MIT News: Mining social media data for social good
MIT News: Mining social media data for social good. “Erin Walk, a PhD student in social and engineering systems, studies the impact of social media on the Syrian conflict.”
40 thousand gigabytes: An archive of Assad’s war crimes in Syria (TRT World)
TRT World: 40 thousand gigabytes: An archive of Assad’s war crimes in Syria. “Tamer Turkmani stares at his laptop screen for hours every day. A Syrian national, Turkmani has been collecting photographic and video evidence of people who have been killed in the course of the Syrian civil war. Turkmani’s goal is to maintain a digital archive of the victims who have been shot dead by the troops loyal to Bashar al Assad.”
The Verge: YouTube is now blocking Russian state-funded media worldwide
The Verge: YouTube is now blocking Russian state-funded media worldwide. “YouTube says that it will start completely blocking YouTube channels funded by the Russian government, after it blocked channels like RT and Sputnik in Europe earlier this month. The company also announced that it would be removing content about the Russian invasion of Ukraine that denies, minimizes, or trivializes ‘well-documented violent events.’”
Washington Post: How to turn a tweet into viable evidence of a war crime
Washington Post: How to turn a tweet into viable evidence of a war crime. “…just as we’ve all learned the potential utility of ubiquitous mobile phones in capturing illicit and criminal activity in the United States, it’s useful to remember that the same effects are at play in international conflicts. Capturing and sharing an interesting or alarming video might also be sharing the deployment of an illegal munition.”
Scientific American: Russia Is Having Less Success at Spreading Social Media Disinformation
Scientific American: Russia Is Having Less Success at Spreading Social Media Disinformation. “Russia’s Internet Research Agency used similar disinformation campaigns to amplify propaganda about the U.S. election in 2016. But their extent was unclear until after the election—and at the time, they were conducted with little pushback from social media platforms. ‘There was a sense that the platforms just didn’t know what to do,’ says Laura Edelson, a misinformation researcher and Ph.D. candidate in computer science at New York University. Since then, she says, platforms and governments have become more adept at combating this type of information warfare—and more willing to deplatform bad actors that deliberately spread disinformation.”
US Treasury: Russia may bypass sanctions using ransomware payments (Bleeping Computer)
Bleeping Computer: US Treasury: Russia may bypass sanctions using ransomware payments. “The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) warned U.S. financial institutions this week to keep an eye out for attempts to evade sanctions and US-imposed restrictions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Washington Post: A new iron curtain descends on Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine
Washington Post: A new iron curtain descends on Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. “Russia’s cultural collaboration with the West is also being cut off. Cultural elites from Moscow and St. Petersburg in many cases have fled abroad. Moscow’s Garage Museum stopped work on its exhibitions due to the war in Ukraine. The artistic director of the V-A-C Foundation, which oversees Moscow’s new GES-2 arts center, resigned, as did the deputy director of the Pushkin Museum.”
ABC News: Memes become weapons in Ukraine-Russia conflict
ABC News: Memes become weapons in Ukraine-Russia conflict. “Typically used for fun on social media, memes out of Ukraine are serious business amid Russia’s attack. In fact, history and media experts who spoke with ABC News said the social media posts about Ukraine’s resistance against Russian forces are war tools.”
BBC: Facebook hits out at Russia blocking its platforms
BBC: Facebook hits out at Russia blocking its platforms. “Facebook has hit out at a ban on its platforms introduced in Russia on Friday amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. Russia’s communications regulator said the ban was a response to restrictions placed on its media there.”
Ukraine war: The TikToker spreading viral videos (BBC)
BBC: Ukraine war: The TikToker spreading viral videos. “Marta [Vasyuta] speaks fluent Ukrainian, Russian and English. As soon as she heard about the invasion, she began to scroll though Ukrainian channels on the Telegram messaging app. Telegram is hugely popular in Ukraine. People in Ukraine were uploading videos on to these channels. Marta trawled through and began to save them.”
Stanford News: Seven tips for spotting disinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Stanford News: Seven tips for spotting disinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “[Shelby] Grossman and her team are closely monitoring the narratives emerging on social media related to the crisis, including online propaganda from the Kremlin. A report of their initial findings published just two days before Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Grossman said that while they aren’t necessarily seeing new disinformation tactics, what’s new is how the tactics are being applied.”
CNN: Russia’s answer to Google warns it may not be able to pay its debts
CNN: Russia’s answer to Google warns it may not be able to pay its debts. “Yandex (YNDX), which handles about 60% of internet search traffic in Russia and operates a big ride-hailing business, said Thursday that it may be unable to pay its debts as a consequence of the financial market meltdown triggered by the West’s unprecedented sanctions.”
Washington Post: TikTok has long tried to stay out of politics. Russia’s invasion is making that harder.
Washington Post: TikTok has long tried to stay out of politics. Russia’s invasion is making that harder.. “TikTok’s executives spent the early days of the invasion noticeably quiet, omitting the words Ukraine and Russia in public statements and referring to the invasion as a ‘situation.’ As other companies, such as Facebook and Google, highlighted efforts to help Ukrainians shield their accounts from Russian surveillance and cyberattacks, TikTok has publicized no such program. On Thursday, TikTok started to catch up to its American social media rivals.”
Reuters: Czech Group Shifts From Documenting Historical Nazi, Soviet Traumas to Aiding Ukraine’s Defence
Reuters: Czech Group Shifts From Documenting Historical Nazi, Soviet Traumas to Aiding Ukraine’s Defence. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given new purpose to a Czech group, switching its focus from documenting memories of the past under Nazi and Soviet domination to supplying flak jackets, drones and helmets to Ukrainians defending their country…. Memory of Nations has run an online database of testimonies since 2008 documenting stories of people from when Czechs and Slovaks lived under Nazi occupation during World War Two or four decades of Soviet-dominated Communist rule that ended in 1989.”
The Atlantic: The Ugly, Embarrassing Spectacle of ‘Milling’ Around Online
The Atlantic: The Ugly, Embarrassing Spectacle of ‘Milling’ Around Online. “We are all just chattering away in restless and confused excitement as we try to figure out how to think about what’s happening. We want to understand which outcomes are most likely, and whether we might be obligated to help—by giving money or vowing not to share misinformation or learning the entire history of global conflict so as to avoid saying the wrong thing. We are milling.”