Internet Media

Media Hate Speech Isn’t Just for Humans Anymore

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Article in TechXplore by by Kristina Radivojevic – University of Notre Dame, 10/15/24

Headline: “AI bots easily bypass some social media safeguards, study reveals”

Subhead: “Potential risks of unregulated MFM-Powered (digital recording) chatBots on platforms”

“While artificial intelligence (AI) bots can serve a legitimate purpose on social media—such as marketing or customer service—some are designed to manipulate public discussion, incite hate speech, spread misinformation or enact fraud and scams. To combat potentially harmful bot activity, some platforms have published policies on using bots and created technical mechanisms to enforce those policies.

“But are those policies and mechanisms enough to keep social media users safe?”

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-10-ai-bots-easily-bypass-social.html

False Claims Spread in Some Media

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Article in Media Matters  by Gideon Taaffe, 10/11/24

Headline:  “Right-wing media spread false claim that Kamala Harris used a teleprompter during town hall”

This article lists media outlets that used the lie.

“After Vice President Kamala Harris’ Univision town hall, right-wing media incorrectly claimed that Harris was using a teleprompter. Even though the host of the town hall and the Univision News president quickly debunked the claim, the lie spread rapidly among prominent right-wing media personalities.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/kamala-harris/right-wing-media-spread-false-claim-kamala-harris-used-teleprompter-during-town-hall

 

 

Will Using Non-Mainstream Media Change an Election?

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Article in the Washington Post by Jennifer Rubin, 10/11/24

Headline: “Harris takes her message well beyond the usual venues. Good.”

Subhead: “She goes on podcasts, satellite radio and daytime TV, promoting her agenda to big audiences.”

“Vice President Kamala Harris, realizing the limited reach of mainstream news outlets, spent the week reaching millions of Americans through appearances on the podcast “Call Her Daddy,” CBS’s “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” the daytime chat show “The View,” Howard Stern on SiriusXM and even the Weather Channel.”

“. . . Mainstream media outlets might be irked by Harris’s strategy, but if she wants to get this substantive message out to the widest possible audience, she’s doing exactly the right thing in taking it to as many alternative media venues as possible.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/13/kamala-harris-interviews-podcasts/

 

 

Adapting to New-Media Environment

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Image from hannahcute0779.blogspot.com

 

Article in Axios by Eleanor Hawking, 10/10/24

Headline: “TikTok, podcasts, Substack: How Harris, Trump and CEOs adapt to new media”

While legacy media shrivel, online media-bubbles take over.

“Newsrooms are shrinking and audiences are becoming more dispersed as independent journalists successfully launch Substacks, content creators pivot into podcasting and TikTokers report on the news.”

” . . . While the role of traditional media shouldn’t be ignored, communication teams must be cognizant of what (Josh Rosenberg, CEO of Day One Agency) refers to as “data dissonance” or the idea that volume doesn’t always equal depth.

” ‘When everything has a billion views or a billion impressions, who’s actually, listening? How is that actually moving the needle?’ he said.”

https://www.axios.com/2024/10/10/media-strategy-tiktok-podcasts-creators

The evolution of media from slideshare:

https://www.slideshare.net/rubenjezarryborja/the-evolution-of-traditional-media-to-new-media

Foreign Manipulators, Social Media and Elections

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Article By Filippo Menczer, Indiana University in UPI 10/8/24

Headline: “Foreign operations manipulate social media to influence your views”

“. . . we found accounts that flood the network with tens or hundreds of thousands of posts in a single day. The same campaign can post a message with one account and then have other accounts that its organizers also control “like” and “unlike” it hundreds of times in a short time span. Once the campaign achieves its objective, all these messages can be deleted to evade detection. Using these tricks, foreign governments and their agents can manipulate social media algorithms that determine what is trending and what is engaging to decide what users see in their feeds.

“. . . The consequences of such operations are difficult to evaluate due to the challenges posed by collecting data and carrying out ethical experiments that would influence online communities. Therefore it is unclear, for example, whether online influence campaigns can sway election outcomes. Yet, it is vital to understand society’s vulnerability to different manipulation tactics.”

https://www.upi.com/Voices/2024/10/08/foreign-operations-manipulate-social-media-influence-views/7961728392145/

Media Hate Speech Stopped in Brazil

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Article by Allen Cone on UPI, 9/21/24

Headline: “Elon Musk to comply with Brazilian court’s orders to restore X in nation”

“Billionaire Elon Musk has decided to comply with court orders in Brazil in an effort to end the ban on his his social platform X in the Latin American nation.

. . . “The company formerly known as Twitter also informed the court that it blocked accounts allegedly responsible for disseminating hate speech and fake news, two sources told Bloomberg.”

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2024/09/21/Brazil-X-Musk-comply-orders/5741726963376/

Article update from the Electronic Freedom Foundation  by  Corynned McSherry, 10/8/24

Headline:  “The X Corp. Shoutdown in Brazil:  What We Can Learn”

“Update (10/8/2024): Brazil lifted a ban on the X Corp. social media platform today after the country’s Supreme Court said the company had complied with all of its orders. Regulators have 24 hours to reinstate the platform, though it could take longer for it to come back online.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/x-corp-shutdown-brazil-what-we-can-learn

Google May Cut-Off New Zealand News Media

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Article in TechXplore by Charlotte Grahamm-McLay-McLAY, 10/4/24

Headline: “Google says it will stop linking to New Zealand news if a law passes forcing it to pay for content”

“Google said Friday it will stop linking to New Zealand news content and will reverse its support of local media outlets if the government passes a law forcing tech companies to pay for articles displayed on their platforms.

The vow to sever Google traffic to New Zealand news sites—made in a blog post by the search giant on Friday—echoes strategies the firm deployed as Australia and Canada prepared to enact similar laws in recent years.

It followed a surprise announcement by New Zealand’s government in July that lawmakers would advance a bill forcing tech platforms to strike deals for sharing revenue generated from news content with the media outlets producing it”

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-10-google-linking-zealand-news-law.html

Where People Get News Right!

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Article in The Guardian by Rachel Leingang, 10/7/24

Headline: ” ‘Every day is a new conspiracy’: behind Trump’s ironclad grip on rightwing media”

Subhead: “What rightwing outlets cover increasingly differs from the mainstream, furthering the bubbles a divided US lives in”

“Trump’s grip on rightwing media is ironclad, said Julie Millican, the vice-president of Media Matters, a progressive center that tracks conservative media. In the past, the Republican party and its candidates would follow what rightwing media did and align its policies that way – but now, the media follows Trump, she said.”

“. . . As rightwing outlets rise, the stories they cover differ more from what’s on mainstream news, furthering the bubbles a divided United States lives within. While in years past, you’d find different takes on the day’s news in left- and right-leaning outlets, you’ll now find stories that exist solely on rightwing media, Millican said.

“It’s like every day is a new conspiracy or a new attack, and it’s just hard to even keep up on it anymore,” she said. “Half the time, when you listen to somebody who consumes nothing but rightwing media, you have no idea what they’re talking about.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/07/trump-rightwing-media-tv-podcasts-sites

How to Identify Fakes in the Media

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Article by Annique Mossou from Bellingcat.com, 11/1/21 (over a year old, but still good)

Headline: A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Verification

“How can we tell whether the posts, articles and claims we see on the internet and social media sites are true? Online conspiracies and deliberately misleading, partisan content are serious issues, after all.”

. . . “Verification doesn’t need to be difficult. It also doesn’t require any complicated algorithms or access to advanced tools or programs that automatically detect whether an image may be fake or manipulated.

“A critical mindset and a close look at the context of an image or post, allied with simple tools such as a Google search or reverse image platforms, are often all it takes to discover whether a piece of content is genuine.”

https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2021/11/01/a-beginners-guide-to-social-media-verification/

Going, Going, Gone!?

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Article by Don Jacobson on UPI, 9/19/25

Headline: “Trump Media shares reach new low as lockup period set to expire”

“Trump Media, which trades under the ticker symbol DTJ, is the parent company of the GOP nominee’s Truth Social social media platform.

“Thursday’s drop-off continued a six-day slide that has seen Trump Media shares fall more than 10%, wiping out billions in value as retail investors nervously eyed the expiration of the lockup period, under which early investors, including the former president himself, were barred from selling shares following a merger with publicly traded shell company.”

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/09/19/Trump-Media-shares-reach-new-low-lockup-period-set-expire/4501726765890/