Totalitarian regimes, be it communist fascist capitalist or any ist, by definition, falsify information. Or silence it.
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Citizen journalist disappears after critical coverage of coronavirus response
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Reporting by Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Qiushi, who arrived in Wuhan on the last train just before the city went into lockdown, has been seen as defying the Chinese Communist Party's tight grip on information around the outbreak.
ELENA COLLINSON and JAMES LAURENCESON. China and the Coronavirus. (Australia-China Relations Institute 10.2.2020)
Is China telling us everything it knows about Coronavirus? Continue reading
HANNAH AULBY. Strangling Accountability.
The Centre for Public Integrity invites you to the inaugural National Integrity Forum: “Strangling Accountability”. Continue reading
LAURIE PATTON. The Data Retention Act. How not to introduce complex legislation.
Appearing before a Parliamentary inquiry into the Data Retention Act the Commonwealth Ombudsman Michael Manthorpe revealed that law enforcement agencies have obtained individuals’ web browsing history without a warrant. Continue reading
World Health Organisation gives coronavirus an official name: Covid-19
UN agencies have decided to name the novel coronavirus "Covid-19," the World Health Organisation says.
Swiss investigate report that firm helped CIA crack top-secret messages
Switzerland is probing reports that the US Central Intelligence Agency and West Germany's spy service used a Swiss company's encryption technology to covertly crack other nations' top-secret messages.
Ads, speeches and conspiracies: oh my!
It
was one of the busiest weeks for American politics in recent memory.
On
Sunday, President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Michael
Bloomberg aired dueling
ads
during the Super Bowl. Monday was the
Iowa caucuses, which kicked off the primary election season (as of this
writing, we still don’t have all of the results). On Tuesday, Trump delivered
the annual State of the Union address. And all of this happened amid a backdrop
of the coronavirus
outbreak, a Senate vote to acquit Trump of impeachment
charges and a
looming primary in New Hampshire.
(Poynter-owned)
PolitiFact fact-checked a slew of statements, social media posts and ads
throughout the busy news week. It proved to be especially fertile ground for
conspiracy theories.
On
caucus day, conservative organizations spread
misinformation about potential voter fraud in Iowa. The claim, that eight
Iowa counties had more registered voters than adults, was spread far and wide
on social media. But Iowa’s secretary of state publicly rebutted the
allegations, and PolitiFact rated
them False.
Also
on Monday, once it became clear that there was an issue with the Iowa
Democratic Party’s system for tallying caucus results, conspiracies started to
circulate online. Some supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) falsely
claimed the delay was because Democrats were “blocking the caucus.” Others constructed
an elaborate conspiracy about connections between the app that was used to
report caucus results and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg.
If
this week taught us anything, it’s that timing is everything.
False
voter fraud claims and conspiracies about caucus results spread widely because
they circulated during developing news stories, when journalists were still
trying to get confirmed information about what was happening. Misinformation
about the coronavirus went viral because there’s still much
health officials don’t know about the disease. On social media, news consumers
want answers as quickly as possible — and conjecture and falsehoods often
fill that gap.
The
lessons for fact-checkers are obvious: respond quickly to hoaxes about
developing news, live fact-check key political events and prioritize claims
with the biggest potential impact on voters. Because at the end of the day, we
can’t fact-check everything, and it’s only February.
—
Daniel Funke, PolitiFact
. . . technology
- Jigsaw, owned by Google’s parent, Alphabet Inc., is testing a tool called Assembler that could help journalists identify manipulated media, said Jared Cohen, the company’s CEO, in a blog post.
- A dozen news and fact-checking organizations around the world are trying out the tool, including Animal Politico in Mexico, Rappler in the Philippines, Code for Africa, Agence France-Presse and Les Décodeurs du Monde.
- “The tool uses ‘detectors’ to analyze an image or deepfake;
determine if it’s authentic; and if it’s not, inform the user where the
image may have been manipulated,” Jay
Peters wrote in The Verge.
- Twitter also released new rules aimed at addressing manipulated media, the company said in a blog post. Beginning March 5, it said, users may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm.
- In addition, it said, “we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand the media’s authenticity and to provide additional context.”
. . . politics
- Misinformation experts told the Associated Press that they expect election manipulation efforts by foreign governments and domestic actors to become more sophisticated this year, aided by cheap targeted ads online.
- “Experts say political campaigns, foreign government and trolls will continue to push the boundaries, testing to see which messages, images or videos resonate with potential voters based on their data,” the AP wrote.
·
YouTube
said
this week that it will enforce policies that prohibit videos that spread
falsehoods related to elections.
. . . the future of news
·
In
anticipation of a wide range of misinformation challenges news organizations
are expected to face in the election year, API
is creating a network to connect local newsroom leaders across the country
with experts who combat disinformation and other threats to honest reporting
and election integrity.
- API is hiring a community manager to operate at the hub of this project, a job that will start immediately and last through the year.
Fact-checking
isn’t always just debunking. Sometimes it involves making sure the audience has
practical information. And that is what Full Fact did this week when the United
Kingdom left the European Union. The British fact-checking organization helped
its audience to understand crucial changes in daily life – and also found an
easy way to reach its followers, answering straight-forward questions at the
moment they most needed it.
On Jan. 31, Full Fact's team delivered a helpful newsletter
called "Brexit: what changes after 31 January?" listing
practicalities British people had to learn. The email had six fact-checks and a
link to a robust
article where readers could find easy answers for more than 10 common
questions citizens might have been asking themselves. "Will I have
to pay roaming fees on my phone?" (So far, no), "Do I need a visa to
go to Europe?" (Not until 2021), "Will I be able to drive in the
EU?" (Yes. It won't change until 2021).
Full Fact did not use the traditional format of fact-checks. It
didn't choose a post on social media and a false or true rating. It simply
wrote its article in a Q&A format, with answers no longer than three paragraphs.
What we liked: Fact-checking is about delivering reliable information when it
is most needed. Full fact's team played an important role by offering solid
sources and answering daily life questions in the most efficient way
possible.
— Cristina Tardáguila, IFCN
1. A doctored Newsweek article, a false
Pentagon letter, a fake tweet and a very suspicious call from the father of a
"missing U.S soldier" became “serious news” on Iran’s
State Television.
2. The #CoronaVirusFacts collaboration,
coordinated by the International Fact-Checking Network, has published 285
fact-checks in 39 countries so far. In its fourth
report, it points out that Facebook, Google and Twitter could do better to
support the fight against hoaxes about the new disease.
3. The first legal challenge to Singapore’s
law against online misinformation was
rejected this week. Opponents say the law is being used to stifle dissent.
4. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for
misinformation remedies continues to be a subject of misinformation itself.
Lead Stories this week sought
to clear it up.
5. From
Mother Jones: Conservative groups are trying to peddle conspiracy claims of
voter fraud in the Iowa caucuses.
6. University of Pennsylvania professor
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a co-founder of FactCheck.org, will receive the 2020
Public Welfare Medal, the highest medal of honor from the National Academy
of Sciences.
7. NPR
spoke with journalist Maria Ressa and “A Thousand Cuts” documentary maker
Ramona Diaz about the spread of disinformation on social media in the
Philippines.
