The political economy of social media: A new eBook (Centre for Economic Policy Research)

Centre for Economic Policy Research: The political economy of social media: A new eBook. “The emergence of social media has reshaped the way humans communicate, interact and coordinate with each other. Assessing the impact of this transformation on politics has been one of the great social science questions of the last or decade or so, and will continue to occupy researchers for a long time to come. A new CEPR eBook provides a snapshot of how economists have been trying to answer this question.”

BBC: Slick videos or more ‘authentic’ content? The Israel-Gaza battles raging on TikTok and X

BBC: Slick videos or more ‘authentic’ content? The Israel-Gaza battles raging on TikTok and X. “When I open up my TikTok feed, two videos play one after the other. The first shows four Israeli soldiers dancing with guns, set against a blue sky. The other is a young woman speaking from her bedroom, with a prominent pro-Palestinian caption. TikTok’s algorithm will determine what kind of videos I want to see and recommend similar content, based on which of the two videos I watch until the end.”

Hard Drives, YouTube, and Murder: India’s Dark History of Digital Hate (WIRED)

WIRED: Hard Drives, YouTube, and Murder: India’s Dark History of Digital Hate. “Today more than half the population of India—759 million people—are online. The country has 467 million active YouTube users—the most in the world. The users are no longer predominantly urban. Nobody has tapped into this proliferation better than right-wing groups dedicated to fostering communal disharmony, moving from hard disks filled with videos and laptops in temples to the vast reach of YouTube and WhatsApp.”

Bloomberg: Russia ‘Spits’ on EU Sanctions in Escalating Propaganda Battle

Bloomberg: Russia ‘Spits’ on EU Sanctions in Escalating Propaganda Battle. “The European Union promised to shut down the flow of Vladimir Putin’s propaganda after Russia invaded Ukraine, slapping sanctions on state-backed media RT and Sputnik days after the attack. Nearly two years into the war, the Kremlin appears to have the last laugh.”

New York Times: How Bad Is Antisemitism Online? It’s Increasingly Hard to Know.

New York Times: How Bad Is Antisemitism Online? It’s Increasingly Hard to Know.. “As the Israel-Hamas war flooded social media with violent content, false information and a seemingly limitless swell of opinions, lawmakers and users have accused platforms like TikTok and Facebook of promoting biased posts…. Where the truth lies, however, is hard to glean, according to academic researchers and advocacy groups.”

The Indepdendent: South Korea exposes huge Chinese disinformation campaign involving 38 news websites

The Independent: South Korea exposes huge Chinese disinformation campaign involving 38 news websites. “South Korea’s intelligence agency said it has identified 38 Korean-language news websites that are suspected of being run by Chinese companies with some allegedly spreading pro-China and anti-US content.”

Exclusive: New Zealand’s Ardern drafts AI in the fight against extremist content (Axios)

Axios: Exclusive: New Zealand’s Ardern drafts AI in the fight against extremist content. “AI companies including OpenAI and Anthropic have signed up to suppress terrorist content, joining the Christchurch Call to Action — a project started by French President Emmanuel Macron and then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the wake of the 2019 mass killing at a Christchurch, N.Z. mosque.”

Air & Space Forces Magazine: 16th Air Force Seeks ‘Unity of Effort’ on Information Warfare

Air & Space Forces Magazine: 16th Air Force Seeks ‘Unity of Effort’ on Information Warfare. “The 16th Air Force is working on an ‘information warfare operations center concept’ to more effectively counteract narratives pushed by China and Russia, said its commander, Lt. Gen. Kevin B. Kennedy Jr., Nov. 13. Enhanced ‘unity of effort’ across the service is the goal, Kennedy said during a livestreamed discussion with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.”

Northeastern Global News: Most Americans are concerned about AI’s impact on the 2024 presidential election, Northeastern survey finds

Northeastern Global News: Most Americans are concerned about AI’s impact on the 2024 presidential election, Northeastern survey finds. “The majority of Americans are concerned that artificial intelligence will be used to spread falsehoods during the next presidential election, according to a recent Northeastern University survey. The survey was conducted by Northeastern’s new AI Literacy Lab to gauge the general public’s perceptions on AI. It found that 83% of respondents are worried about the proliferation of AI-generated misinformation during the 2024 presidential campaign.”

NBC News: How the GOP muzzled the quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda

NBC News: How the GOP muzzled the quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda. “A once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks. The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.”

The Verge: Microsoft offers politicians protection against deepfakes

The Verge: Microsoft offers politicians protection against deepfakes. “Amid growing concern that AI can make it easier to spread misinformation, Microsoft is offering its services, including a digital watermark identifying AI content, to help crack down on deepfakes and enhance cybersecurity ahead of several worldwide elections.”

Cal Matters: Recognizing fake news now a required subject in California schools

Cal Matters: Recognizing fake news now a required subject in California schools. “Pushing back against the surge of misinformation online, California will now require all K-12 students to learn media literacy skills — such as recognizing fake news and thinking critically about what they encounter on the internet.”

IN FOCUS: How fake news on Israel-Hamas stokes outrage, hatred and ‘potential for violence’ on Southeast Asian TikTok (Channel News Asia)

Channel News Asia: IN FOCUS: How fake news on Israel-Hamas stokes outrage, hatred and ‘potential for violence’ on Southeast Asian TikTok. “A week-long CNA experiment, on top of reports from TikTok users and misinformation experts in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, has identified a steady stream of inaccurate content on the Israel-Hamas war spreading on the platform. While the proliferation of fake news online during geopolitical tensions is not new – an issue which also surfaced during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war – analysts said the Israel-Hamas conflict takes on a different, perhaps more pernicious dimension in Southeast Asia.”

Rappler: How pro-China propaganda is seeded online in the Philippines

Rappler: How pro-China propaganda is seeded online in the Philippines. “Chinese influence in the Philippine online space is not new. In 2020, Facebook took down an ‘inauthentic network’ attributed to Chinese individuals…. A year before this, Facebook took down another inauthentic network composed of actors run by ‘individuals associated with the Chinese government’ in 2019. But even after the takedowns, several pro-China voices remained online in the Philippines.”

WIRED: Inside Elon Musk’s First Election Crisis—a Day After He ‘Freed’ the Bird

WIRED: Inside Elon Musk’s First Election Crisis—a Day After He ‘Freed’ the Bird. “The day after Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter, the company’s Seattle office held a Halloween party for employees and their children. Rebecca Scott Thein dressed in bright green to play an alien to her daughter’s Buzz Lightyear. Thein, whose job at Twitter (now X) was to help the platform plan for and navigate elections, was driving to the party when an urgent call came in. On the other end of the phone was a member of Twitter’s policy team. The company had just received a ‘consent decree’—essentially, a threat of legal action—in Brazil, which was about to hold runoffs for highly polarized presidential and gubernatorial elections.”