Tag: Misinformation

Instagram now allows users to flag false content to stop misinformation

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Expanding its fact-checking programme, Facebook has started allowing Instagram users to flag false content on the photo-and video-sharing platform.

“I’m proud that, starting today, people can let us know if they see posts on Instagram they believe may be false. There’s still more to do to stop the spread of misinformation, more to come,” Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, said in a tweet on Thursday.

According to a report in Poynter.org, while the roll out of the feature has started in the US, it should be available for all international users in about two weeks.

Fact checkers will review the posts once users flag content as false.

But even if fact checkers flag those content as false, the posts would not be deleted from the platform, said the report.

Such posts will be downplayed on “explore” and “hashtag” pages, Stephanie Otway, an Instagram spokesperson, was quoted as saying.

To flag false misinformation, users will have to click the three-dot menu at the upper right corner of an Instagram post, and then select “it’s inappropriate” and “false information.”

Instagram will use those flags to get a better understanding of misinformation on the platform and to train its Artificial Intelligence to detect false content, Engadget reported.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Facebook hires State Department lawyer as general counsel amidst privacy concerns

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Facebook Inc. on Monday named the legal adviser to the US State Department as its general counsel, as the social media giant faces growing regulatory hurdles and privacy concerns.

Jennifer Newstead, who brings government and private sector experience to the role, will succeed Colin Stretch, who decided to quit the company in July 2018, Facebook said in a blog post.

Facebook has come under increasing pressure around the world to stop the spread of misinformation on its platform, while its ad practices have been in the spotlight for two years amid growing discontent over its approach to privacy and user data.

The social media company also named John Pinette as vice-president of global communications, succeeding Caryn Marooney, who decided to leave the company in February.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India needs human-centric AI to curb fake news

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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As social media giants fight to curb fake news ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, an Indian-origin tech junkie has stressed it is not enough as the nation needs better human-centric Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solutions to combat the spread of misinformation.

For Lyric Jain, a 22-year-old Cambridge and MIT graduate, social media platforms and other stakeholders, including the government, may design solutions to fight fake news but there will be glitches, as is with the case with any technology.

“India needs to prepare better as the stakes are high. Facebook is taking the problem of fake news seriously but there are many other digital platforms that aren’t working towards that direction,” Jain told IANS.

Conceived by Jain, Logically has been developed by a diverse team of data scientists, coders, designers and journalists.

Adding a layer of credibility to the Internet to battle misinformation, the Logically platform acts as a real-time, user-friendly filter, ensuring users can quickly consume information that is fair, authentic, credible and trusted (FACT).

“News isn’t just limited to media houses anymore. The idea is to create ‘responsible sharing’ among people,” said Jain.

“Logically will analyse whether the information is fake or not, even if the information is being provided by a well-known journalist from a credible publication,” he added.

When asked how the technology works, Jain replied: “It is a human-centric AI effort”.

“We analyse the content or text, check the metadata that is being mined and see how information is being circulated across networks.

“We then combine these indicators and conclude whether the news is credible or not. Also, our human fact-checking team complies with the international fact-checking standards,” Jain said, adding that it was the fake news and political interference debate around Brexit and the 2016 US Presidential elections that drove him to launch the Logically platform.

As the India elections inch closer, Jain said the platform will try its best to analyse the flow of information.

Logically taps deep learning algorithms and web graphs of millions of web sites from top publishers around the world to identify top quality sources for trending, quality news, per category, query, or article.

“Logically will look for information that is misleading, distorting or interfering with the elections,” he added.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Working ‘hard’ to expand team to fight misinformation: Twitter India

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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With Twitter finding itself in the midst of a controversy for not sending its CEO to appear before a parliamentary panel on Monday, the microblogging site has said that it is “working hard” to expand its team and resources to help tackle the spread of misinformation on its platform.

The response, which does not provide any clue about the team size it was expanding, comes in the backdrop of apprehensions that during the upcoming 2019 general elections bad actors could use social media platforms to spread propaganda and misinformation to influence voters.

Twitter was earlier accused by the government of being “slow” in removing “objectionable content” from its platform.

The Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology (IT) wants to question the Twitter CEO over measures taken to ensure the safety and security of the users and allegations that the social media site is discriminating against “nationalist” posts on its platform.

With the Twitter CEO not showing up for the meeting on Monday, the committee has again summoned Twitter’s CEO to appear before it on February 25.

“Attempts to deliberately undermine the public conversation by spreading misinformation at scale, is something we care deeply about at Twitter,” Twitter India said in a blog post on Monday.

“And while we are working hard to expand our team and resources to help tackle this issue, it is important that everyone builds their capacity in order to protect and enhance the public conversation,” it added.

Twitter said it entered into a partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on media literacy to help its users spot false information, and also reached out to 100,000 youth across the Asia Pacific region to engage them in a series of digital citizenship workshops, safety roundtables and panel discussions.

“In India, we launched the #EduTweet initiative in partnership with the School Leaders Network where we engaged 865 school leaders, educators and influencers from 2,700 schools across India on issues such as media literacy and the digital classroom,” Twitter India said.

“We also partnered with Responsible Netism (a non-profit start up) on their Cyber Psychology Conference which engaged schools across Maharashtra on online safety for children,” it added.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Dictionary.com chooses ‘misinformation’ as word of the year

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Misinformation, as opposed to disinformation, is Dictionary.com’s word of the year. It comes on the tattered coattails of “toxic,” picked earlier this month for the same honor by Oxford Dictionaries in these tumultuous times.

Dictionary.com linguist Jane Solomon said of Monday’s choice that debate over lies and truth-telling has been prominent in US politics and throughout the world in 2018.

The site, with 90 million monthly users, picked “complicit” as the 2017 word of the year. Solomon told The Associated Press ahead of the formal announcement that important distinctions should be made between misinformation and disinformation.

Though they share some characteristics, she said Dictionary.com chose the less nefarious intent of misinformation as word of the year as a call to action.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow