In a hearing on January 6 insurrection hosted by the House Oversight, @RepMaloney said that “the Committee has obtained documents showing that the social media company Parler sent the FBI evidence of planned violence in Washington DC on January 6." techpolicy.press/parler-warned-…
It was the first confirmation that a social media platform provided the FBI with specific material related to plans by supporters of former President Donald Trump to attack the US Capitol before January 6. techpolicy.press/parler-warned-…
FBI Director Christopher Wray previously did not offer a clear answer as to whether the FBI received specific threats from social media companies in prior testimony when pressed on the matter by @RepSwalwell:
“This attack was planned in public,” said Chairwoman Maloney. “But today’s hearing made clear that the nation’s law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies failed to do their jobs to protect our nation’s Capitol." techpolicy.press/parler-warned-…
"FBI Dir Wray admitted today that he was unaware of the more than 50 tips from social media site Parler prior to January 6 warning of violence, including one user posting that stated, ‘don’t be surprised if we take the Capitol building!’" said @RepMaloney: techpolicy.press/parler-warned-…
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More than a dozen researchers at multiple universities who study technology, behavior and complex systems believe questions about the impact of communications technology on collective behavior should be regarded as a "crisis discipline," says a new paper: techpolicy.press/study-of-socia…
Noting "the vulnerability of these systems to misinformation and disinformation poses a dire threat to health, peace, global climate and more," they call on researchers and social media executives to take a Hippocratic oath not to harm to humanity. techpolicy.press/study-of-socia…
Citing challenges such as vaccine refusal, election misinfo, racism and extremism, they say “the structure of our social networks and the patterns of information that flow through them are directed by engineering decisions made to maximize profitability" techpolicy.press/study-of-socia…
The White House says domestic extremism is "a national security threat whose front lines are overwhelmingly private sector online platforms." Is Silicon Valley really willing to join the government in the trenches? techpolicy.press/white-house-st…
Overall, the strategy is a step in the right direction, says @CCDHate's Imran Ahmed. “You can see the whirring of the gears, but it is going to take time for federal agencies to recover from the loss of time that the Trumpian dereliction of duty caused.” techpolicy.press/white-house-st…
But there is reason for skepticism about the role of tech companies. "That is working off a premise that I feel unfortunately hasn't always been true," said @jaredlholt, "that platforms are widely invested in countering extremist content on their services."techpolicy.press/white-house-st…
Researchers find Google serves nearly half of all ad traffic on fake news sites- and Amazon is the top retailer advertising on low credibility sites: techpolicy.press/researchers-fi…
A paper to be presented tomorrow at the International University of Michigan School of Information researchers @lia_bozarth and @cerenbudak find that hundreds of fake news sites are “surprisingly dependent on top credible ad firms,” including Google, Outbrain, Yandex et al.
The Amazon finding is in a separate paper by the pair in @journalqd, which finds the online giant joining donaldjtrump dot com, americanexpress dot com and menswearhouse dot com among the top retailers appearing on low credibility sites.
2/ First, just as the Senate report- for partisan reasons- did not look substantially at the role of Donald Trump, his White House, or Republicans who advanced the big Lie, it also did not look at how that lie propagated and activated social networks. justsecurity.org/76829/senate-r…
3/ Second, the report suggests major challenges in recognizing violent extremism in the torrent of discourse on social media and acting on it. techpolicy.press/senate-report-…
@Sen_JoeManchin made no critique of the For the People Act in the 1,000 words of platitudes he wrote for the Charleston Gazette-Mail today, announcing he will not support the Act because it doesn't have Republican support. It's just... bad thinking. medium.com/ctrlaltrightde…
The bill was written with input from bipartisan experts concerned about the erosion if democracy, as @CREWcrew has researched (see links). And as @Sifill_LDF points out, it answers issues HR4 does not. medium.com/ctrlaltrightde…
In the first interview, @courtneyr talks to @PaulAshNZ, who is the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Cyber and Digital and the Coordinator of the Christchurch Call. You can subscribe to listen via your favorite podcast player here: techpolicypress.captivate.fm/listen
In the second interview, @courtneyr talks to @DiaKayyali, Associate Director for Advocacy at Mnemonic, the umbrella organization for Syrian Archive, Yemeni Archive, and Sudanese Archive. You can listen in your browser: player.captivate.fm/episode/2b3971…