^CategorySocial Media

^{Type
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Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
April 12, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Environment, Social Media

Tagged
Climate change, Climate Disinformation Coalition, Conscious Advertising Network, Dr. William Happer, environmental science, Free speech, Global Center for Climate Justice, Pinterest}

Pinterest Bans Climate Change “Misinformation”

_{Pinterest might be the first company to implement such a strict ban, but what if it's not the last?} _{Caitlin Bassett

April 12, 2022

6

Censorship, Environment, Social Media}

Last week, Pinterest banned climate change misinformation from its platform, becoming the first major social media company to do so outright. The policy raises free speech concerns. Since not all scientists agree on the nature of climate change, what causes it, and what the solutions are, how is the issue to be discussed if alternate points of view are banned from public platforms? Pinterest is an image-sharing social media site, where users share ideas that they can “pin” to their own boards on everything from recipes to interior design to fashion. On April 6, Pinterest announced their new climate misinformation policy, aimed at “remov[ing] content that may harm the public’s well-being, safety or trust.” As of the policy announcement, any Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
April 5, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Social Media

Tagged
decentralization, Elon Musk, Free speech, Jack Dorsey, Larry Sanger, Twitter, Web3}

Dorsey Talks Decentralization and Musk Buys Twitter Share

_{Will this be the upset many free speech advocates hope it could be?} _{Caitlin Bassett

April 5, 2022

6

Censorship, Social Media}

Last week, I wrote about the buzz around internet decentralization, especially as there appears to be talk at Twitter of moving in such a direction. The buzz continues, this time with vocal support from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, coinciding with a bold financial move from Elon Musk. On April 2, Dorsey reminisced on Twitter about the early, decentralized days of the Internet, and said that centralization “really damaged the internet. I realize I’m partially to blame, and regret it.” The problems of social media platforms have been made clear in the past few years, specifically when it comes to data privacy and how to handle (or even define) harmful content while also respecting free speech. But there isn’t as much Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
March 30, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Social Media

Tagged
Bluesky, decentralization, Encyclosphere, Free speech, Jack Dorsey, Larry Sanger, Minifeed, Open vs. closed platform, Parag Agrawal, Twitter, Web 3.0, Wikipedia}

Could Decentralization Fix Twitter’s Censorship Problems?

_{Decentralization is not an automatic guarantee of internet freedom, but it may be a good first step} _{Caitlin Bassett

March 30, 2022

6

Censorship, Social Media}

Twitter is considering decentralization according to a recent report from The New York Times. But what does decentralization mean, and how would it impact our experience with social media? Is this a solution to all the problems around censorship standards that Big Tech companies have faced in recent years? According to The New York Times, Twitter is following the early vision of a former employee named Blaine Cook by “funding an independent effort to build a so-called open protocol for social media. It is also weaving cryptocurrency into its app, and opening up to developers who want to build custom features for Twitter.” Kate Conger reports: Some skeptics believe Twitter is jumping on the web3 bandwagon, joining a trendy movement in tech to shift many Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
March 11, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Global Technology, Social Media

Tagged
Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus, Facebook, Hate speech, Instagram, Meta, Russia, Twitter, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, WhatsApp}

Meta Suspends Hate Speech Policy in Countries Near Russia

_{Hate speech and death threats against Russian and Belarusian political leaders and their militaries are temporarily allowed in twelve Eastern European countries} _{Caitlin Bassett

March 11, 2022

4

Censorship, Global Technology, Social Media}

In a dramatic change of policy, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) will temporarily allow users of Facebook and Instagram in twelve countries to post hate speech and death threats directed toward Russian and Belarusian military personnel and political leaders within the context of the conflict in Ukraine. The change was first reported by Reuters on Thursday morning. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters, “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.” Calls for violence against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko are Read More ›

Futuristic portable device and many pictures.

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
March 10, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Social Media

Tagged
censorship, Donald Trump (election fraud claims), Election fraud, misinformation, Rising (daily news show), Robby Soave, Ryan Grim, YouTube}

YouTube Suspends News Show for Reporting on Misinformation

_{The show's host has accused YouTube of failing to "distinguish between misinformation and reporting"} _{Caitlin Bassett

March 10, 2022

4

Censorship, Social Media}

Last week, YouTube suspended a popular daily news show from The Hill for including in its reporting footage of former President Donald Trump repeating the claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, a claim that violates YouTube’s policies on misinformation. The co-hosts of the show have criticized the suspension, arguing that the policy, as enforced, is a threat to journalism on YouTube. One of the co-hosts posted about it on Twitter: Robby Soave and Ryan Grim co-host Rising, a daily morning news show for The Hill, one of the country’s leading political newspapers. Last week, they discovered that their channel had been temporarily suspended based on two videos that the show posted that had violated YouTube’s policies. The Read More ›

Concept of accusation guilty person girl.

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 8, 2022

Categorized
Psychology, Social Media

Tagged
Andrew Mahon, Cancel Culture (and science), Cancel Culture (its roots), Contagion (and Cancel Culture), COVID-19 (and Cancel Culture), Emma Camp, Frank Herbert, Groupthink (and Cancel Culture), Julie Overbaugh, Justin Trudeau (and Cancel Culture), Michael Egnor (on René Girard), mob psychology, Obscurity (and Cancel Culture), René Girard, Scapegoat (in Cancel Culture)}

Why Is Cancel Culture Such a Big Part of Our Lives Today?

_{To understand the Twitter mob’s destruction of lives and careers, it’s essential to address the immense power of groupthink} _{Denyse O'Leary

March 8, 2022

7

Psychology, Social Media}

Just in time for International Women’s Day, Emma Camp, a female student at the University of Virginia, reports experiencing a wave of hostility when she suggested that non-Indian women could legitimately criticize the practice of suttee, by which a woman burns to death on her husband’s funeral pyre, voluntarily or otherwise. The reaction on Twitter suggests that Cancel Culture is its lifeblood. Meanwhile, virologist Julie Overbaugh, a National Academy of Sciences member who has made many contributions to the study of viruses, has been forced out of her teaching and research leadership positions because she had worn a Michael Jackson costume to a Halloween “King of Pop” party in 2009. Curiously, although one of her cited offences in connection with Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
March 4, 2022

Categorized
Social Media

Tagged
Big Tech, Facebook, Facebook Files, Joe Biden, mental health, social media, social media harms (children), State of the Union, Twitter}

In State of the Union, Biden Vows to Curb Social Media Harms

_{Biden addressed the mental health harms of social media use on children and teens} _{Caitlin Bassett

March 4, 2022

5

Social Media}

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden referred to the harms of social media in his State of the Union address, announcing policy proposals to curb those harms. In response, however, some have been critical of the president’s remarks, accusing him of ignoring social media’s deeper dangers. Over an hour into his speech, President Biden turned to mental health and the emotional toll the pandemic has had, especially on children. Then he turned to the emotional health toll exacted by social media, long before the first COVID-19 lockdowns. “Children were also struggling before the pandemic – bullying, violence, trauma, and the harms of social media,” he said. “It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children, demand tech companies stop Read More ›

Bored couple with sexual problem addicted to internet mobile phone.Relationship difficulties

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
March 1, 2022

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Social Media

Tagged
Electronics (and sleep patterns), Lindsay Hahn, Media use (and sleep patterns), Rob Newsom, Social media (and sleep patterns), Students (Twitter and sleep patterns), Twitter (and sleep patterns)}

Bedtime Media Can Help Us Get Better Sleep — But Not Social Media

_{One issue is the way blue lights and electronic notification and alert beeps interfere with natural sleep patterns} _{News

March 1, 2022

5

Medicine and Health, Social Media}

University of Buffalo communications prof Lindsay Hahn doesn’t think we need to avoid media before bedtime in order to get better sleep. Her recent research showed that the question was more complex than that: “We found that media use just prior to the onset of sleep is associated with an earlier bedtime and more total sleep time, as long as the duration of use is relatively short and you’re not multitasking, like texting or simultaneously scrolling social media,” says Lindsay Hahn, PhD, an assistant professor of communication in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences. “Watching a streaming service or listening to a podcast before bed can serve as a passive, calming activity that improves aspects of your Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
February 11, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Social Media

Tagged
crack pipes, Daily Caller, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Facebook, harm reduction, Jen Psaki, Joe Biden, Lead Stories, misinformation, smoking kits, Snopes, Washington Free Beacon, White House}

Fact Checkers Stifle Story on Government-Funded Crack Pipes

_{When official sources contradict each other, who has the authority to decide what is misinformation and what is not?} _{Caitlin Bassett

February 11, 2022

4

Censorship, Social Media}

A Facebook fact-checking group censored a report released this week that the Biden Administration is providing grants that would fund the distribution of crack pipes to the addicted, labeling it as containing “partly false information” and burying any posts containing the report in users’ news feeds. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Monday that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is operating a $30 million grant program for harm reduction, a strategy to combat drug addiction that seeks “to reduce the negative personal and public health impacts of behavior associated with alcohol and other substance use.” Perhaps the best known harm reduction tactic has been the exchange or distribution of clean needles to the addicted. Now, it would Read More ›

Bearish stock financial, bear market chart falling prices down turn from global economic and financial crisis.

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
February 9, 2022

Categorized
Business and Finance, Social Media

Tagged
antitrust, apple, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, metaverse, stock market, TikTok}

Zuckerberg’s New Meta Pummeled by Stock Market

_{Meta (Facebook reimagined) faces a gauntlet of challenges only months after Zuckerberg announced his new "metaverse" initiative} _{Caitlin Bassett

February 9, 2022

4

Business and Finance, Social Media}

Last October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be undergoing a major facelift to become Meta. The Facebook platform we all know and love would remain as is, but Meta would become Facebook’s parent company with a primary focus of developing the “metaverse,” an immersive online experience that Zuckerberg called “the next frontier” of the internet. But Meta is off to a rough start. Facebook’s parent company shed more than $230 billion in market value Thursday, a one-day loss that is the biggest ever for a U.S. company and increases pressure on a stock market long powered by technology shares…. The Facebook parent company surprised investors with a deeper-than-expected decline in profit and a downbeat outlook. The company Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
February 4, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Law, Social Media

Tagged
Brad Hoylman (senator), Bradley Martin, censorship, First Amendment, Free speech, New York, NY Senate Bill S7568, Royal Society, social media, Vivek Murthy}

New York Senate Tries To Shut Down Misinformation on Social Media

_{The introduction of the bill raises concerns about government's intrusion into the freedom of speech online} _{Caitlin Bassett

February 4, 2022

6

Censorship, Law, Social Media}

In December, a bill was presented in the New York State Senate that would attempt to hold social media companies responsible for their role in circulating incitements to violence, incitements to self-harm, and misinformation. Introduced by Democratic/Working Families Party Senator Brad Hoylman of Manhattan, the legislation would empower the state’s Attorney General to bring an action against any social media company that allows for the circulation of content that incites violence or that “includes a false statement of fact or fraudulent medical theory…”. No person, by conduct either unlawful in itself or unreasonable under all the circumstances, shall knowingly or recklessly create, maintain or contribute to a condition in New York state that endangers the safety or health of the public through Read More ›

Newspapers and Laptop. Different Concepts for News - Network or Traditional Tabloid Journals. Data Sources - Electronic Screen of Computer or Paper Pages of Magazines, Internet or Papers

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 2, 2022

Categorized
Media, Social Media

Tagged
Erasmus Klaus Nielsen, Felix Salmon, Knight Foundation (on trust in media), Media (trust in media), Poynter (on trust in media), Reuters Institute (on trust in media), Social media (as personal news channels)}

The Cultural Changes That Destroyed Trust in Media

_{The critical question isn’t whether traditional media are trusted but whether their model can even survive the tsunami of the internet} _{Denyse O'Leary

February 2, 2022

6

Media, Social Media}

Felix Salmon, chief financial correspondent at Axios, shares the gloomy news: For the first time ever, fewer than half of all Americans have trust in traditional media, according to data from Edelman’s annual trust barometer shared exclusively with Axios. Trust in social media has hit an all-time low of 27%. Felix Salmon, “Media trust hits new low” at Axios (January 1, 2021) But the trust issue is highly polarized: When Edelman re-polled Americans after the election, the figures had deteriorated even further, with 57% of Democrats trusting the media and only 18% of Republicans. Felix Salmon, “Media trust hits new low” at Axios (January 1, 2021) But even if media are willing to just write off Republicans, it can’t be Read More ›

Portrait of guy on blue neon light digital interface background. Young man with beard. Censored concept.

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
January 25, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Media, Medicine and Health, Social Media

Tagged
Anthony Fauci (flipflops), COVID-19 (misinformation issue), COVID-19 (Wuhan origin controversy), National Public Radio (judges' face masks controversy), Nicholas Wade (on COVID origin), Nina Totenberg, Royal Society, Trust (in media), Trust (in science)}

Royal Society: Don’t Censor Misinformation; It Makes Things Worse

_{While others demand crackdowns on “fake news,” the Society reminds us that the history of science is one of error correction} _{Denyse O'Leary

January 25, 2022

8

Censorship, Media, Medicine and Health, Social Media}

A leading science organization, the Royal Society (Britain’s equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences), has put out a report discouraging social media censorship, with special reference to the COVID-19 pandemic: The Royal Society, the U.K.’s academy of sciences, published a study of online scientific and health misinformation Wednesday, investigating its root causes and brainstorming possible solutions. The scientists concluded that censoring content deemed to be misinformation is often harmful and antithetical to the principles of scientific inquiry… The report found that online censorship risked pushing misinformation underground and off of major social media platforms, where it is less likely to be exposed to countervailing opinions. Censorship also risks removing or suppressing content that may be true or helpful to Read More ›

closeup keyboard laptop and Google Ads AdWords app icon on smartphone screen. Google is the biggest Internet search engine in the world. Moscow, Russia - April 27, 2019

^{Type
post

Author
Caitlin Bassett
Date
January 21, 2022

Categorized
Law, Social Media

Tagged
antitrust, Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Google, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Sundar Pichai}

Facebook and Google Face Big Legal Challenges

_{The FTC, dozens of states, and private citizens are coming after the big tech companies for antitrust violations} _{Caitlin Bassett

January 21, 2022

7

Law, Social Media}

How has 2022 begun for our favorite Big Tech companies? With a good chunk of lawsuits. As technology companies grow bigger, they face bigger legal challenges. Here’s a brief rundown of a few such challenges Facebook and Google face in the courts in this new year: FTC Antitrust Lawsuit Against Facebook Moves Forward Let’s begin at the federal level. Last June, Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia tossed out a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) challenging Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. According to Boasberg, the FTC failed to adequately show that Facebook holds a monopoly. Not to be dissuaded, the FTC re-filed with an amended complaint in August. Last Read More ›