CNN: American media keeps falling for Russian trolls. “Russian trolls posing as an American college student tweeted about divisive social, political and cultural issues using an account that amassed thousands of followers — and appeared in dozens of news stories published by major media outlets — as recently as March.”
journalism
Poynter: We tried to create a deepfake of Mark Zuckerberg and Alex Jones — and failed. Here’s what happened.
Poynter: We tried to create a deepfake of Mark Zuckerberg and Alex Jones — and failed. Here’s what happened.. “Making it look like someone did or said something that never happened is harder than it looks. That’s what Poynter learned over the past several weeks while trying to create a ‘deepfake’ video of Alex Jones, Infowars host and frequent conspiracy theorist, giving remarks that were actually made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Deepfakes, named after the Reddit user who came up with the method, are essentially created by extracting a large number of frames from one video and superimposing them on one another.”
Snopes: Journalists, Activists Criticize Social Media Sites Amid Conflicts Over Content
Snopes: Journalists, Activists Criticize Social Media Sites Amid Conflicts Over Content. “In June 2018, journalists and activists raised concerns over sudden apparent suspensions or sanctions from social media web sites within days of one another amid increased concerns over their policies toward news outlets. In the latest incident, Lucas Waldron — graphics producer for the investigative news site ProPublica — said on 21 June 2018 that the visual platform Instagram had deleted a post on the outlet’s account that identified members of a white supremacist group.”
A Day Care and a Dog Rescue Benefit: On Facebook, They Were Political Ads (New York Times)
New York Times: A Day Care and a Dog Rescue Benefit: On Facebook, They Were Political Ads. “What do a day care center, a vegetarian restaurant, a hair salon, an outdoor clothing maker and an investigative news publisher have in common? To Facebook, they looked suspiciously like political activists.”
Scroll: Cheeky Spanish reporter uses Google Translate to go around French press conference rules
Scroll: Cheeky Spanish reporter uses Google Translate to go around French press conference rules. “In order to avoid questions on rumours about being transferred to another club, French footballer Antoine Griezmann — who played last season for Spanish team Atletico Madrid — refused to answer questions in languages other than French at a press conference. Getting the reporters to ask the questions in French was also an attempt at keeping the conversation focussed on France’s pursuit of the World Cup 2018. A Spanish journalist came up with a smart way to bypass the rule.” SPOILER: it didn’t work. But I give him points for creativity.
Pew: Distinguishing Between Factual and Opinion Statements in the News
Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): Distinguishing Between Factual and Opinion Statements in the News. “In today’s fast-paced and complex information environment, news consumers must make rapid-fire judgments about how to internalize news-related statements – statements that often come in snippets and through pathways that provide little context. A new Pew Research Center survey of 5,035 U.S. adults examines a basic step in that process: whether members of the public can recognize news as factual – something that’s capable of being proved or disproved by objective evidence – or as an opinion that reflects the beliefs and values of whoever expressed it.”
BuzzFeed: A Marketing Site Deleted Over 7,000 Articles After It Was Caught Stealing Fact-Checks And Plagiarizing
BuzzFeed: A Marketing Site Deleted Over 7,000 Articles After It Was Caught Stealing Fact-Checks And Plagiarizing. “Since at least November 2016, [Shawn] Rice has written thousands of articles about hoaxes for business2community.com, a business and marketing blog. His quick, formulaic debunks appeared high on the first page of Google search results and in Google News. He was the site’s most frequent contributor and recently scored its biggest hit on Facebook of the past two years with a debunk of a fake story about Netflix picking up the recently canceled TV series Roseanne, according to data from social tracking tool BuzzSumo. Rice’s story generated over 80,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. But last night close to 6,000 of Rice’s more than 7,200 articles were suddenly deleted — including all of his debunks. And Rice’s remaining stories were deleted after this story was published.”
