Category «Social Media»

Nobody (Not Even Trump) Can Control the Epstein Story

The Atlantic – no paywall: “Donald Trump helped create a monster. Now he’d like for everyone to ignore it. After years of sounding dog whistles and peddling outright conspiracism to work his supporters into a lather about global pedophile rings, Trump is telling those same people to move on. Earlier today, Trump posted on Truth …

Subjects: Censorship, Congress, Courts, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Social Media

Small fraction of hyperactive social media users generates vast majority of toxic online content

Inside the funhouse mirror factory: How social media distorts perceptions of norms. Claire E. Robertson, Kareena S. del Rosario, Jay J. Van Bavel. Elsevier Current Opinion in Psychology Volume 60, December 2024, 101918. “The current paper explains how modern technology interacts with human psychology to create a funhouse mirror version of social norms. We argue …

Subjects: Blogs, Education, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

What to Do When You See ICE in Your Neighborhood

The Intercept – How can you deter the Trump administration’s immigrant deportation machine when it pops up in your community? Follow these steps… Out running errands and see a cluster of weirdos kitted out for war, milling about like they’re stuck in a Call of Duty matchmaking lobby? Grab some pics and vids to raise …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

DHS Tells Police That Common Protest Activities Are ‘Violent Tactics’

Wired: “The Department of Homeland Security is urging local police to consider a wide range of protest activity as violent tactics, including mundane acts like riding a bike or livestreaming a police encounter, WIRED has learned. Threat bulletins issued during last month’s “No Kings” protests warn that the US government’s aggressive immigration raids are almost …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Internet, Legal Research, Social Media

NYT to start searching deleted ChatGPT logs after beating OpenAI in court

Ars Technica: “Last week, OpenAI raised objections in court, hoping to overturn a court order requiring the AI company to retain all ChatGPT logs “indefinitely,” including deleted and temporary chats. But Sidney Stein, the US district judge reviewing OpenAI’s request, immediately denied OpenAI’s objections. He was seemingly unmoved by the company’s claims that the order …

Subjects: AI, Copyright, Courts, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

Once it was mostly a taco website. Now it’s covering L.A. ICE raids.

Washington Post via MSN – no paywall: “It all happened so quickly. On June 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended upon Los Angeles, raiding businesses and arresting more than 40 people. Once word got out on social media, protests began and L.A. Taco’s six-person news team headed out to the streets. Investigative reporter Lexis-Olivier …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

A Pro-Russia Disinformation Campaign Is Using Free AI Tools to Fuel a ‘Content Explosion’

Wired no paywall: “Consumer-grade AI tools have supercharged Russian-aligned disinformation as pictures, videos, QR codes, and fake websites have proliferated. A pro-Russia disinformation campaign is leveraging consumer artificial intelligence tools to fuel a “content explosion” focused on exacerbating existing tensions around global elections, Ukraine, and immigration, among other controversial issues, according to new research published …

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, E-Records, Privacy, Social Media

How the Billionaires Took Over

The New Republic: “Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But the far bigger menace is the monstrous growth in wealth concentration over five decades that made a Trump presidency possible—and maybe inevitable. Here’s how we let it happen. Donald Trump is America’s first billionaire president. He entered the White House in 2017 with …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Commerce, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research, Social Media

ICEBlock app for anonymously reporting ICE sightings goes viral overnight after Bondi criticism

“ICEBlock, an iPhone app that allows users to anonymously report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, has rocketed to one of the coveted top spots in Apple’s U.S. App Store rankings. The upshot: Criticism from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi helped get it there. Most of ICEBlock’s users — about 20,000 — …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Social Media

Study – Using TikTok could be making you more politically polarized

The Conversation: “People on TikTok tend to follow accounts that align with their own political beliefs, meaning the platform is creating political echo chambers among its users. These findings, from a study my collaborators, Yanlin Li and Homero Gil de Zúñiga, and I published in the academic journal New Media & Society, show that people …

Subjects: Censorship, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

Republicans are flagged more often than Democrats for sharing misinformation on X’s Community Notes

Republicans are flagged more often than Democrats for sharing misinformation on X’s Community Notes, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (25) e2502053122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2502053122 (2025). “We use crowd-sourced assessments from X’s Community Notes program to examine whether there are partisan differences in the sharing of misleading information. Unlike previous studies, misleadingness here is determined by agreement …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media