LibGuides: Fake News, Disinformation &amp; Misinformation: What Does Social Media Have to Do With it?

What Does Social Media Have to Do With it?

Thanks to social media, it has never been easier to spread any story around the world, whether it is real, fake, disinformation or misinformation.

How Often Do You See Fake News?

Nearly half of readers report that they see fake news stories on their social media at least once a day. That's a lot of exposure to fake news!

Statista

Social Media & News

Featured Books & eBooks

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Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy One of the signal developments in democratic culture around the world in the past half-decade has been the increasing power of social media to both spread information and shape opinions. After the Arab Spring of 2011, many pointed to the liberating potential of platforms like Facebook andTwitter. Yet five years later, as many Americans reeled in shock from the election of an authoritarian bullshit artist (using philosopher Harry Frank's technical definition of the term), a few perceptive observers began looking at new at the social and political effects of dominant social mediaplatforms, particularly Facebook. And they did not like what they saw.The media studies and IP scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan is one of those sharp observers, and in Anti-Social Media he argues that our descent into dystopia stems in no small part from trends that have developed in the online world. The 2016 election saw a remarkable and dispiriting increase of peoplehiving themselves off within ideological echo chambers and treating fake news as real. Vaidhyanathan provides a structural explanation of why this happened, and he has located a culprit: social media, and more specifically Facebook. The founders of Facebook may have had (some) good intentions, buthe contends that they have created a Frankenstein's monster that they have neither the will nor capacity to rein in. Fake news abounds, and the algorithms that undergird the platform drive people inexorably to news sites that conform to their ideological predilections - which Facebook can figure outwith ease. Serious news reporting, already in a parlous state, has suffered even more as people on platforms like Facebook (meaning most people) are bombarded by both snippets of news from multiple sources and ads that look like news. Deliberative democracies require informed citizenries able todistinguish facts and falsehoods. By weakening those skills, social media is eroding the very foundations of our democratic republican culture. Social media-driven false news campaigns and ideological echo chambers are not only visible in the US, either - they are clearly on the rise in Europe andacross the developing world too. Vaidhyanathan closes by offering offers a number of smart policy proposals that attack the problem, but they will undoubtedly be hard to enact. But the first order of business when facing a significant new crisis is to recognize its existence and explain what it is.Anti-Social Media promises to be that path-breaking initial step toward understanding how social media is quickly undermining not only centuries of democratic progress, but civil society itself.
Outnumbered: From Facebook and Google to Fake News and Filter-Bubbles--the Algorithms that Control Our Lives Outnumbered is a journey to the dark side of mathematics, from how it dictates our social media activities to our travel routes. Algorithms are running our society, and as Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal has revealed, we don't even realize how our data has been used against us. David Sumpter investigates whether mathematics is crossing dangerous lines when it comes to what we can make decisions about. Our increasing reliance on technology and the internet has opened a window for mathematicians and data researchers to gaze through into our lives. Using the data they are constantly collecting about where we travel, where we shop, what we buy, and what interests us, they can begin to predict our daily habits, and increasingly we are relinquishing our decision-making to algorithms. Are we giving this up too easily? Without understanding what mathematics can and can't do it is impossible to get a handle on how it is changing our lives. In this book, David Sumpter takes an algorithm-strewn journey to the dark side of mathematics. He investigates the equations that analyze us, influence us and will (maybe) become like us, answering questions like: Who are Cambridge Analytica, and what are they doing with our data? How does Facebook build a 100-dimensional picture of your personality? Are Google algorithms racist and sexist? Why do election predictions fail so drastically? Are algorithms that are designed to find criminals making terrible mistakes? What does the future hold as we relinquish our decision-making to machines? Featuring interviews with those working at the cutting edge of algorithm,Outnumbered explains how mathematics and statistics work in the real world, and what we should and shouldn't worry about.
Social Media Warfare Social media applications can be weaponized with very little skill. Social media warfare has become a burden that nation states, government agencies, and corporations need to face. To address the social media warfare threat in a reasonable manner that reduces uncertainty requires dedication and attention over a very long-term. To stay secure, they need to develop the capability to defend against social media warfare attacks. Addressing unconventional warfare strategies and tactics takes time and experience, plus planning and dedication. This book will help managers develop a sound understanding of how social media warfare can impact their nation or their organization.
War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century A leading foreign correspondent looks at how social media has transformed the modern battlefield, and how wars are fought Modern warfare is a war of narratives, where bullets are fired both physically and virtually. Whether you are a president or a terrorist, if you don't understand how to deploy the power of social media effectively you may win the odd battle but you will lose a twenty-first century war. Here, journalist David Patrikarakos draws on unprecedented access to key players to provide a new narrative for modern warfare. He travels thousands of miles across continents to meet a de-radicalized female member of ISIS recruited via Skype, a liberal Russian in Siberia who takes a job manufacturing "Ukrainian" news, and many others to explore the way social media has transformed the way we fight, win, and consume wars-and what this means for the world going forward.

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Factory of Lies (58:38) Russia has launched a systematic disinformation campaign about the US and Europe. Fake news created by so called troll factories promote disintegration and division in these countries. Facebook recently identified and closed 470 extremely active Russian profiles, which were trying to disrupt the American electoral process. Young activists and journalists on both sides of the new digital iron curtain are fighting to debunk the disinformation. 27-year-old Andrey Soshnikov, a journalist from Russia has for the last 4 years debunked fake news and he was the first to expose the infamous troll factory in St. Petersburg.
Foreign Correspondent: American Deepfake (29:28) Description "Deepfakes" are audio and video content created by Artificial Intelligence technology that can make real people say and do things they never actually said or did. US cyber security experts warn that deepfakes can be weaponised, potentially used to depict politicians declaring war or CEOs triggering the collapse of financial markets. This program with reporter Hamish Macdonald looks into a new generation of deepfake videos that have Hollywood excited...and Washington worried.
Persuasion Machine (52:26) Jamie Bartlett reveals how Silicon Valley's mission to connect the world is disrupting democracy. Many of the tech gods were dismayed when Donald Trump won the American presidency, but did they actually help him win? With the help of a key insider from the Trump campaign's digital operation, Jamie unravels the role played by social media in getting Trump into the White House. He learns how Facebook's vast power to persuade was first built for advertisers, combining data about our internet use and psychological insights into how we think. A leading psychologist then shows Jamie how Facebook's hoard of data can be used to predict our personalities and other psychological traits. Exploring the emotional mechanisms that supercharge the spread of fake news on social media, Jamie reveals how Silicon Valley's persuasion machine is now being exploited by political forces of all kinds, in ways no one may be able to stop. A BBC Production.
Social Media's Role in Times of War Stanford Internet Observatory Research Manager Renee DiResta tells Emily Chang about how propaganda can spread on social media platforms after Twitter announced it would put labels on other state-affiliated media outlets in the coming weeks. She also explains why she thinks TikTok is worse when it comes to disinformation than Facebook or Twitter.
Unresolved: Information Disorder: A Debate (1:21:51) Description The age of "information disorder" is upon us. Deep fakes, false political narratives, and conspiracy theories pervade the internet, threatening the United States' national security, as well as democracy itself. Though bad actors and fraudsters have always been able to deceive, the ease, speed, and degree to which anyone can create misleading information online has forged a dangerous new world. Proposed solutions to this problem, however, threaten to undermine long-held, bedrock American values like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and aversion to censorship. And such solutions, some argue, can be as dangerous as the disorder itself. So, what can be done? A panel of experts debates and discusses what the private sector should do, what the public sector can do, and how disseminators of false information should be handled.