Oops I did it again!
New York Times revealed how Facebook, when trying to fight through the crisis, hired a public affairs company missioned to write articles criticizing tech competitors while downplaying the impact of Russia’s misinformation campaign on the platform, and pushing the idea that George Soros was behind a growing anti-Facebook movement. Facebook replied to inaccuracies in a blogpost and President of Open Society Foundation, Patrick Gaspard, addressed a letter to Mark Zuckerberg. As scandals accumulate on Facebook, disinformation researchers, just as citizens start to get out of patience says Nina Jancowicz.
A Message from Paris
Last week was a busy week in Paris. The city was hosting the internet governance forum (IGF), organised by the United Nations. This year, the information disorders issues took a significant part in the debate on media and content. We can only welcome the fact that overall, all debates promoted an active multi-stakeholder collaboration in this field. In the meantime was held the Paris peace forum, a new annual event that gathers all actors of global governance. On that occasion , 7 heads of State (among them Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron) signed an opinion committing to support Reporters Without Borders work of the International Information and Democracy Commission.
Fake can kill
Disinformation can fuel ethnic violence. After information shared on Whatsapp have caused lynching in India (read here the summary of our last webinar about disinformation in India), incendiary images shared on Facebook have contributed to ethnic violence in Plateau state in Nigeria. Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners in the country have committed just four full-time fact checkers to review false information, on a platform used by 24 million Nigerians. Read the very well documented story on BBC news. Similar issue was raised at IGF by journalist Ishara Danasekar in Sri Lanka.
Library
What to read, watch and listen to this week:
- Operation Infektion: from Cold War to Kanye, a three-part video series on the history of Russian disinformation in America.
- Beyond fake news: watch BBC stories of fake news around the world.
- How misinformation spreads: Zig-zag podcast on disinformation featuring Knight Foundations report on misinformation spread during and since 2016 and CIVIL use of Blockchain for journalists.
- Governance Innovation for a Connected World: Protecting Free Expression, Diversity and Civic Engagement in the Global Digital Ecosystem special report by the Center for Internet Governance and Innovation.
Agenda
- November 29 @ Berlin – Digitaler Salon: Alles nur gefakt? Organised by Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
- 11 January @ Paris – News, Representations of Reality and Intermediality. One-day conference at University of Paris Diderot
- 25 February @ London – Launch of the LSE Truth, Trust and Technology Commission report, part of the “New World (Dis)Orders” series, held in the run up to the LSE Festival, a week-long series of events taking place from 25 February to 2 March 2018
- 2-4 May @ Alberta – Workshop on Data Mining for Fake news in Social Media: Propagation, Detection, and Mitigation. You can submit your papers until February 1, 2019.
- The issue of disinformation from Russia is due to be on the agenda of the EU summit in Brussels on December 13-14.
