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      in US Politics

      Facebook and Twitter take emergency steps against Trump false victory claims

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      Facebook and Twitter have deployed emergency measures to counter Donald Trump’s false claims of victory on their social networks, bringing them more directly into conflict with the US president than ever before.The two tech platforms had announced plans in the run-up to the election to counter misinformation about the vote, as well as premature claims of victory, and on the night of and day after, both companies mostly stuck to the plan.Facebook notably dropped the euphemistic phrasing that had previously accompanied its announcements, which discussed the risk that “candidates” may falsely claim a win. It also walked back a previous policy that would have allowed candidates to claim state-level victories before they were called, despite barring the premature announcement of a national win. On Wednesday it started to flag posts from Trump and affiliates claiming the president had won Pennsylvania and other battleground states, even as ballots continued to be counted and official results had yet to be announced.A company spokesperson cited Trump by name in explaining its decision, saying: “Once President Trump began making premature claims of victory, we started running notifications on Facebook and Instagram that votes are still being counted and a winner is not projected. We’re also automatically applying labels to both candidates’ posts with this information.”When it came to reacting to individual posts, both platforms faced criticism for their responses. In late-night posts cross-posted to both Twitter and Facebook, Trump declared: “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” That post was followed by a second that read: “I will be making a statement tonight. A big WIN!”Misinformation experts say because such posts are able to achieve widespread circulation before being addressed, more comprehensive policies to correct the effects of the misleading posts should be put in place, calling it a “democratic emergency”.“False claims of voter fraud, early victory and election-stealing are helping plunge the country further into chaos and confusion, creating alternate realities for Americans,” said Fadi Quran, the campaign director at Avvaz, an online activist network and non-profit. “Platforms must immediately adopt more effective policies such as retroactively sending corrections to all users who see misinformation and downgrading the reach of repeat misinformers.”Facebook initially labelled the first post with a simple box advising readers to “see the latest updates on the 2020 US election”. More than 30 minutes after it was posted, the company updated its warning to note that “final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks”. By that time the post had well over 100,000 reactions.Twitter restricted distribution on the first post from Trump on Tuesday night, blocking it from being retweeted or replied to, and appended a note saying the content “is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process”. A spokesperson said the warning was “for making a potentially misleading claim about an election. This action is in line with our civic integrity policy.”Neither platform took specific action against the second post claiming “a big WIN!”. Twitter said the lack of action was because it was unclear what, specifically, was being referenced. While the post could have constituted a premature claim of victory in the national race, it could just as easily be construed as a legitimate expression of pleasure at winning a state such as Florida, which had declared several hours earlier. More

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      in Elections

      'Putin could only dream of it': how Trump became the biggest source of disinformation in 2020

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      [embedded content]
      It seemed like the nightmare of 2016 all over again.
      On 21 October, less than two weeks before election day, US intelligence and law enforcement officials convened a last-minute press conference to warn that foreign adversaries were once again interfering in American democracy. Iran was spreading false tales about “allegedly fraudulent ballots” and sending spoofed emails purporting to contain threats from the Proud Boys, “designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump”, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence. Meanwhile, both Russia and Iran had obtained access to voter information that could be used to “cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy”, he warned.
      It was everything that Democrats and disinformation experts have been warning about for the last four years, except, well, not quite.
      The email operation had been relatively small and immediately debunked, while voter roll information is either public or easy to obtain. Senior intelligence officials quickly raised doubts about Ratcliffe’s emphasis on the threat from Iran over Russia and questioned whether his motives for the public announcement were political, the New York Times reported.
      “It was very difficult to see those men in suits talking about interference in the election when the White House is the one interfering with the election,” said Claire Wardle, the executive director of First Draft, a group that researches and combats disinformation.
      After all, when it comes to intimidating voters or inciting social unrest, nothing has had more impact than the constant drumbeat of lies and disinformation from Donald Trump. Years of preparation by the press, social media platforms, and civil society groups for a foreign interference campaign against the US electoral process have been upended by the bizarre reality that the biggest threat to American democracy right now is almost certainly the commander-in-chief, and that his primary mode of attack is a concerted disinformation campaign.
      Because how much impact can a few thousand faked emails telling voters in Florida and Alaska to “vote for Trump or else” have on voters compared with Trump directly ordering the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist street gang, to “stand back and stand by” before a television audience of 73 million people? And what kind of false tale of voter fraud could Iran possibly seed that could undermine Americans’ faith in the electoral process more than the disinformation about voter fraud and mail-in ballots coming straight from the White House and Trump’s campaign?
      “‘Don’t trust the electoral system, don’t trust the CDC, don’t trust your neighbor because they’re probably antifa, don’t trust the left,’” Wardle said of Trump’s re-election message. “It’s not about persuading people one way or the other, it’s about making them scared and causing confusion and chaos,” she added.
      “The media’s been obsessed with Russians under the bed, but to have the president of the United States telling people in the US that they can’t trust the results of the election – Putin could only dream of that kind of thing.”
      Social media tactics
      Russia’s disinformation campaign in the 2016 presidential election had two main vectors: a social media campaign to sow division and distrust among voters, and a “hack and leak” operation that resulted in the theft and publication of emails and documents stolen from Democrats and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. That hack and leak operation was incredibly successful, with caches of stolen material proving irresistible both for the mainstream press and for conservative activists and conspiracy theorists.
      The 2020 iteration of the hack and leak tactic – Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani pushing dubious emails and text messages supposedly obtained from a hard drive linked to Joe Biden’s son Hunter – has been something of a damp squib, however. “You don’t see the same kind of credulous, knee-jerk out-of-control amplification that you saw in 2016,” said Whitney Phillips, a professor at Syracuse University and author of The Oxygen of Amplification, a report examining how the press served the purposes of media manipulators, trolls and hate groups in 2016. The top newspapers have debunked and deflated Giuliani’s claims, and the idea of the pilfered hard drive has failed to capture the public’s interest in the same way that troves of stolen emails did.
      But while the Trump re-election campaign may have failed to recapture the magic of 2016 when it comes to hacked emails, the president has taken Russia’s 2016 social media playbook and supercharged it with the power of the White House.
      “I’m sure that there is some foreign influence stuff happening and we might know more about it later,” said Phillips. “But so much of the pollution is trickling down from the White House itself, and people have been absolutely overwhelmed with falsehoods and confusion over Covid and ballots … When people get overwhelmed, they either fight or flee. [Trump] is making it almost impossible for people not to get totally burned out and disgusted.” More

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      in US Politics

      Republicans use congressional hearing to berate tech CEOs and claim Trump is 'censored'

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      Republican lawmakers berated the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google in a hearing that was ostensibly about a federal law protecting internet companies but mostly focused on how those companies deal with disinformation from Donald Trump and other conservatives.Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai testified before Congress on Wednesday about section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law underpinning US internet regulation that exempts platforms from legal liability for content generated by its users.The hearing was meant to investigate “how best to preserve the internet as a forum for open discourse”, according to the Senate judiciary committee, but came largely in response to allegations from Republicans and the president of anti-conservative bias in the tech world. Those accusations are unsubstantiated. In fact, a recent report alleged that Facebook had suppressed progressive content to appease Republican lawmakers.Still, Republicans on the committee accused the CEOs of “censoring” the president, and questioned them about their decision-making around labeling some of the president’s social media posts as misinformation. The Republican chair of the committee, Roger Wicker, opened the hearing criticizing Twitter and Facebook’s decision to limit sharing of an unverified political story by the New York Post about the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, and Twitter’s labeling of a Trump tweet casting doubt on mail-in ballots as potential misinformation.Republican after Republican accused Twitter of mishandling Trump’s tweets, with the Senator Marsha Blackburn claiming the company had “censored” Trump 65 times and Biden “zero” times.Dorsey, the Twitter CEO, responded Trump has not been “censored”.“To be clear, we have not censored the president,” he said. “We have not taken the tweets down that you are referencing, we added additional context as we do with any world leader.” More

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      in US Politics

      Section 230: tech CEOs to defend key internet law before Congress

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      [embedded content]
      The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google are expected to tell lawmakers in a rare appearance before Congress that a federal law protecting internet companies is crucial to free expression online.
      Wednesday’s hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai will take place less than a week before election day and was convened to address section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law underpinning US internet regulation that exempts platforms from legal liability for content generated by its users.
      The hearing will investigate “how best to preserve the internet as a forum for open discourse”, according to the Senate judiciary committee, and it comes largely in response to allegations of anti-conservative bias in the tech world.
      Senate Republicans indicated they wanted to question Pichai and Zuckerberg in October to discuss issues related to section 230. Dorsey was added to the mix after Twitter restricted the circulation of a controversial New York Post article that featured potentially hacked materials relating to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
      In prepared testimony for Wednesday’s hearing, Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, said eroding the foundation of section 230 “could collapse how we communicate on the internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies”.
      Facebook’s Zuckerberg warned that tech companies were likely to censor more content to avoid legal risks if section 230 were repealed. “Without section 230, platforms could potentially be held liable for everything people say,” he said.
      The Facebook executive also argued that without the law, tech companies could face liability for doing even basic moderation, such as removing hate speech and harassment. He said he supported “updating” the rules for the internet if it were done with the potential consequences in mind.
      Pichai said Google approached its work without political bias and was able to offer the information it did because of existing legal frameworks such as section 230. “I would urge the committee to be very thoughtful about any changes to section 230 and to be very aware of the consequences those changes might have on businesses and consumers,” Pichai’s written testimony said.
      Republicans’ allegations that tech companies unfairly silence conservative voices is unsubstantiated. In fact, a recent report alleged that Facebook had suppressed progressive content to appease Republican lawmakers.
      Still, Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Twitter and Facebook of censoring him and has zeroed in on section 230 as one of the culprits. Trump has stepped up his criticism since the companies began to label or even remove posts by the president or his campaign that spread misinformation or call for violence.
      “Repeal section 230!!!” Trump tweeted on 6 October, after Twitter added a misinformation warning label to one of his tweets claiming the flu is more deadly than Covid-19.
      Ironically, the repeal of section 230 protections would probably lead social media platforms to take more, not less, action over Trump’s posts, as it would hold them legally liable for any falsehoods he posts. Experts say the effects would be comparable to what was seen with the passage of Fosta/Sesta, legislation that held platforms responsible for sexual service advertisements posted on their sites. The passage of those bills led to the removal of Craigslist personal ads and upended content policies on sites like Tumblr.
      Privacy advocates have long called for the protection of section 230, saying it is integral to internet freedom. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group, called section 230 “the most important law protecting internet speech”.
      The Internet Society, another non-profit organization advocating for internet access, warned that poorly informed policy decisions on section 230 could bring “dire consequences” for what we are able to do online.
      That is because the law applies not only to platforms like Facebook and Twitter but to other internet infrastructure like domain name registries and internet service providers. Without section 230, these entities may have to approve content prior to posting or take other action that would significantly slow the flow of the internet as we know it.
      Despite the warnings, the modification of existing regulations has become a major point of contention in the run-up to the election, with both presidential candidates proposing section 230’s repeal. There have been an additional 20 attempts to amend or revoke the law in the past two years.
      In addition to discussions on reforming the law, the hearing will bring up issues about consumer privacy and media consolidation. On Tuesday, Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate commerce panel, released a report on how big tech platforms have decimated the local news industry, including newspapers and broadcasters.
      The tech executives will begin their testimony at 10am ET and all three will appear remotely.
      Reuters contributed reporting More

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      in US Politics

      Film-maker Alexandra Pelosi: ‘I think phones are more dangerous than guns’

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      The documentarian and daughter of the House speaker discusses her new film that looks at an angry and divided AmericaAmerica is, as the refrain goes, divided. This has been demonstrated empirically, with evidence on America’s increasing political polarization, and anecdotally, if you’ve lived in America for the past decade, and especially the last four years. Easily legible examples of a country fraying at the seams abound; American Selfie: One Nation Shoots Itself, a new documentary from Showtime, serializes some of the most prominent ones of the last year, with a retrospective of such indelible yet quickly faded images as crematory trucks in the height of pandemic New York, the Trump motorcycle rally in pandemic summer South Dakota, and a fraught border checkpoint in El Paso, Texas. Related: ‘There’s a whole war going on’: the film tracing a decade of cyber-attacks Continue reading… More

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      in US Politics

      AOC played Among Us and achieved what most politicians fail at: acting normal

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      On Tuesday night, US members of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar held what is perhaps the most unusual voter outreach event in recent memory. They signed on to play a livestreamed video game on Twitch, and joined a crew of online strangers to build a spaceship and try to get away with murder – literally.They were playing the incredibly popular Among Us – a 2018 game currently in the middle of a revival in interest, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and its faddish attraction to influencers. To play the game, crewmates complete mundane tasks on a spaceship while an impostor tries to kill members of the crew without getting caught. In the first round, Ocasio-Cortez – a complete newbie to the game – was picked as the impostor, while Omar, her confidante on Capitol Hill was none the wiser, so the live stream was set to be fun from the start.And it was, by every metric we have for this kind of event, an incredible success. Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel garnered a staggering audience of 439,000 viewers, all watching her in real time (the record for a Twitch stream is about 628,000 concurrent viewers) with approximately 5.2 million viewers watching the stream in aggregate. Meme-makers extended the conversation well into the week. Politicians do not draw this large of an online audience so quickly on these platforms: when Donald Trump and Joe Biden stream on Twitch for campaign events, total views peak at around 6,000 and 17,000, respectively.The success of Ocasio-Cortez and Omar’s stream extends beyond their already-established popularity among young progressives. The game itself is great sport. Much like the party game you may know as Werewolf, or Mafia, Among Us casts suspicion from the start, because although players know that there is an impostor “among us” (perhaps two), they don’t know who the impostor is.AOC’s stream was as good a sale as any: she fretted over the anxiety of having to play the role of the impostor, nearly giving herself away and saying “nooooo” out loud when she realized she would be the first person evading suspicion. In later games, where she was just a crewmate, she lamented to viewers about how she was “running so behind” on her tasks, and was shocked when an impostor found and killed her little pink avatar.When another player’s body was found, viewers could speculate with her: who’s the most suspicious player? (“I’m voting early,” she would say when casting her lot against a suspect, using every opportunity to stay on-message). You don’t really have to know a thing about video games to get drawn into the suspense of the game.But Ocasio-Cortez and Omar aren’t just famous people playing an unusually popular video game; they’re members of Congress trying to get out the vote. And in this, they achieved something most politicians attempt and fail at daily: they looked like completely normal people. They were having fun, accusing each other of being the impostor, cheering when they won, shouting about how they knew all along when an impostor was finally revealed.Credibility goes a long way here: AOC, in particular, has an established online presence, and engages with the public online in an almost-collegial manner. This, like the notion of playing a video game when she and Omar ostensibly have “more important” things to do, has earned her the scorn of others in Congress, but consider the things other candidates do to get out the vote: fish fries, baby kissing and benefit concerts. You go where people are, and in 2020, young people are watching video games played on Twitch.In internet culture, there’s nothing more vulgar than a tourist, someone with a purely transactional interest in a scene. And no matter how earnest Joe Biden is, or how cynically exploitative Trump is, in certain online circles, they will always be tourists simply because they’re too far removed from what young people are doing online to do what Ocasio-Cortez did: notice that there was a game people loved to watch on Twitch, asking if anyone wanted to play with her, and sitting down for a few hours to do it with nearly half a million people watching. And in the end, that’s the secret to Ocasio-Cortez and Omar’s success: that, for a little while, they weren’t opportunistic politicians, but motivated fellow citizens, just a couple of Twitch streamers among us. More