The tragedy is not
that my brother is dead
but that we are left behind that's what's terrible
from Thomas Bernhard Heldenplatz
In Remembrance of Photographer Michael Wolf
In Remembrance of Photographer Michael Wolf
Facebook shuts down billions of fake accounts
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: The future is robots, and they’re teaching us how to flirt.
Leandra Lederman (Indiana), Does Enforcement Reduce Voluntary Tax Compliance?, 2018 BYU L. Rev. 623 (reviewed by Orly Mazur (SMU) here):
Governments generally use enforcement methods, such as audits and the imposition of penalties, to deter noncompliance with tax laws. Although this approach is consistent with most economic modeling of tax compliance, some scholars caution that enforcement may backfire, “crowding out” taxpayers’ intrinsic motivations to pay taxes to such an extent that they reduce their tax payments. This article analyzes the existing evidence to determine if and when this occurs.
Quote of the day: the Big Four in low income countries
Read Article
via Daniel and Susan
Twitter goes after anti-vaxxers
Twitter
is trying a new tactic to head off misinformation about vaccines.
This
week, several
media
outlets
reported on how the social media platform had started surfacing factual
information about vaccines in search. As of last Friday, if a user searches
for vaccine information in the United States, the top result will be a tweet
from the Department of Health and Human Services urging users to “find
credible, expert-approved information at http://go.pardot.com/e/273262/2019-05-16/2dsdbb/389828887?h=RB_nmtS_-d4wSJFZ39knPczFQXMNsdMPkQLi5RQ4Kmo.”
“This
new investment builds on our existing work to guard against the artificial
amplification of non-credible content about the safety and effectiveness of
vaccines,” Del Harvey, vice president of trust and safety at Twitter, wrote
in a blog post. “We already ensure that advertising content does not
contain misleading claims about the cure, treatment, diagnosis or prevention of
certain diseases and conditions, including vaccines.”
In
the post, Harvey said that the new feature is functional on mobile apps in the
U.S. (in English and Spanish), Canada (in English and French), the United
Kingdom, Brazil, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and “Spanish-speaking Latin
American countries.” If users in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Brazil or Korea
search on the desktop version of the website, they’ll see a pinned tweet with
information from credible sources.
Following
Pinterest,
Facebook,
YouTube
and Instagram,
Twitter is the
latest tech company to prioritize countering vaccine misinformation. But
its efforts reveal inconsistencies across different countries and languages
— inconsistencies that tend to pervade other companies in Silicon Valley
as well.
After
pointing
out the new advisory in a tweet on Tuesday, Alexios Mantzarlis, senior
partnerships and research fellow at TED and former co-author of this
newsletter (hi, dad!) tried to replicate the results by searching for vaccine
information in Italian. That resulted in an
advisory in Spanish.
Then,
he asked other Twitter users to share what they turned up. The results were
varied.
In
Indonesia, the message only
appeared on the Twitter app — not the browser version of the website.
In
Canada, users
saw a pinned tweet from a credible institution at the top of their feeds
instead of a custom message.
In
Mexico, an advisory didn’t
appear on desktop or mobile versions of Twitter for some phrases but did
for others. The same thing happened
in Argentina.
Meanwhile,
users in the United
Kingdom, Brazil
and the U.S. all seemed to consistently get an advisory message. And to
Twitter’s credit, a message also appeared when Mantzarlis searched
for specific conditions associated with vaccine misinformation, such as
autism, MMR (mumps, measles and rubella) and HPV. All but the last one surfaced
an advisory.
Twitter told Daniel that, once it launches its new web interface worldwide, the advisory should appear in all markets. This iteration of the feature just includes countries where the company could find credible partners.
Twitter told Daniel that, once it launches its new web interface worldwide, the advisory should appear in all markets. This iteration of the feature just includes countries where the company could find credible partners.
But
the disparity in Twitter search results for vaccine information reveals how big
tech companies have inconsistently applied anti-misinformation standards across
different countries, cultures and contexts.
In an
analysis of 12 countries, Mantzarlis’ team at TED found that searching
Google for “Should I vaccinate my child” yielded different results in different
countries. While countries like Mexico had less overall misinformation and more
prominent results from health officials, users in Italy and France saw more
misinformation and fewer official sources.
There’s
more to come on that specific report in future iterations of this newsletter.
But
for now, the point stands: If Silicon Valley wants to apply anti-misinformation
efforts globally and at scale, it has to ensure its products work similarly in
different contexts — particularly contexts where there are outbreaks of
preventable diseases, such as measles
in the Philippines. Otherwise, they’ll continue to prioritize Western,
English-speaking countries over the rest of the world.
. . . technology
- WeChat, a messaging app popular in China and among the country’s expatriates, is being used to spread misinformation about the upcoming Australian election. The platform has become a hotspot for political misinformation around the world, particularly among Chinese-speaking U.S. citizens.
- Reuters reported that WhatsApp clones are allowing marketers and political activists to bypass the platform’s controls aimed at limiting the spread of misinformation in India, where social media has been awash in rumors and falsehoods during the national election.
- The advocacy group Avaaz last week arranged meetings between victims of misinformation and the big social media platforms. According to Wired, Avaaz encouraged the companies to adopt policies that would “alert people when they've been exposed to information marked false by third-party fact-checkers.”
. . . politics
- A new report from Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, has identified a pro-Iranian group that used fake websites and social media to spread articles online and to attack Iran’s adversaries. Here's the New York Times story, which gives a good description of the tricky tactics used by the operation, including "typosquatting." Here's the report itself, and an account from The Atlantic of how it was spoofed.
- The Times also reported this week on how the European parliamentary elections have become a target for disinformation campaigns by Russia and far-right groups. Warnings about such campaigns have been escalating in advance of the election this week. EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova called the situation “a digital arms race.”
- Snopes this week published the results of an investigation showing how a small group of radical evangelical Christians is using Facebook pages as part of a network that pushes support for President Trump and spreads hate and conspiracy theories. All the pages are traced back to one evangelical activist. Meanwhile, The Hill wrote about how Americans are copying Russian disinformation tactics to try to undermine 2020 presidential candidates.
...the future of news
- A new Pew Research Center survey found that misinformation is a key concern for people in 11 emerging economies. In focus groups ahead of the survey, Pew said, the phrase “fake news” was invoked in English “even though the bulk of the sessions were conducted in other languages.”
- Russia’s RT network has been banging a drum about what it says are the dangers of 5G cellular technology, a disinformation campaign The New York Times says is aimed at stoking fears in America — even as Russian President Vladimir Putin is painting an optimistic picture of 5G technology in his own country.
- Last week, Full Fact, Chequeado and Africa Check announced that they had won $2 million from the Google AI Impact Challenge. Here’s what they’re going to do with the money — and how it might help solve some lurking challenges with automated fact-checking.
Each
week, we analyze five of the top-performing fact checks on Facebook to see how
their reach compared to the hoaxes they debunked. Read more about this week’s
numbers, and how misinformation transcends platforms, languages and borders, here.
1.
Estadão
Verifica: "It
is a false rumor that attributes cuts in education to irregularities in the
management of federal universities" (Fact: 46.6K engagements // Fake:
145.9K engagements)
2.
Rappler:
"FALSE:
2019 election ballots are 'pre-shaded' with UV ink" (Fact: 4.6K
engagements // Fake: 12.6K engagements)
3.
Factcheck.org:
"No,
Climate Change Isn’t ‘Made Up’" (Fact: 4.4K engagements // Fake: 1.1K
engagements)
4.
Chequeado:
"No,
the photo of the parked buses is not from the day of the presentation of the
CFK book" (Fact: 2.8K engagements // Fake: 10.4K engagements)
5.
Agence
France-Presse: "The
best way to remove a tick is with fine-tipped tweezers, not soap and a cotton
ball" (Fact: 978 engagements // Fake: 53.3K engagements)
The
Times in London this week corrected a headline and clarified a story about how
much taxpayer money is being saved by independent schools after
Full Fact published a fact check challenging the paper’s
story on the issue.
The
story stemmed from a report
by the consultant Oxford Economics, which said the taxpayer savings from such
schools is at least £3.5 billion per year. The Times published a story saying
that the independent schools “save the taxpayer £20 billion.”
The
Times apparently misread the study — or at least its figures — and added the
direct taxpayer savings of £3.5 billion to Oxford Economics estimates of other
contributions the private schools make to the economy.
But,
as Full Fact pointed out, “the amount of money going into the economy as a
whole is not the same as taxpayer savings” and noted that, to get to the £20
billion-plus figure, some double counting would have to occur.
What we liked: Full Fact did its math, and in the
process gave its readers a lesson in accounting and how to read a report like
the one the consultants produced. We also give The Times credit for clarifying
the story and changing the headline online.
1.
Mother
Jones wrote
about a report that found advertising money is increasingly being funneled
away from legitimate news websites to hyperpartisan, clickbait or outright
bogus ones.
2.
Censorship
in the name of controlling misinformation is not a new phenomenon, Reason
Magazine wrote
in an opinion piece.
3.
The
Washington Post’s Fact-Checker has a new
video out explaining its processes. The Post’s Glenn Kessler calls it a
“complement, not a supplement” to the paper’s political coverage.
4.
Vox
Media’s Facebook Watch show titled “Consider It” covered how
governments are trying to legislate against misinformation worldwide
— and how it could backfire.
5.
Speaking
of government action, Singapore has
passed a bill that imposes heavy fines and jail time for “malicious actors”
that spread false content online. It also enables the government to force
corrections.
6.
And
in Bahrain, prosecutors are
charging an attorney and human rights advocate for publishing “fake news”
on Twitter.
7.
Wired
wrote
about how a WhatsApp hoax about a bank in the U.K. could have worsened its
financial outlook.
8.
This
week, Agência Lupa in Brazil became
the first fact-checking site to join The
Trust Project, a consortium of more than 70 news outlets and institutions
fighting the spread of misinformation globally.
9.
Last
month, Sri Lanka blocked
access to social media sites to prevent the spread of misinformation about
terrorist attacks at several churches in the country. That didn’t really work,
but the government employed
the tactic again this week after a reported flare-up in religious tensions.
10. The Sacramento Bee published
a story about how conspiracy theories on Twitter forced the cancelation of
a festival in a tiny Northern California town.
via Daniel and Susan
