Eleven members of Parliament from the United Kingdom journeyed to a large ballroom in Washington Thursday to learn about fake news from three U.S. social media giants, Google, Facebook and Twitter. The meeting was unusual — the official parliamentary session was the first time a House of Commons committee broadcast a public hearing live from outside the United Kingdom. And it wasn’t exactly cordial.
RTDNA and its Voice of the First Amendment Task Force are urging all journalists and news organizations to take extra security measures following the arrest of a man from Michigan for allegedly threatening to assassinate several CNN employees.
How ‘Trump Trauma’ Is Crippling The Media
Fox News analyst Howard Kurtz argues that press misjudgment has upended coverage of the White House and boosted the president’s agenda in this exclusive excerpt from his new book, Media Madness.
The Republican National Committee unveiled the “winners” of President Trump‘s “Fake News Awards” on Wednesday night with a list that includes frequent Trump targets in the media as well as a surprise website crash. The awards list New York Times columnist Paul Krugman as the top winner. Also awarded: CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Exclusives
Every awards show has its critics, but President Donald Trump’s much ballyhooed “Fake News Awards” has drawn attention from a group beyond the usual peanut gallery: ethics experts who say the event could run afoul of White House rules and, depending on what exactly the president says during the proceedings, the First Amendment.
In early tests in post-conflict countries, Facebook’s News Feed surfaced more news stories from friends and family — and fake news increased.
Fake News Is Destroying Right-Wing Media
Media conservatives are now convinced that Google hates them, but the right’s credibility gap is its own doing.
If you’re curious where all the fake news on your News Feed comes from, there’s a new resource that could help you become an internet sleuth of your own. Today the Public Data Lab, a network of researchers, journalists and organizations, released a field guide for detecting and investigating online misinformation. The free and open-access guide, aimed at helping students, journalists and educators, contains a number of “recipes” for tracing things like trolling practices, the circulation of viral memes and the financial incentives that hold it all together.
Fighting Fake News Is Not The Solution
Americans are less gullible and more well-informed than we assume. Not that it necessarily matters.
Before the 2016 election, those most likely to read “fake news” online were older and conservative, a new study finds. But even they relied most often on mainstream media.
Facebook announced that it will no longer use “Disputed Flags” — red flags next to fake news articles — to identify fake news for users. Instead it will use related articles to give people more context about a story.
In today’s world, even the most benign human errors committed by journalists are being called “fake news,” a term that has been weaponized by President Trump and others to question the credibility and even the motives of reporters and photojournalists. Correcting errors is a core value of responsible journalism.
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook says it is changing how it identifies “fake news” stories on its platform to a more effective system. The social-media network had put “disputed” labels on stories […]
Setting the stage, and the tone, for Wednesday’s promised White House presser after the House passes — again — the tax overhaul it previously passed Tuesday night, President Donald Trump trashed media outlets who will be attending. “Tax Cuts are so large and so meaningful, and yet the Fake News is working overtime to follow the lead of their friends, the defeated Dems, and only demean.”
A few thoughts from an exhausting year in fake news (or whatever we end up calling it next year).
In a tweet Sunday, President Trump blasted the lack of attention over what he described as “false and defamatory stories” by the “Fake News Media.” “They are out of control — correct reporting means nothing to them. Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed…a stain on America!” Trump wrote.
Leaders or state media in at least 15 countries use the president’s favorite denunciation to quell dissent, question human rights violations.
Donald Trump’s ‘Fake News’ Tactics
In attacking the media, the president has in many ways strengthened it. This year, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other independent, professional enterprises have reminded the country why the Founders enshrined a free press as a defense against abusive power.
President Trump took a shot at the news media on Monday ahead of a busy week that could help determine the fate of his agenda. “We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me),” Trump tweeted. “They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!”
President Trump praised Fox News and ripped CNN on Saturday, saying on Twitter that the conservative-leaning news network is more important than the cable network. “Fox News is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!” the president said in a tweet.
A funny game. A scary conclusion: today’s social tools, put in capable hands, make false information very hard to detect and extraordinarily damaging.
A charged political race, allegations of partisan attacks, a national outlet viewed with distrust by many in the state (and around the country): the Moore story serves as a microcosm for our parallel media universes.
Mark Zuckerberg’s company is trying to tell Congress — and the American public — that its ads are not especially effective.
President Trump accused the media of making up a majority of stories about his administration without providing evidence to back up his claim.
Breaking from the typical tech-world decorum, Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos is calling out the media for oversimplifying the company’s “fake news” problem. “I am seeing a ton of [media] coverage of our recent issues driven by stereotypes of our employees and attacks against fantasy, straw man tech cos,” Stamos wrote in a tweet storm over the weekend.
The RTDNA Voice of the First Amendment Task Force is calling on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to ignore a tweet from President Trump seeking an investigation into what he called “Fake News Networks.”
President Donald Trump urged Congress Thursday morning to launch an investigation of the news media, wondering online “why so much of our news is just made up.” He did not single out a specific story or media outlet that he believed to be guilty of inaccurate reporting.
Russia’s effort to influence U.S. voters through Facebook and other social media is a “red-hot” focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election and possible links to President Donald Trump’s associates, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
Russian disinformation groups spent about $100,000 for about 3,000 issue ads on Facebook connected to hundreds of false accounts over the past two years, according to findings of an investigation released Wednesday afternoon by the social network.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (AP) — Two Penn State professors have received $300,000 from the National Science Foundation to develop technology that will enable digital devices to weed out fake news. […]
