social media

Health & Safety

To help young people with #mentalhealth, researchers team up with TikTok influencers

7:32pm January 05, 2024

by Andrea Muraskin

Harvard professors wanted to flood social media with evidence-based information about conditions like anxiety and depression. So they turned to the people who already know how to go viral.

Tech journalist Cory Doctorow outlines how sites can change the deal with users.

National

From Amazon to Facebook and Google, here's how platforms can 'decay'

5:00am January 04, 2024

If you feel like some important places on the internet have been getting worse, you're not alone. In fact, there has been a whole lot of action in the last 12 months.

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Elections for many national governments and the European Parliament, seen here in Brussels in 2020, will take place in 2024. Experts warn that these elections are ripe targets for bad actors seeking to disrupt democracy.

2024 elections are ripe targets for foes of democracy

5:25am December 29, 2023

by Shannon Bond

Billions of people around the world are expected to head to the polls in 2024. But experts warn that these elections are ripe targets for bad actors seeking to disrupt democracy.

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A supporter of Kuomintang, or KMT, Taiwan's major opposition party, waves Taiwan's national flag on Nov. 24, 2023, in Taipei, Taiwan. Researchers uncovered an influence operation targeting Taiwan's upcoming presidential election on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.

World News

Fake social media accounts are targeting Taiwan's presidential election

4:09pm December 13, 2023

by Shannon Bond

The influence operation identified by Graphika researchers involved a network of more than 800 fake Facebook accounts that reposted Chinese-language TikTok and YouTube videos about Taiwanese politics.

A federal judge has halted a law in Montana from taking effect that would have banned the popular video app TikTok across the state.

National

Federal judge blocks Montana's TikTok ban before it takes effect

9:25pm November 30, 2023

by Bobby Allyn

The law is seen an important test case. More than a dozen other states are weighing similar bans of the wildly popular video-streaming app, which is owned by a Chinese tech company.

Meta, the social media company that owns Facebook and Instagram, said Thursday that this year it has taken down five networks of fake accounts originating in China that aimed to influence politics in other countries.

Meta warns that China is stepping up its online social media influence operations

10:07am November 30, 2023

by Shannon Bond

China has become the third most common source of foreign influence operations, behind Russia and Iran, according to the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

This picture taken from a position in southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing in the the Palestinian territory after an Israeli strike on November 21, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.

World News

Civilian deaths are being dismissed as 'crisis actors' in Gaza and Israel

5:09am November 27, 2023

by Shannon Bond

As graphic images from Gaza flood social media platforms, many people are claiming those images are fake, in the latest iteration of a disturbing trope.

Nepal's government bans TikTok, saying it disrupts social harmony

3:44am November 14, 2023

by The Associated Press

The government said that to make social media platforms accountable, it has asked the companies to register and open an office in Nepal, pay taxes and abide by the country's laws and regulations.

A voter fills out a ballot in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday. Federal and local officials have worked closely with researchers to track rumors and conspiracy theories in recent elections but that cooperation is fading under pressure from conservatives.

Politics & Government

Why the fight to counter false election claims may be harder in 2024

5:00am November 10, 2023

Experts say a right-wing campaign has cast efforts to combat rumors and conspiracy theories as censorship. As a result, they say, the tools to tamp down on election falsehoods have been scaled back.

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Achiya Schatz runs an organization in Israel called FakeReporter that authenticates images and videos that appear online in order to combat fake news. The group was founded three years ago. Before the war, it was focused on trying to help people who were targeted with online harassment for speaking out against corruption.

World News

Is it true or not? Israeli group FakeReporter fact checks while seeking shelter

4:48pm October 26, 2023

by Bobby Allyn

A former Israeli combat soldier runs a nonprofit out of his in-laws' front yard that fact-checks posts on social media about the Israel-Hamas war in real time.

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