IANS: Google Terminates Thousand Of Youtube Channels In China, Russia, Brazil. “Google has purged thousands of YouTube channels in China, Russia and Brazil as part of its investigation into coordinated influence operations. The tech giant terminated 5,197 YouTube channels and 17 Blogger blogs as part of its ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to China.”
Bloomberg: Google Urged by US Lawmakers to Fix Misleading Abortion Ads. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google introduced a policy in 2019 that requires those advertising alongside search queries related to abortion to be certified based on whether they provide the procedure. In a letter addressed to Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai, Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, and Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, expressed concern that the search giant does not consistently apply those rules, which can lead users to crisis pregnancy centers — non-medical organizations that encourage visitors to keep their pregnancies.”
Motherboard: Military Sim Developer Tired of Its Game Being Used to Fake War Footage. “Bohemia Interactive, the Czech Republic based developer of the military simulator game Arma 3, has published a blog and a video it hopes will help it with a unique problem. Footage from the video game known for its realism has gone viral several times since the game’s release in 2013 as people have tried to pass off clips of the military simulation as footage of real war.”
Clemson News: Clemson Media Forensics Hub receives $3.8 million grant to study, fight online disinformation. “The fight against online disinformation is getting a boost thanks to a $3.8 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to support Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub at the Watt Family Innovation Center. Researchers with the Hub study disinformation and inauthenticity online and create tools to educate people and stop the spread of disinformation. Clemson University is matching the grant, making the total investment in the Hub $7.6 million over the next four years.”
Variety: Musk Tweets Fake CNN Headline About Musk Threatening Free Speech on Twitter. “Musk — without any indication that it was a joke — posted an image that said, ‘CNN: Elon Musk could threaten free speech on Twitter by literally allowing people to speak freely.’ The post includes a photo of Lemon appearing to speak about Musk on air, with the made-up chyron below Lemon featuring the same text as the headline”
FactCheck: Bogus Theory Misinterprets FTX Support for Ukraine. “The bankruptcy of FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has sparked an unfounded claim that its former CEO had conspired with Ukraine and Democratic politicians to launder U.S. aid money. FTX helped make crypto donations available to Ukraine; it wasn’t taking any assets from Ukraine.”
WIRED: Twitter’s Moderation System Is in Tatters. “EVEN BEFORE TWITTER cut some 4,400 contract workers on November 12, the platform was showing signs of strain. After Elon Musk bought the company and laid off 7,500 full time employees, disinformation researchers and activists say, the team that took down toxic and fake content vanished. Now, after years of developing relationships within those teams, researchers say no one is responding to their reports of disinformation on the site, even as data suggests Twitter is becoming more toxic.”
Bloomberg: India-Based Twitter Accounts Fanned UK Unrest, Researchers Say. “A network of fake accounts originating outside of the UK stoked violence between Muslims and Hindus in a British city earlier this year, according to research first provided to Bloomberg News.”
Bloomberg: Brazil’s loudest election deniers are kicked off social media. “Even as Jair Bolsonaro begins to give up power, his staunchest supporters refuse to accept defeat in Brazil’s presidential election, crying foul on the Internet and in the streets. For nearly two weeks they’ve protested President-elect Luiz Inacio da Silva’s Oct. 30 victory, rallying around unproven claims of fraud. And the most social-media savvy are blasting conspiracies about vote rigging to millions of followers. Electoral authorities are hitting back.”
New-to-me, from Tobacco Tactics: STOP adds 25 new organisations to its Tobacco Industry Allies database. “An investigation carried out by global tobacco industry watchdog STOP [Stopping Tobacco Organizations & Products] has resulted in the addition of 25 new organisations to its Tobacco Industry Allies database. The database, launched in 2019, now includes 135 groups across 33 countries. Each of the allies listed in the database is categorised as ‘Third Party’, ‘Front Group’ or ‘Astroturf’ using the definitions outlined by STOP.”
New York Times: Russia Reactivates Its Trolls and Bots Ahead of Tuesday’s Midterms. “The campaign — using accounts that pose as enraged Americans like Nora Berka — have added fuel to the most divisive political and cultural issues in the country today. It has specifically targeted Democratic candidates in the most contested races, including the Senate seats up for grabs in Ohio, Arizona and Pennsylvania, calculating that a Republican majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives could help the Russian war effort.”
Washington Post: Trump once reconsidered sticking with Truth Social. Now he’s stuck.. “Trump has told his allies that he can’t leave Truth Social, because he’s propping it up, and he doesn’t want a site so closely associated with his brand to collapse, according to people familiar with his thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a detailed request for comment for this story.”
CNET: Swamped With Election Campaign Text Messages? Here’s How to Stop Them. “According to robocall blocking software company RoboKiller, Americans received 1.3 billion political campaign phone and text messages in October 2022. Fortunately, there’s a solution for the political ads bombarding your Facebook feed, mailbox or text message inbox.”
Washington Post: As midterms loom, TikTok faces its next political test. “Three years ago, TikTok imposed strict rules prohibiting campaign advertising as the video-sharing app tried to avoid the scandals over political content that have long dogged its social media rivals. But with Election Day fast approaching, TikTok can’t manage to stay on the sidelines.”
Meduza: Ukrainian military intelligence puts a $100,000 price on blogger Strelkov’s freedom. “The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced that it would pay $100,000 for handing Igor Strelkov (Girkin) over to Ukrainian captivity.”
The ResearchBuzz Firehose is regular RB content presented as individual posts.
For digest-type posts a couple of times a day, please visit ResearchBuzz.
Want to know how to best use the Firehose for content discovery?
Check out this handy article.