by Damian Radcliffe | ( Mediashift.org ) The past year has been another fascinating 12 months for social media watchers in the Middle East. I’ve been charting these developments in an annual round-up for the past five years, with my 2016 report showing an intensifying of a several previously highlighted trends. In particular, we’ve seen […]
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social media
The Thin Line Between Political Censorship and Fighting Fake News in Iran
By Mahsa Alimardani | (Global Voices) | – – The Iranian government is reportedly taking steps to expand regulations on large public news channels on the instant messenger Telegram. The move would apparently affect groups with more than 5,000 subscribers. It remains unclear, however, if state officials seek dramatic changes to controls on these online […]
Why do we fall for fake news?
By S. Shyam Sundar | (The Conversation) | – – In recent weeks, the amount of online fake news that circulated during the final months of the presidential race is coming to light, a disturbing revelation that threatens to undermine the country’s democratic process. We’re already seeing some real-world consequences. After fake news stories implicated […]
The Last Days of Democracy?
By Adil E. Shamoo and Bonnie Bricker | Foreign Policy in Focus | – – A fraudulent campaign has resulted in the election of a fraudulent president. What can be done to save American democracy? The recent presidential campaign season brought political pornography to the American people. Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, his senior counselor […]
Election Westworld? Bots were 20% of your Twitter News Feed
By Emilio Ferrara | (The Conversation) | – – Key to democracy is public engagement – when people discuss the issues of the day with each other openly, honestly and without outside influence. But what happens when large numbers of participants in that conversation are biased robots created by unseen groups with unknown agendas? As […]
Facebook Ad Option allows Discrimination Against Blacks, Latinos
By Julia Angwin and Terry Parris Jr. | (ProPublica) | – – Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers. That’s basically what Facebook is doing nowadays. The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by […]
“This Parrot is no More”: The 2016 Presidential Election did not Take Place
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) The French sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard wrote a book in 1991 entitled The Gulf War did not Take Place . In the same way, the 2016 presidential election did not take place. Baudrillard did not mean to say, of course, that no war was prosecuted by the US […]
The Other Terrorism: White Nationalist Twitter Growing Faster Than ISIL
TeleSur | – – “There is substantial and growing evidence that white nationalism is enjoying a meaningful resurgence within the United States . . .” Twitter users who identify themselves as white nationalists and neo-nazis have been growing faster than supporters of ISIL group, rising more than 600 percent in four years, according to a […]
How Twitter robots spam critics of Saudi Arabia & Shiite Muslims
By Brian Whitaker | ( Al-Bab.com ) | – – For several weeks now there has been growing evidence that Twitter is being used for a covert and highly organised propaganda operation which disparages Shia Muslims while supporting the Sunni Muslim governments of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The tactic is to deluge Twitter with multiple […]