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Social media, elections and fake news: India edition

Apr 5, 2019
As national elections approach, voters are being targeted with fake news on WhatsApp.
An Indian newspaper vendor reads a newspaper with a full back page advertisement from WhatsApp intended to counter fake information in New Delhi on July 10, 2018.
Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images

Census Bureau wary of 2016-style interference

Mar 29, 2019
The U.S. government is worried the same kind of interference that made its way into the 2016 presidential campaign could affect the 2020 census. As a result, the Census Bureau is asking for help from technology and social media giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter to fight any misinformation campaigns that might target the once-a-decade […]
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Look it up: How is a 250-year-old encyclopedia company adapting to the digital age?

Dec 13, 2018
Encyclopedia Britannica has a history of being pretty revolutionary.
Encyclopedia Britannica on the shelf at the New York Public Library in 2012.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Perhaps Congress took "The Wizard of Oz" a bit too seriously

Dec 11, 2018
At the House Judiciary Committee hearing with Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, Rep. Zoe Lofgren from California had to ask for clarification that Google’s Search algorithm is not a “little man sitting behind the curtain figuring out what [Google is] going to show.” She wasn’t the only one that was confused by how Google works. On […]

Facebook and Google pledge to fight internet abuse

Nov 7, 2018
Facebook and Google have pledged themselves to a pact formed by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web. The “Contract for the Web” asks internet companies to fight fake news and uphold principles that protect privacy as a human right and promote access for all people. The tech firms say they aspire to […]
A picture taken in Paris on May 16, 2018 shows the logo of the social network Facebook on a broken screen of a mobile phone.
Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

Meet the fact-checkers trying to clean up Facebook

Oct 29, 2018
PolitiFact and four other partners have been fighting false information with Facebook. There's much more to do.
Photo Illustration by Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Social media bosses in the hot seat again

Sep 3, 2018
On Wednesday, top social media executives will testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on what social media platforms are doing to prevent meddling in US elections. But what have they done already? And how is the search for online security affecting their bottom lines?

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One problem with fake news? It really, really works

Aug 27, 2018
MIT research finds false stories often travel further and faster than real ones.
Patrick Lux/Getty Images

Facebook is being more transparent with its ads, but is it doing enough to police them?

Jun 29, 2018
To combat fake ads and news, we need to study their effects more, says Tom Merritt of Daily Tech News Show.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the annual F8 summit at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, on May 1.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

How social media bots can amplify fake news

The disinformation war is being waged online, but who's behind it?
Twitter announced a new effort to prioritize accessibility after garnering criticism from the rollout of a voice tweet feature this summer that didn't offer captioning.
Leon Neal/Getty Images