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Will spinning off Reels into a standalone app help Meta take on TikTok? While many have complained it's not as good as TikTok, creating a separate app reflects a broader effort to prioritize Reels and invest more in its recommendation system, @solmg.bsky.social tells @cnet.com.

submitted 18 hours ago • 0 comments

New from me: Meta decided to stop working with U.S. fact-checkers at the same time as it’s revamping a program to pay bonuses to creators with high engagement numbers, potentially pouring accelerant on the kind of false posts the company once policed: www.propublica.org/article/face...

submitted 3 days ago • 103 comments

As Trump dismantles the agencies that monitor foreign influence operations, the national security concerns around TikTok remain. But how could we even know if TikTok's algorithm has been influenced, either by China or another adversarial actor? Our latest in @lawfare.bsky.social 🧵👇

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

“Over the past decade, U.S. institutions worked to form a comprehensive shield against foreign interference in American politics. Over the past few weeks, the second Trump administration has turned itself to the task of undoing this project.” New from me&Quinta www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

submitted 7 days ago • 17 comments

How can we simultaneously (1) fear foreign manipulation of public discourse enough to BAN TIKTOK, and also (2) completely dismantle the parts of the government that protect us from that manipulation??

submitted 7 days ago • 8 comments

As journalists increase their use of AI, how will that impact trust in news? This study finds labeling news with AI-written content decreased trust among readers, and the effect was most pronounced among those with higher pre-existing trust in news. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

Deeply thoughtful article about our YouTube research by BBC's Thomas Germain: www.bbc.com/future/artic... (I get too much credit in this article - the statistical and programming brilliance of Kevin Zheng made the work possible and Ryan McGrady captained the hard work of hand-coding.)

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

"Even as the technical and policy dimensions of content moderation shift, it is important to ground the debate and for all participants in it to have enough technical fluency to engage in meaningful discussions." - Dia Kayyali

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

Trump has regularly attacked the media since his first campaign in 2016. The false claims about USAID funds going to Politico and other news outlets are his latest attempts to discredit the media, @jatucker.bsky.social tells @npr.org's All Things Considered.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

New at Political Research Quarterly: Our latest study analyzing Latino political engagement & activity on social media, from Marisa Abrajano & Marianna Garcia from @ucsandiego.bsky.social, and Aaron Pope, @robertvidigal.bsky.social, Edwin Kamau, @jatucker.bsky.social, & Jonathan Nagler of CSMaP.

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

I wrote about Meta’s decision to rely more heavily on volunteers for moderation by using community fact-checking. I study community moderation (and mod @askhistorians.bsky.social). We should learn from these models! tldr: community moderation can be great, but not like this. tinyurl.com/3dsvsjvr

submitted 29 days ago • 4 comments

While federal tech regulation gets all the attention, states have passed hundreds of laws shaping tech policy. In @techpolicypress.bsky.social, Scott Brennen explains how local governments (cities, school boards, public utility commissions, etc.) are increasingly playing a role in tech regulation.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

Fact-checking signals that not everything is up for grabs because powerful people say so, writes NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights deputy director Paul Barrett. "Meta has scorned and stifled that signal. Others should not follow suit."

submitted 31 days ago • 1 comment

Fascinating investigation of podcasts, which are woefully under-studied as a media platform.

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

Politicians are increasingly adopting content creator tactics and partnering with influencers. Why? Because it signals authenticity, providing "a little less of ‘vote for this candidate,’ and more of ‘how can I understand this candidate,’” @zevesanderson.com tells @thecity.bsky.social.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

Based on their research, David Lazer and Sandra González-Bailón anticipate that Meta's elimination of penalties for sharing misinformation will cause a flood from some Pages– which are still the most effective means to spread content on Facebook.

submitted 37 days ago • 2 comments

Prolific posting can help politicians build a national reputation, gain clout, and fundraise, @mgmacdonald.bsky.social tells @sltrib.com.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

The Supreme Court UPHOLDS the TikTok ban with no noted dissents, turning away a First Amendment challenge: www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

submitted 41 days ago • 314 comments

A new analysis of disinformation targeting Latino communities during the 2024 US election presents more data points suggesting Meta’s decision to abandon independent fact-checking could not come at a more precarious moment. www.techpolicy.press/analysis-of-...

submitted 42 days ago • 2 comments

As the social media landscape continues to fragment, @noupside.bsky.social has an excellent new piece looking at how moving from centralized to decentralized platforms could impact social cohesion and democratic consensus.

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

Removing misinformation classifiers, combined with the changes to hate speech rules, will have a much larger impact on what users see in their feeds than the changes to fact-checking, which are still getting a lot of media attention.

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

Ahead of Friday's oral argument, TikTok's fate remains up in the air. Yet, almost no rigorous research exists to inform debates around nat sec & Chinese influence. At @brookings.edu, we outline 3 data access pathways researchers could use to understand TikTok's influence & challenges of each.

submitted 49 days ago • 1 comment

Today at 5:30 pm ET, @benjaminwittes.bsky.social will talk to @qjurecic.bsky.social, @noupside.bsky.social, @daphnek.bsky.social, @dwillner.bsky.social, and @klonick.bsky.social about Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking program.

submitted 51 days ago • 14 comments

People have really short memories. This really hasn’t worked well for X. It’s going to work even less well for Meta. Community Notes is a great concept but it struggles to perform. Is Meta going to have a transparent Notes program? How is Zuck going to incentivize people to work for free?

submitted 51 days ago • 187 comments

🚨In Nature🚨 Meta is dropping fact-checking to avoid anti-conservative bias- but is there actually evidence of bias? We this test empirically & find that conservatives * ARE suspended more * BUT share more misinfo So suspension isn't necessarily evidence of bias www.nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 51 days ago • 99 comments

Genuinely baffled by the unempirical assertion that Community Notes “works.” Does it? How do Meta know? The best available research is pretty mixed on this point. And as they go all-in on an unproven concept, will Meta commit to publicly releasing data so people can actually study this?

submitted 51 days ago • 112 comments

One important point here is that Meta’s 3rd party fact checking program provided signals for its algorithm. That means if a user / page often posted content that received a fact check, their future content might be down-ranked in the algorithm & seen by fewer users. Will Meta replace these signals?

submitted 51 days ago • 2 comments