In the war on disinformation, the enemy can be hard to determine. Journalists, politicians, governments, and even grandparents have been accused of enabling the spread of online falsehoods. While none of these groups is entirely innocent, the real adversary is more mundane.
“The Ugly American,” the title of a novel published in 1958 by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer, entered the language to refer to boorish American officials abroad who sought to improve the lives of natives without taking the trouble to learn their language, culture, or needs. A long line of ugly Americans, mostly politicians and government officials from both parties, have believed that applying simple formulas based on idealised versions of US institutions – democracy, markets, a
Facebook was hit Monday by scathing reports from at least a dozen United States (US) news outlets based on internal documents, just hours before the company was to release its earnings report.The social media giant has faced a storm of criticism after former employee Frances Haugen leaked internal studies showing the company knew of potential harm stoked by its sites, prompting US lawmakers to renew a push for regulation.Reports Monday blamed CEO Mark Zuckerberg for the platform bending to st
Facebook's plan to hire professional journalists instead of relying solely on algorithms to deliver news is a positive step but is unlikely to shake up an embattled media industry, analysts say.The social media giant said Tuesday it would build a small team of journalists to select the top national news of the day "to ensure we're highlighting the right stories."It comes as the US media landscape is plagued by job losses and newspaper closures, with organizations trying to
Facebook, Inc.
This week saw Mark Zuckerberg face a two-day congressional-hearing convened by the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees. The hearing was given the title “Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data”.Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing came about after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a U.K. based data analytics and political consulting firm that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had obtained data of millions of Facebook users.
After an investigation by Facebook last year, it was found that Russian operatives spent US$100,000 on ads with “divisive messages” during the election campaign season in the United States (US). These “divisive messages” are thought to be fake news used to influence the American electorate.
