Newsletter 24 - EU DisinfoLab

Midterm fakes

Midterms polarized results mirror a polarized debate between democrats and republicans, with rumours of fraud and voters suppression spread by both camps. But that was not the only disinformation, the New York Times called on its readers to share examples of election-related misinformation. In all, more than 4,000 examples of misinformation were submitted. Some were even spread by candidates themselves, as the “jobs not mobs” slogan, which started out as a meme, then turned into a political slogan.

More tapas?

Spain and Russia have agreed on a disinformation forum to tackle fake-news in Catalonia.

Web Summit: the internet father and the sons of anarchy

Last week, the tech community held its major world conference: The Web Summit. Father of the internet Tim Berners-Lee announced a “contract for the web”, setting ethical standards around privacy and open access to the internet. Speaking of ethics, European commissioner Vera Jourova suggested an Hippocrat oath for tech designers in order to put an end to “the online anarchy around elections”. As they feel the change coming, big techs seem to have joined the advocacy for regulation, yet Mark Scott from Politico warns politicians not to get fooled…

Metadata crafts

MIT technology review present two startups using algorithms to track when images are edited, from the moment they’re taken. Typically, pictures online contain metadata that can be manipulated. Data & Society Research Affiliate Amelia Acker’s analyzes how bad actors manipulate metadata to create effective disinformation campaigns, and provides tips for researchers and technology companies trying to spot this “data craft.” Meanwhile, InVid image fact-checking plug-in is now used by 7000 people.

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To read this week:
Reporters without borders published its “International Declaration on Information and Democracy,” which establishes democratic guarantees for the global information and communication space.
“Belief in Fake News is Associated with Delusionality, Dogmatism, Religious Fundamentalism, and Reduced Analytic Thinking” in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
UNDP published the first publicly available study that analyses how social media is used by al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and ISIL to contribute to radicalisation in seven African countries.

Mark your calendar

– November 12 @ Paris — Hackathon : Relever les défis des troubles informationnels à l’ère numérique
– November 29 @ Pullman Riga Oldtown — “Disinformation and Fake news challenge to democracy” event hosted by civil society organisation “ManaBalss”, part of a EC supported project “Smart eDemocracy Against Fake News (SMARTeD)”
– December 3 @ Berlin — News Impact Summit with @GoogleNewsInit — December 6 @ Oxford — Book launch: Journalism, ‘Fake News’ & Disinformation

Facebook is paying the bill

Following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook has been fined £500,000 by UK’s data protection watchdog and European Parliament urges for the ban of targeted political advertising on Facebook to restrict the diffusion of false political information during the upcoming European elections. Under such scrutiny, Facebook has announced it will be downranking stories with false headlines. The new rating comes after several other recent changes to Facebook’s fact-checking project. Timely, former UK prime minister Nick Clegg, just has been appointed head of the global affairs and communications team. Hopefully, this appointment will ease relations between the social media platform and EU institutions. But on the eve of US mid-term elections, and as Facebook promised it would disclose the identity of whom political ads were paid by, Vice revealed it has easily managed to buy news on behalf of senators. Just when the company said last week it had removed 82 pages, accounts and groups linked to Iran that had targeted U.K. and U.S. users. Still a long way to go…

Brazil, India and Whatsapp

On 28/10/2018, Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil. As for most recent elections, false news was intensively spreading during the campaign. Different in Brazil was the massive spread of disinformation through Whatsapp. Alarmed, fact-checkers published an opinion in the New York Times which revealed the scale of the phenomenon. A similar situation on Whatsapp is happening in India. Viral misinformation has become a core problem on the platform, especially because misleading content is now shared virally through end-to-end encrypted solutions.

Join our next webinar on November 8. Govindraj Ethiraj, founder of fact-checking initiative BOOM will describe the disinformation landscape in India and how we can deal with fact-checking on Whatsapp.

From journalism to viruses

Did you ever wonder how journalists verify the truthfulness of eyewitness videos? The New York Times provides some insight on his eyewitness raw video verification process: a mix of traditional journalistic diligence and cutting-edge internet skills. Besides journalists, a new actor has entered the fight against disinformation. McAffee, the 30-year old company traditionally known for its anti-virus software, published an analysis of how cybersecurity breaches could contribute to disseminate false information during the US mid-term elections campaign.

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Some readings recommendations for your week

Human and digital rights organisations Access Now, Civil Liberties Union for Europe, and European Digital Rights (EDRi) joint report evaluating the European Commission’s online disinformation and propaganda initiatives. Main recommendations focuses on addressing the business model of online manipulation through appropriate data protection laws, preventing the misuse of personal data in elections and increasing media information and literacy.
Marten’s centre policy brief on political subversion in the age of social media: four areas of vulnerability are identified, namely individualized political messaging, group dynamics and political polarisation, platform algorithms and self-radicalisation, and falsehood dissemination dynamics. Read their 4 political recommendations
In a report from ISD and LSE institute of global affairs, investigated foreign attempts to influence the 2018 Swedish elections online. The project revealed the relative isolation of the
The European Political Strategy Center from the European Commission gathered a collection of think pieces from 35 leading practioners and experts on the topic “election interference in the digital age, building resilience to cyber enabled threats”.

Agenda

29/11 Riga: event hosted by civil society organisation “ManaBalss” and it is a part of a EC supported project “Smart eDemocracy Against Fake News (SMARTeD)”
November 29 @ Pullman Riga Oldtown — “Disinformation and Fake news challenge to democracy” event hosted by civil society organisation “ManaBalss”, part of a EC supported project “Smart eDemocracy Against Fake News (SMARTeD)””