Tag: facebook

Categories
For Edit

What to expect from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on Election Day

The sites are key conduits for communication and information. Here’s how they plan to handle the challenges facing them before, on and after Tuesday.

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were misused by Russians to inflame American voters with divisive messages before the 2016 presidential election. The companies have spent the past four years trying to ensure that this November isn’t a repeat.

They have spent billions of dollars improving their sites’ security, policies and processes. In recent months, with fears rising that violence may break out after the election, the companies have taken numerous steps to clamp down on falsehoods and highlight accurate and verified information.

We asked Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to walk us through what they were, are and will be doing before, on and after Tuesday.

Facebook

Since 2016, Facebook has poured billions of dollars into beefing up its security operations to fight misinformation and other harmful content. It now has more than 35,000 people working on this, the company said.

One team, led by a former National Security Council operative, has searched for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” by accounts that work in concert to spread false information. That team, which delivers regular reports, will be on high alert on Tuesday. Facebook has also worked with government agencies and other tech companies to spot foreign interference.

To demystify its political advertising, Facebook created an ad library so people can see what political ads are being bought and by whom, as well as how much those entities are spending. The company also introduced more steps for people who buy those ads, including a requirement that they live in the United States. To prevent candidates from spreading bad information, Facebook stopped accepting new political ads on Oct. 20.

At the same time, it has tried highlighting accurate information. In June, it rolled out a voter information hub with data on when, how and where to register to vote, and it is promoting the feature atop News Feeds through Tuesday. It also said it would act swiftly against posts that tried to dissuade people from voting, had limited forwarding of messages on its WhatsApp messaging service and had begun working with Reuters on how to handle verified election results.

Facebook has made changes up till the last minute. Last week, it said it had turned off political and social group recommendations and temporarily removed a feature in Instagram’s hashtag pages to slow the spread of misinformation.

On Tuesday, an operations center with dozens of employees — what Facebook calls a “war room” — will work to identify efforts to destabilize the election. The team, which will work virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, has already been in action and is operating smoothly, Facebook said.

Facebook’s app will also look different on Tuesday. To prevent candidates from prematurely and inaccurately declaring victory, the company plans to add a notification at the top of News Feeds letting people know that no winner has been chosen until election results are verified by news outlets like Reuters and The Associated Press.

Facebook also plans to deploy, if needed, special tools that it has used in “at-risk countries” like Myanmar, where election-related violence was a possibility. The tools, which Facebook has not described publicly, are designed to slow the spread of inflammatory posts.

After the polls close, Facebook plans to suspend all political ads from circulating on the social network and its photo-sharing site, Instagram, to reduce misinformation about the election’s outcome. Facebook has told advertisers that they can expect the ban to last for a week, though the timeline isn’t set in stone and the company has publicly been noncommittal about the duration.

“We’ve spent years working to make elections safer and more secure on our platform,” said Kevin McAlister, a Facebook spokesman. “We’ve applied lessons from previous elections, built new teams with experience across different areas and created new products and policies to prepare for various scenarios before, during and after Election Day.”

Twitter has also worked to combat misinformation since 2016, in some cases going far further than Facebook. Last year, for instance, it banned political advertising entirely, saying the reach of political messages “should be earned, not bought.”

At the same time, Twitter started labeling tweets by politicians if they spread inaccurate information or glorify violence. In May, it added several fact-checking labels to President Trump’s tweets about Black Lives Matter protests and mail-in voting, and restricted people’s ability to share those posts.

In October, Twitter began experimenting with additional techniques to slow the spread of misinformation. The company added context to trending topics and limited users’ ability to quickly retweet content. The changes are temporary, though Twitter has not said when they will end.

The company also used push notifications and banners in its app to warn people about common misinformation themes, including falsehoods about the reliability of mail-in ballots. And it expanded its partnerships with law enforcement agencies and secretaries of state so they can report misinformation directly to Twitter.

In September, Twitter added an Election Hub that users can use to look for curated information about polling, voting and candidates. The company has said it will remove tweets that call for interference with voters and polling places or intimidate people to dissuade them from voting.

“The whole company has really been mobilized to help us prepare for and respond to the types of threats that potentially come up in an election,” said Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity.

On Tuesday, Twitter’s strategy is twofold: Root out false claims and networks of bots that spread such information by using both algorithms and human analysts, while another team highlights reliable information in the Explore and Trends sections of its service.

Twitter plans to add labels to tweets from candidates who claim victory before the election is called by authoritative sources. At least two news outlets will need to independently project the results before a candidate can use Twitter to celebrate his or her win, the company said.

People looking for updates on Tuesday will be able find them in the Election Hub, Twitter said.

Twitter will eventually allow people to retweet again without prompting them to add their own context. But many of the changes for the election — like the ban on political ads and the fact-checking labels — are permanent.

For Google’s YouTube, it wasn’t the 2016 election that sounded a wake-up call about the toxic content spreading across its website. That moment came in 2017 when a group of men drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge after being inspired by YouTube videos of inflammatory sermons from an Islamic cleric.

Since then, YouTube has engaged in an often confusing journey to police its site. It has overhauled its policies to target misinformation, while tweaking its algorithms to slow the spread of what it deems borderline content — videos that do not blatantly violate its rules but butt up against them.

It has brought in thousands of human reviewers to examine videos to help improve the performance of its algorithms. It has also created a so-called intelligence desk of former analysts from government intelligence agencies to monitor the actions of foreign state actors and trends on the internet.

Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, said that he held several meetings a week with staff to discuss the election, but that there was no last-minute effort to rewrite policies or come up with new approaches.

“Of course, we’re taking the elections incredibly seriously,” he said in an interview. “The foundational work that will play a really major role for all of this began three years ago when we really began the work in earnest in terms of our responsibility as a global platform.”

Before Tuesday, YouTube’s home page will also feature links to information about how and where to vote.

On Tuesday, Mr. Mohan plans to check in regularly with his teams to keep an eye on anything unusual, he said. There will be no “war room,” and he expects that most decisions to keep or remove videos will be clear and that the usual processes for making those decisions will be sufficient.

If a more nuanced decision is required around the election, Mr. Mohan said, it will escalate to senior people at YouTube, and the call will be made as a group.

YouTube said it would be especially sensitive about videos that aimed to challenge the election’s integrity. YouTube does not allow videos that mislead voters about how to vote or the eligibility of a candidate, or that incite people to interfere with the voting process. The company said it would take down such videos quickly, even if one of the speakers was a presidential candidate.

As the polls close, YouTube will feature a playlist of live election results coverage from what it deems authoritative news sources. While YouTube would not provide a full list of the sources, the company said it expected the coverage to include news videos from the major broadcast networks, as well as CNN and Fox News.

Starting on Tuesday and continuing as needed, YouTube will display a fact-check information panel above election-related search results and below videos discussing the results, the company said. The information panel will feature a warning that results may not be final and provide a link to real-time results on Google with data from The A.P.

Google has said it will halt election advertising after the polls officially close. The policy, which extends to YouTube, will temporarily block any ads that refer to the 2020 election, its candidates or its outcome. It is not clear how long the ban will last.

 

— New York Times: Top Stories

— Mike Isaac, Kate Conger and Daisuke Wakabayashi

Categories
Local News

Boy, 10, ensures hundreds of Mercer residents will have winter coats

HAMILTON, N.J. — For many, the frigid temperatures at this time of the year are unbearable and one just cannot be warm enough, and so a boy name Max Frost has decided to help keep area residents very warm.

10-year-old Max Frost sits with his collection of warm winter coats in the living room of his Hamilton home.
– Provided photo

Max, who is 10-years-old, has been collecting coats for Mercer County residents since November 2015.

He says, “I feel like a good person because I’m giving back to the community. Not everyone is fortunate to have a coat and I like to help keep them warm.”

His interest began when his mother, Tammy Frost, taped a television show for him that they watched together on ABC television, where he saw the kickoff for Warm Coats & Warm Hearts drive.

The other young kids that were putting coats in the box influenced Max, and he wanted to help too, said his mother.

When Max first started on his journey to collect winter coats, he ended up with 170 coats his first year. But by November 2016, before the coat drive began again, people were enthusiastic about donating coats to Max, said his mother. He collected 530 coats that year.

This year, he has collected more than 600 coats already, said Frost.

So, Max’s efforts have been successful.

Max Frost collects more than 600 coats this winter. These include drop-offs from the community.
-Provided photo

He has several locations with donation boxes in Mercer County. Also, his mother posts photos and updates on social media each week, where the community, and even a producer from Good Morning America (GMA) program on ABC television have noticed.

And, this has bought Max even more attention. His mother received a private message via Facebook from the GMA producer who saw social media photos and videos of Max making donation boxes and collecting coats.

As a result, Max has had several cameo appearances on GMA, with the latest one Dec. 21, last month.

Max’s mother says the effort gets bigger each year. She says strangers send her private messages on social media and are bringing coats to their house.

She says friends of friends in the Hamilton and surrounding areas know about it, and that they help Max with his donations.

Actually, the coat collections initiative is a nationwide event that is in its 11th year. Burlington stores and the non-profit organization, Delivering Good sponsor Warm Coats & Warm Hearts.

The coat drive officially begins Jan. 22, 2018.

At the moment, people can drop off coats at The Beauty Room, 650 Rt. 206 in Bordentown, and at the Law Office of Brian Hofmeister, 3131 Princeton Pike, Suite 5, Building 110, Lawrenceville, said Tammy.

People who need coats that range from infant to adult sizes can pick them up at Catholic Charities, which is one of several organizations in Mercer County that distributes them, said Tammy Frost.

Categories
Digital - AI & Apps

Data analysis of CrunchBase.com

CrunchBase is an international free database that lists technology companies like Facebook, CrunchFund, LinkedIn, Twitter, Paypal, Tjoos, and Apple, among others. It not only lists these companies, but also gives their statistics about what is hot and trending and funding activities.

According to CrunchBase.com, CrunchBase is a website that also lists those technology companies that are in the news and those with popular pages. The CrunchBase statistics include: the number of companies – 100,481; people – 133,598; financial organizations – 8, 282; service providers – 4, 721; funding rounds – 30, 897; and acquisitions – 7, 137.

This CrunchBase.com database is located in Europe, France and Japan as TechCrunch, according to information on its website. In the United States, CrunchBase has startup offices in San Francisco, New York, Seattle,and Los Angeles. Internationally, in Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Mateo, and London.

The significance of this data is that CrunchBase.com is an active, growing, trending and relevant website for people looking for various types of data about technology companies.

The following infographics represents the cities where one can find CrunchBase.com startups in the United States.

View CrunchBase Startup Cities in a larger map
–Map by Michelle Dryden
The map shows the four cities in the U.S. where one can find CrunchBase startups.

Categories
Digital - AI & Apps Lifestyle

Social media emergence influences new conversations, media types and funding models

The influence of Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), blogs, IG, and other media platforms have engaged audience conversations and have also evolved traditional media such as newspapers,  magazines, and television.

 

The emergence of social media in several areas of society is causing a stir among media junkies and those less receptive to the changes.

 

 

When change happens in media, or our culture, people usually resort to relentless discussions about it. While there are skepticism and controversy about the role of social media in the news and pop-culture, many are embracing them.

 

Blogger, Cara McDonough, writes a piece about how her 73-year-old father is now using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to voice his political opinions.

 

McDonough said that her father just recently identified the differences between social and traditional media when he said, “‘A column is in print… A blog is in the atmosphere.’”

 

However, Misha Schubert writes that, “newspapers and television still have much greater audience reach than segments of social media…” at the moment.

 

Regardless, Schubert quotes Greg Jericho who wrote a book on social media, “‘Jericho predicts that within a decade we’ll have voters who not only can’t remember a time before…they couldn’t access the net on their phones.’”

 

There are some people who see the positive benefits of social media in our lives.  But those who do not, are criticizing them that they open up a world for anonymous hate messages, profanity and unregulated mockery on subject matters.

 

Steven Weber writes in his blog that, “Social media has created a legion of social delinquents, billions of people speaking not their minds, but their spleens, venting everything…”

 

Nevertheless, social media continue to grow, making more intimate connections.

 

According to McDonough’s blog, “ A Nielsen survey shows that 22.8 million people over 65 got online in September 2011, an increase of 4 million, [over year ago].”

 

People use social media for more than just commenting and voicing opinions. Employers are using social media in their recruiting practices. LinkedIn is a popular site that employers visit to find good matches for their job positions.

 

Marie Solis writes that, “many take it upon themselves to explore social media sites to investigate job candidates.”

 

Apart from the discontent about the use of social media in our lives, many find these sites allow them to exercise their liberty by expressing themselves, whether their comments are negative or positive.

 

The discussion will continue about how to better manage these sites.  People would like to somehow see more kind comments about celebrities and others in pop-culture. However, when a company makes a defective product, then they would also like to be able to express their dissatisfaction online.

 

Most of the media types  using social media that are now online include television, newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and even radio and podcasts.  So, consumers and social media users are exposed to utilizing all forms of media for conversations.

 

But the evolution of traditional media that are now using social platforms online require alternative models for revenue and funding in order to remain sustainable.

 

Newspapers and magazines are like public television stations that face financial challenges. Three authors, David D. Kurpius, Emily T. Metzgar, and Karen M. Rowley, try to analyze this crisis in their article, “Sustaining Hyperlocal Media: In search of funding models,” that appears in the journal of Journalism Studies.

 

These authors believe traditional media are shrinking because it is typical of a mature industry. They argue it is a gradual decline and that we must meet the challenge by trying to find alternative ways to fund new media, or their online presence.

 

They also note that it is good news for public television because they can fill the niche of providing the local news that traditional media no longer seem to be reporting in detail. Recently, more people are going online and traditional print media are losing advertising revenues.

 

They also state the newspaper advertising revenues dropped an estimated 23 percent over the past two years since 2010, but newspapers are trying to embrace their online communities while exploring funding models.

 

— Michelle Dryden is an experienced newspaper journalist with a master’s degree in New Media Journalism from Full Sail University, and a bachelor’s degree in traditional journalism from Rider University.