Inequality: BlackHer – A New Online Platform Raises the Voices of Black Women Politically and Economically. “With only 19 African-American women in Congress – representing a paltry 3.5 percent of both chambers – this year, Black women are ready to see a return on their investment. Taking matters into their own hands, Black women are ramping up their efforts to increase their political representation. Pushing forward with this movement is BlackHer, an online platform with the mission to provide resources and important information that highlights the visible and loud chorus of African American women that can shift elections, shape consumerism, and reinvent America’s broken systems.”
elections
Forbes: Google Pulls Washington Election Ads, Says It can’t Comply With New Rules
Forbes: Google Pulls Washington Election Ads, Says It can’t Comply With New Rules. “Google has pulled all state and local election ads in Washington state, saying its systems can’t cope with new disclosure rules. The state Public Disclosure Commission recently approved new transparency rules which come into effect today. It requires platforms like Google to release details of political ads including the geographical locations and types of audience being targeted, as well as the number of views the ads receive.”
New Delhi Times: Rising Attacks on Pakistani Journalists, Social Media
New Delhi Times: Rising Attacks on Pakistani Journalists, Social Media. “Growing assaults against social media activists and journalists in Pakistan have alarmed defenders of free speech and human rights activists before the July 25 general election. There are also increasing allegations the military is also behind some of these incidents to stifle dissent. The latest incident occurred Tuesday when Gul Bukhari, who openly criticizes the military via social media and newspaper articles, was briefly abducted while she was on her way to participate in a television talk show in the eastern city of Lahore.”
TechCrunch: Cambridge Analytica’s Nix said it licensed ‘millions of data points’ from Acxiom, Experian, Infogroup to target US voters
TechCrunch: Cambridge Analytica’s Nix said it licensed ‘millions of data points’ from Acxiom, Experian, Infogroup to target US voters. “The repeat grilling by the U.K. parliament’s DCMS committee today of Alexander Nix, the former CEO of the now ex company Cambridge Analytica — aka the controversial political and commercial ad agency at the center of a Facebook data misuse scandal — was not able to shed much new light on what may or may not have been going on inside the company. But one nugget of information Nix let slip were the names of specific data aggregators he said Cambridge Analytica had bought ‘consumer and lifestyle’ information on U.S. voters from, to link to voter registration data it also paid to acquire — apparently using that combined database to build models to target American voters in the 2016 presidential election, rather than using data improperly obtained from Facebook.”
New York Times: Facebook Tried to Rein In Fake Ads. It Fell Short in a California Race.
New York Times: Facebook Tried to Rein In Fake Ads. It Fell Short in a California Race.. “Regina Bateson had just finished an Easter egg hunt with her children on April 1 when her phone started buzzing. Take a look at Facebook, messages from her friends and colleagues urged. Ms. Bateson, a Democrat running for Congress in the California primary on Tuesday, quickly opened up the social network. There, she saw what appeared to be a news article that painted her as underhandedly trying to torpedo the campaign of a rival Democratic candidate. When Ms. Bateson clicked through the article, she was directed to a Facebook page run by Sierra Nevada Revolution, a local progressive group she had clashed with in the past.”
New York Times: Tech Was Supposed to Get Political. It’s Hanging Back in This Election.
New York Times: Tech Was Supposed to Get Political. It’s Hanging Back in This Election.. “What is happening — or rather not happening — in San Francisco is part of a broader urge in the tech community to stay behind the scenes in state and national politics. The overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning Silicon Valley was shocked by the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump and aghast at his anti-immigration ban, which cut to the heart of their existence as a multinational industry whose companies have often been founded by immigrants.”
Miami Herald: New internet accounts are Russian ops designed to sway U.S. voters, experts say
Miami Herald: New internet accounts are Russian ops designed to sway U.S. voters, experts say. “A new Russian influence operation has surfaced that mirrors some of the activity of an internet firm that the FBI says was deeply involved in efforts to sway the 2016 U.S. elections, a cybersecurity firm says. A website called usareally.com appeared on the internet May 17 and called on Americans to rally in front of the White House June 14 to celebrate President Donald Trump’s birthday, which is also Flag Day.”
