Real Facebook Oversight Board's 8-page "Q2 Facebook Harms Report ... deep-dive into Facebook’s impact on democracy, privacy, and human life this financial quarter" sets out:"serious problem with disinformation" which they actively choose to do nothing abouthow they let Trump's affiliate PACs to raise money on Faceboo…

"Almost unbelievably, scepticism is highest among healthcare workers."Examines both the specific mistakes and the general antivaxxer European setting undermining the vaccination campaign.Specific mistakes: "by publicly trashing [AstraZeneca], the commission undermined trust in the vaccines... compounded by confusion over the vaccine…

Q really seems to act like a virus, finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in each new host is discovers: Germany's far-right groups were the first, and now France's Yellow Jackets, Italy's anti-vaxxers and UK's Brexiteers. Why? Trump's role is at the heart of the Q narrative. Answer (according to Politico): COVID19. "…

The Biden-Pence debate illustrated "how far apart Americans overall have become in their interpretation of the pandemic ... rejecting reality for their own preferred set of facts".Republicans dont believe the US has done that badly and think the issue is overblown. Perhaps unsurprisingly, "94% of Democrats always or very often wore …

Facebook deleted post where Trump claimed Covid-19 was "less lethal" than the flu, while Twitter hid it behind a warning about "spreading misleading and potentially harmful information". Covid-19 thought to be up to 10 times more lethal than most flu strains. Trump's reaction: "REPEAL SECTION 230!!!" His propo…

Cornell analyzed 38 million English-language articles about the pandemic found that President Trump was the largest driver of the “infodemic.”...Of 11 different narratives ID'd, "miracle cures" - including Trump's anti-malarial drugs, UV and disinfectants - accounted for more than the other 10 combined.Keep it in perspective: a…

A tour of the year from Zuckerberg's original position - that private companies should not be censoring politicians or the news in a democracy - to the most recent U-turn, after a year of exploring options: from continuing to do nothing through to Twitter's position - banning all political ads."field testing revealed that none of th…

"effective disinformation campaigns are often built around a true or plausible core... existing biases, divisions and inconsistencies in a targeted group ... often employ “unwitting agents” to spread their content ... a single disinformation campaign may have a specific objective ... [but] pervasive disinformation works at a more profound lev…

Unless Biden stumbles, he'll win, but the amazing thing is that ~40% of Americans will support Trump no matter what. Trump is talking and acting crazy while over 1000 Americans die of covid19 on many days - compared to around half that in the worst week of the Vietnam war. Yet there seems to be no electoral consequence: the Trump-Biden gap ha…

Less than 5% of the 912 posts flagged for misinformation were dealt with by Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Many concerned covid19 and over 10% mentioned Gates.Their election-related disinformation policies are unclear, particularly concerning content to de-legitimise the election, "which is likely to make enforcement difficult and…

Literature note: “How to Lose the Information War,” ... on disinformation as a geopolitical strategy...Mueller report: I.R.A.-created groups and accounts reached tens of millions... the troll factory found “authentic, local voices,” to foment large-scale distrust in government and democracy... and managed to get into the heads of powerful politici…

At least 800 people may have died around the world because of coronavirus-related misinformation in the first three months of this year... about 5,800 people were admitted to hospital as a result of false information on social media... further threat that anti-vaccine campaigners will use the platform provided by social media to persuade people …

counties that had voted for Donald Trump in 2016 exhibited 14% less physical distancing... higher Covid-19 infection and fatality growth rates ...the hormone oxytocin... promotes bonding... plays a role in trust... When participants trusted and felt trusted, oxytocin levels ... jumped... Trust just feels good... But risky if we give it to the w…

time to rethink “election night.”... Pennsylvania may be counting mail-in ballots for weeks, while President Trump tweets false allegations about fraud ... already ... called mail-in voting into question with false claims about fraud ...[in the US] the media actually assembles the results from 50 states... declares a victor... establishes the narr…

foreign pro-Trump troll farm was based in Romania... Facebook... didn’t see “clear evidence of financial motivation” or “clear links to known commercial actors...separate troll operation, tied to pro-Trump media organization Epoch Media Group, featured 303 Facebook accounts, 181 pages, 44 Facebook groups and 31 Instagram accounts... followed by mo…

five global forces — asymmetry of wealth, disruption, age disparities, polarization, and loss of trust ... ADAPT... changing the way millions of people live and work. The pandemic has sharply accelerated these forces... leaders... have never faced so many dilemmas ... people look to leaders to provide stability, hope, and a path forward ... embody…

Many of our political forebears pined for more polarization... fretted about the incoherence of their identities ... There were liberal Republicans ... opponents of civil rights and big government in the Democratic Party... 1976 ... Richard Nixon... proposed a universal health care ... created the Environmental Protection Agency... tighter i…

Raw data on confirmed cases and deaths for all countries is sourced from ... ECDC. Our complete COVID-19 dataset is ... maintained by Our World in Data... updated daily and includes data on confirmed cases, deaths, and testing... you can download all of our data.

adrenalin had energised locked-down employees at first. Only at the five-week mark did enforced remote working start to breed anxiety... The prospect of ... a bland diet of videocalls and virtual encounters is draining... It is not hard to achieve commitment ... during a crisis. Doubters’ stock objection ... evaporated under pressure... But ... …

Tracking states as they make progress towards a new normal

the vast majority of our panel of 200 participants could easily spot fake news... many instead referenced ... government or media misinformation ... less aware ... how the pandemic is being handled ... underestimated the UK’s death toll...many believed a greater emphasis on fact-checking would enhance rather than undermine public trust in journali…

scientific caution, rather than a strategy of “herd immunity”, drove the UK’s slow response...Sage agreeing “to publish a chronological set ... documents which have informed the questions it has considered and its advice to date... to demonstrate the uncertainties scientists have faced, how understanding of Covid-19 has developed over time, and th…

Rather than being limited to policy wonks and first responders, simulations ... a critical way for individuals to understand complex concepts and examine the impact of their decisions... more than just inform ... help users build empathy for others..."Why Outbreaks like Coronavirus Spread Exponentially.” ... helped Americans understand how im…

the level of bot involvement in discussions about things like US elections or natural disasters is typically 10% to 20%... among tweets about "reopening America," 66% came from accounts that were possibly humans using bot assistants... 34% came from bots...

COVID-19 pandemic is shining a light on the roles that evidence and expertise can play in policy ... Epidemiological data ... reviews of evidence ... assessments of social ... impacts, and more... all competing for policy attention ... can lead to competing narratives... a sense of confusion...policy is necessarily political and evidence does not…

seven distinctive traits of conspiratorial thinking. “Plandemic” offers textbook examples of them all...belief system is internally contradictory ... overwhelmingly suspicious toward the official account ... no limit to the nefarious intent ....may occasionally abandon specific ideas when they become untenable. But ... not overall conclusion that …

Juggling full-time responsibilities, family life, and the stress of confinement makes the risk of burnout greater than ever... time to deconstruct the underlying cultural sources of burnout and ... Work less...our relationship to work ... tied to our ... self-worth ... But ... research says ... for knowledge workers to do their best work, they ne…

When the history is written of how America handled the global era’s first real pandemic ... Trump’s claim to global leadership leaps out. History will mark Covid-19 as the first time that ceased to be true. US airlifts have been missing in action. America cannot even supply itself...a president who ignored increasingly urgent intelligence warnings…

For a handful of disinformation researchers, the information crisis that has unfolded around the coronavirus pandemic seemed inevitable... get a sense of what we should be watching for and what the internet might look like after the virus has passed...Joan Donovan... coined "strategic silence," editorial discretion ... notion that users…

coronavirus i... global rallying cry for ... white supremacists and anti-vaxxers in the U.S. to fascist and anti-refugee groups across Europe ... far-right populists on both continents ... using the outbreak to push their political agenda ...barrage of false messages [risk] ... feeding ... “infodemic” that makes it hard to separate fact from ficti…