A group of more than 80 prominent fact-checking organizations around the world is pressing YouTube to take action against COVID misinformation, which still prevails on the platform now two years into the pandemic. “As an international network of fact-checking organizations, we monitor how lies spread online — and every day, we see that YouTube is […]
Pendulum raises $5.9M to help organizations track harmful narratives
Pendulum helps companies, governments and other organizations track harmful narratives on social media platforms and elsewhere on the web. The company today announced that it has raised a $5.9 million seed round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Cercano Management and others. The service was incubated inside Madrona Venture Labs. “Pendulum’s platform applies […]
Putin and Xi’s evolving disinformation playbooks pose new threats
The TechCrunch Global Affairs Project examines the increasingly intertwined relationship between the tech sector and global politics.
What I learned building a fact-checking startup
Our thesis was clear: If technology could drive people to seek truth, facts, statistics and data to make their decisions, we could build an online discourse of reason and rationality.
Something Weird is Happening on Facebook
Don’t take candy from strangers and don’t feed your personal information to bots. If you spend any time on Facebook you’ve probably noticed a blizzard of question memes coming from clickbait accounts. You’ve likely either commented on them yourself or …
Google to give security keys to ‘high risk’ users targeted by government hackers
Google has said it will provide 10,000 “high-risk” users with free hardware security keys, days after the company warned thousands of Gmail users that they were targeted by state-sponsored hackers. The warning, sent by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG), alerted more than 14,000 Gmail users that they had been targeted in a state-sponsored phishing campaign […]
“If we make more angry content, we get more engagement.”
Whistleblower Frances Haugen will give congressional testimony later this week about internal Facebook research and communications she gave to the SEC, in the form of tens of thousands of pages that document the company’s deliberate and deceitful ampli…
Trolling for American hearts and minds
Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows, MIT Technology Review, Karen Hao, September 16, 2021 [alternate link]. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Facebook’s most popular pages for Chri…
Clubhouse, Vimeo, DoubleVerify and others set to sign up to beefed-up disinformation code in the EU
Audio social network Clubhouse, video sharing platform Vimeo and anti-ad fraud startup DoubleVerify are among a clutch of tech companies and organzations preparing to sign up to a beefed-up version of the European Union’s Code of Practice on Online Disinformation, the Commission said today. Back in May the EU’s executive said it would be strengthening […]
EU warns Russia over ‘Ghostwriter’ hacking ahead of German elections
The European Union has warned it may take action over Russia’s involvement in “malicious cyber activities” against several EU member states. The “Ghostwriter” campaign targeted “numerous members of Parliaments, government officials, politicians, and members of the press and civil society in the EU”, according to a press release from the European Council on Friday, and was […]