Neowin News Feed for: Disinformation

Model aims to combat misinformation by tracking trolls in real-time

Paul Hill — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 11:06:02 +0000

Researchers from Texas Tech University have developed a machine learning model that detects Russian troll accounts on X with impressive accuracy, potentially improving misinformation management. Read more...

Meta's “supreme court” warns Facebook, Instagram, and competitors ahead of global elections

Martin Hodás — Fri, 03 May 2024 18:16:01 +0000

Inaccurate enforcement by social media platforms and unequal investment in global election integrity efforts are a threat to election processes around the globe, Meta's Oversight Board warns. Read more...

OpenAI can clone your voice with little to no input, and it wants to talk about it with you

Martin Hodás — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 05:26:01 +0000

OpenAI's new powerful model can create a realistic clone of your voice based on just 15 seconds of your speech. However, the company hesitates to release the tool amid concerns about its misuse. Read more...

Ridiculous hoax claims Microsoft will disable PCs of users sharing "non-mainstream content"

Martin Hodás — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 17:30:01 +0000

People on social media demand a prison time for Bill Gates, fearing that Microsoft would turn off their PCs if they shared content the company didn't like. However, the claim was fabricated. Read more...

Google's fact checking tool now works with images, currently in beta

Aditya Tiwari — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 19:36:01 +0000

Google's fact checking tool can now be used to verify the authenticity of an image. The feature is currently in beta and requires interested users to join a waitlist to try it out. Read more...

Google and YouTube detail their fact-checking initiatives

Usama Jawad — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 02:42:02 +0000

Google and YouTube have announced a $13.2 million grant to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to help fund organizations fighting fake news in 80 languages across 65 countries. Read more...

Microsoft hints that labeling fake news as 'false' could be misinterpreted as censorship

Alap Naik Desai — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 22:42:01 +0000

Microsoft might not label fake news as "false". The company seems concerned that the topic is heavily politicized, and hence might go after creators and distributors of disinformation campaigns. Read more...

White House reveals plans for big tech with focus on privacy, transparency, and youth safety

Usama Jawad — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 05:42:01 +0000

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has laid out plans for a legislative reform in areas concerning big tech firms. The focus is on transparency of algorithms, privacy, and youth safety. Read more...

The UK could block websites that don't fight state-sponsored disinformation

Paul Hill — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 11:04:01 +0000

The UK is making changes to the Online Safety Bill which will means online platforms have to fight state-sponsored disinformation. Failure to comply will result in fines and blocks. Read more...

DuckDuckGo CEO says Russian disinformation websites are being down-ranked

Paul Hill — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 19:40:02 +0000

DuckDuckGo's CEO has announced that the search engine will now down-rank websites linked to Russian disinformation. The move comes two weeks after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. Read more...

Microsoft is banning state-sponsored Russian content from its platforms

Usama Jawad — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 10:10:02 +0000

Microsoft has announced a series of steps that it is taking to aid Ukrainian authorities and civilians. It has also detailed how it is dismantling Russian state-sponsored propaganda on its platforms. Read more...

YouTube de-monetises some Russian channels over Ukraine invasion

Paul Hill — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 08:12:01 +0000

YouTube has de-monetised several Russian YouTube channels, including RT, over their coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's also limiting its recommendations to these channels' videos. Read more...

Microsoft, Intel, BBC and others form coalition to combat misinformation

Usama Jawad — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 15:26:01 +0000

Numerous entities from the technology and media sector such as BBC, Intel, Microsoft, and Arm have joined forces to form the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). Read more...

Facebook will allow ads for COVID-19 vaccines, as long as they are not for commercial gain

Usama Jawad — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 07:06:02 +0000

Facebook will now allow ads that promote COVID-19 vaccines as a way to stop the spread of the virus. However, it will ban exploitative ads and those that claim it to be a cure for the virus. Read more...

UK to introduce laws to improve safety on social media

Paul Hill — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 14:28:01 +0000

The UK government is looking to introduce new laws that will apply to social media platforms. The laws will seek to crackdown on terrorist and child sexual abuse material as well as misinformation. Read more...

WhatsApp is now exchanging close to 100 billion messages each day

Ather Fawaz — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 06:04:01 +0000

Mark Zuckerberg announced that WhatsApp is now delivering around 100 billion messages a day. Userbase has grown considerably to two billion users now, compared to 500 million back in 2014. Read more...

Facebook rejected two million ads that obstruct voting

Paul Hill — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 18:14:01 +0000

Facebook has announced that 2.2 million ads have been rejected after it was found they sought to obstruct voting. Facebook is under a lot of pressure to keep fake news off of its platform. Read more...

Adobe plans to preview its system of flagging 'photoshopped' images later this year

Ather Fawaz — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 06:48:01 +0000

As per the August 2020 CAI whitepaper, Adobe plans to demo its system of cryptographically tagging and maintaining a record of a photo's history later this year to curtail the spread of fake images. Read more...

WhatsApp says spread of "highly forwarded" messages has dropped by 70% globally

Usman Khan Lodhi — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:16:01 +0000

The drop comes in as a result of the firm's action earlier this month when it restricted sending forwarded messages to only one person or a group at once. This also contributes to tackling fake news. Read more...

WhatsApp will be limiting the forwarding of certain messages

Ather Fawaz — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 11:18:01 +0000

To help curb the spread of disinformation and misreporting amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, WhatsApp will be limiting the forwarding of messages with "double arrows" to only one chat at a time. Read more...

Facebook and other social media companies under fire by British parliament

Namerah Saud Fatmi — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 14:36:01 +0000

In the final report on disinformation and fake news, the DCMS called out Facebook and other media firms on their illegitimate usage and insufficient protection of data, as well as on disinformation. Read more...

Google announces measures to protect the European Union elections

Paul Hill — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 16:18:01 +0000

Google has announced measures to help bolster next year's European Union elections. The new measures will help voters get to the polling station, protect campaigns, and reveal ads data. Read more...

Twitter suspended more than 70 million fake accounts in the last two months

Jay Bonggolto — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 00:36:01 +0000

Twitter's efforts to remove fake accounts and botnets spreading misinformation across its platform have more than doubled since late last year following pressure from U.S. lawmakers. Read more...

Facebook wants to show high quality news on its site

Paul Hill — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 05:02:43 +0000

Facebook is due to make a few changes to the news feed which aims to make more reliable news content more prominent. The company has decided on quite a fair way to decide what sources are legitimate. Read more...