Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 7
Posts 1 - 7

Facebook takes a new crack at halting fake news and clickbait

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 17.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Facebook, fake news, threat
Summary | Facebook has announced that it will work on new strategies to flag fake news on their platform by labeling them "disputed". Facebook's activism will also target click bait stories which can be equally misleading. Click bait are headlines which leave out essential content or grossly exaggerate to lure people into clicking on the link.
Image Description | Getty image of a woman's hand holding a smartphone showing the Facebook logo in front of a screen showing the Facebook sign-in page.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, Facebook, female(s), hand(s), logo, smartphone

In Discover, Snap Sees a Bright Spot as It Tries to Fend Off Facebook

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 7.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, fake news, Snapchat, youth
Summary | Snapchat Discover is a realm in the messaging app that offers advertisers a platform to present their content (which also self-destructs in 24 hours). It is very expensive for advertisers to produce new content each day but some say that they have been able to recruit followers in the hard-to-reach demographic of youths. Snapchat has also made a move to curate the content on their Dsicover platform in order to censor nudity as well as unreliable news sources in order to combat fake news.
Image Description | An image of a video shoot for Snapchat and a Tweet of a Snapchat video.
Image Tags | female(s), Snapchat, Twitter

In Europe’s Election Season, Tech Vies to Fight Fake News

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 1.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | computer programming, Facebook, fake news, Google, law, politics
Summary | In light of recent elections, many people are eager to combat misinformation online. Major tech companies like Facebook and Google are being pressured to purdue solutions to stop the spread of fake news on their platforms. Germany even demands fines from Facebook for not complying with federal laws targeted at keeping hate speech and fake news controled. Competitions with rewards of several thousand dollars are asking for programmers to come up with fact-checking software which can weed out false news.
Image Description | Image of a computer programmer working on solutions to flag fake news and a Reuters image of election posters from France.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Rumors on WhatsApp Ignite 2 Mob Attacks in India, Killing 7

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 25.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | fake news, law, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | In India, a piece of fake news has spread on WhatsApp. It said that a number of children were abducted in the region. Promptly, a mob has formed of over twenty people hunting down the alleged child abducters and murdering them. The police had however not recorded any cases of child abduction in the area.
Image Description | Image of people burying the dead after a mob attack.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Ignoranz ist Stärke

(Ignorance is strength)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 3.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | fake news, politics, privacy, smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | Kellyanne Conways term "alternative facts" remind of Orwell's fictional language Newspeak which also changes meanings by renaming. Many facts of contemporary life (especially under the Trump administration) remind of dystopian novels "1984" by G. Orwell and "Brave New World" by A. Huxley. We all carry smartphones with us at all times with which we can send information but which also receive and document information about us like our location, who else is in that location, our communications, purchases, and so on. Privacy has become impossible in the digital age.
Image Description | Images and videos of the film "1984" and George Orwell as well as the news clip where Kellyanne Conway mentions "alternative facts".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), TV

Big data’s power is terrifying. That could be good news for democracy

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 6.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | fake news, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Big data makes big new innovations possible. It has already been assumed that recent elections were manipulated by fake news targeted to gullable individuals on social media. Other people are looking into options of how big data can be used to improve democracy, for instance the Pirate Party in Iceland.
Image Description | An illustration of hands 'cracking' a computer and an image of female Icelandic politicians from the Pirate Party.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), keyboard

Fighting fake news: societies using technology to search for truth

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 0.0.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | censorship, Facebook, fake news, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Many countries are trying to combat fake news and urging Facebook to find ways of combatting fake news. They influence elections by deceiving people and that is a great problem. It is nearly impossible to identify fake news with a program, it takes a human. Facebook is now allowing users to flag suspicious content, which is then reviewed and if deemed fake, labeled as such and displayed with a lower priority. Fake news are not taken off of Facebook because that would be censorship.
Image Description | Shutterstock images of protesters against fake news.
Image Tags | female(s), text

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