sent on behalf of Ukraine’s Minister of Interior. According to the Oxford Internet Institute, Ukraine may be home to “the most globally advanced case of computational propaganda.” In addition, Philip N. Howard in the New York Times has shown how in 2016 Russian ads target extreme right-wing voters in the US and encourage to put all ads in an accessible ad archive.

Should governments have more control on Facebook?

Following the statement of Mark Zuckerberg published in the USA, Germany, Ireland and France, governments should have a more active role in controlling content on social media and the internet. In his recent opinion in Washington Post, CEO of Facebook has stated: “Deciding whether an ad is political isn’t always straightforward. Our systems would be more effective if regulation created common standards for verifying political actors.” Specific attention in terms of regulation should be paid to harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability. The firm’s founder and chief executive warned that any advertising not properly registered will be blocked from mid-April.

Money is not enough

The European Commission has more than doubled its spending to 5 million euros to counter Russian interference and is enlarging its staff of analysts dedicated to tracking disinformation. However, according to the opinion of the editorial team of Bloomberg this is far from being enough, and “EU governments should engage citizens and deploy firm legal diplomatic countermeasures to clearly answer to the Russian disinformation strategy.”

EU fact checks of the week

• How the biggest collaboration between European fact checkers really works.
• The FactCheckEU initiative has proven wrong the statement of Lithuanian prime minister who claimed his country had no political contacts with Russia and Belarus.
• The EU FactCheck initiative has examined national, EU laws and regulations to determine the possibility for a judge to candidate for European elections, as it is the case in Croatia.

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• Podcast: Alina Polyakova explains social media manipulation and IT as a tool for authoritarian regimes to control political debate at home and disrupt democracy abroad.
• Google is launching an innovative tool: Real-time Content Insights. Focusing on telling publishers what’s happening on their site at this moment, RCI helps them identify trending news stories that could attract more readers.
• Mozilla and a cohort of 10 independent researchers have published five guidelines for an effective ad archive API — and more transparent elections.
• Facebook has updated its ad repository in Europe. Its weekly report is published in the USA, the UK and India only. 
• Digital Forensic Research Lab has detailed the key findings around the recent Iranian propaganda on Facebook.
• A report of the Reuters Institute’s Dr Richard Fletcher and Dr Joy Jenkins made for the European Parliament sees little evidence that the news media is responsible for polarisation. It also finds that social media can expose users to a wider range of viewpoints.

Calendar and announcements

• 17 April – EU DisinfoLab Webinar on Rating Sources to Understand Disinformation with Global Disinformation Index. The link to the video conference can be found here.
• 2 April is the International Fact Checking Day.
• 3-7 April @ Perugia, Italy: International Journalism Festival.
• A new groundbreaking digital literacy project called MediaWise will teach 1 million teenagers — half from undeserved communities — how to sort fact from fiction online by 2020.
• The shortlist for the European Press Prize 2019 is now available.
• 2-6 September @ Paphos, Cyprus: International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Please find the Call for Papers and Participation for the “Workshop on Challenging Misinformation: Exploring the Limits and Approaches”.