Overview: Social Web

When changing their Newsfeed algorithm, Facebook's tests found "a dramatic impact on the reach of right-wing “junk sites,”... [by] January 2018 a second iteration dialed up the harm to progressive-leaning news organizations instead... Mother Jones was singled out as one that would suffer... Daily Wire was identified as one that would be…

The platforms started doing what people concerned about disinformation have been asking for, and immediately came under fire from people concerned about censorship.When The New York Post published a story supposedly incriminating Hunter Biden "YouTube largely did nothing, Facebook deprioritized the Post story (slowing spread until 3rd party f…

Facebook's 2017 newsfeed algorithm tweak intentionally reduced traffic to left-leaning outlets " to avoid adding fuel to critics’ argument that the platform has an anti-conservative bias"... and overcorrected."Mother Jones saw a roughly $400,000 drop in the site’s annual revenue"

"the right is better at connecting with people on a visceral level", according to Facebook, portraying themselves as a neutral mirror. Rightwing content resonates by "speaking to "an incredibly strong, primitive emotion" by touching on "nation, protection, the other, anger, fear.""This may be true, but it&#x…

During the Cold War, the Soviets conducted over 10,000 disinformation operations, with up to 15000 KGB officers. Europe a target since 2015. Goal: weaken western democracy from within. This article sets out their most pertinent tactics:1) Narratives: post-Western world (the West no longer dominates); anti-(elite, EU, NATO) narratives; danger narra…

Tours election technology from 2008 to 2018 "and beyond".2008: Obama integrated e-mail, cell phones and websites to both convey the candidate’s message and enable his supporters to connect and self-organize - supporting grassroots community. MyBarackObama allowed users to form groups, raise money, organise events, get info on local vote…

In less than a year... weekly church-attending white Protestants convinced that Donald Trump was anointed by God to be president grew from 29.6 percent to 49.5 percent... Capitalizing on that devotion is integral to Trump’s re-election ...all-enveloping digital campaign website... campaign app... a self-contained, self-reinforcing arena where Trum…

Uber gets an $82 billion valuation for a low-margin taxi business it has never made a dime on... WeWork implodes after the slightest scrutiny ... that’s the bullshit economy... fraudulent advertising metrics and fake numbers ... to siphon cash through Facebook and Google’s ... counterfeit goods pass through Amazon... a financial crisis based on bu…

for manipulating public opinion... automation and artificial intelligence “can quickly generate traffic and publicity much faster than people.”...If disinformation in 2016 was characterized by Macedonian spammers... Russian trolls... 2020 is shaping up to be the year communications pros for hire provide sophisticated online propaganda operations .…

journalism primarily do one thing: cover events... The internet has sped up the news cycle. Now we put more emphasis on covering the last event... But ... events in this era have ceased to drive politics...impeachment... Mueller investigation ... “Access Hollywood” tapes... barely leave a trace on the polls...Events don’t seem to be driving politi…

recent UK election was a quarrel about the character of politics...Labour Party argued that it can be used for good... Conservative Party claimed that politics is bad... promised to... ‘get Brexit done’, so that we can all forget about it ...wage war on the political process, on trust, and on truth. Ensure the whole experience is miserable, bewild…

despite this being an election defined by Brexit, there is no substantive discussion of Brexit...Labour have failed to fill out what their ‘sensible Brexit’ would look like... the Conservatives have said little beyond their ‘get Brexit done’ slogan...the real and difficult choices ... Johnson would immediately face over Brexit... from one of the c…

2017 study ... showed that voters in Britain highly satisfied with their lives were 1.6% more likely to support the party in power... a 10% rise in family income was associated with a mere 0.18% increase ... happiness seems more important to the outcome of elections than money... in 15 European elections ... Life satisfaction... twice as important…

political scientist Lilliana Mason ... new book, Uncivil Agreement ... we actually agree about most things... “our conflicts are over who we think we are, rather than reasoned differences of opinion... Our opinions can be very fluid... if we wanted to come to a compromise we could, if there were not these pesky identities in the way... we disagree…

the next iteration of technology applied to politics will be a huge leap forward with a greater ability to target people... address each of the 156 million of registered voters on the US with personalized messages.... a falsehood delivered in a personalized way is likely to be more efficient but less visible than a blatant lie put on Twitter; it w…

The most powerful engine of elitism is the European Union... Founding Fathers of Europe deliberately removed a great deal of decision-making from the hands of the (nation-bounded and short-sighted) public... Confronted with popular revolts against the rule of experts they have simply dug in their heels... For the EU, technocratic decision-making …

Wylie ... the gay Canadian vegan who somehow ended up creating “Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare mindfuck tool”.... In 2014 Steve Bannon ... was Wylie’s boss. And Robert Mercer... Republican donor, was Cambridge Analytica’s investor... to bring big data and social media to an established military methodology – “information operations” – then t…

most forms of political persuasion seem to have little effect at all... Field experiments testing the effects of online ads on political candidates and issues have also found null effects... Here’s what you should look for in evaluating claims about vast persuasion effects from dubious online content: How many people actually saw the questionable…

Facebook officially released a tool Monday that lets its users — all desktop and mobile users in the U.S. — easily contact their local officials. It's called "Town Hall," reminiscent of what Facebook likes to see itself as, especially in political discussion. 

interviews ...suggest that its psychological approach was not actually used by the Trump campaign and, furthermore, the company has never provided evidence that it even works.

according to ... data, many UKIP voters will change their views on immigration if politicians can reassure them by highlighting the impressive rate of assimilation already taking place in British society... all ethnic groups – including the majority – want their community to have a future... It’s rare for stories such as these to shift people’s a…

model to assess human beings based on five personality traits, known as the "Big Five." also known as OCEAN... openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism... their needs and fears, and how they are likely to behave. ... the problem with this approach was data collection... Then came the Internet. And Facebook... on the b…

everyone is intransigent now ... Social media acts as a massive collective Sorting Hat, silently assigning most of us to filter bubbles wherein our beliefs and biases are rarely challenged. News (or “news”) sources rise up to cater... slowly, these isolated groups do what isolated groups do... become more extreme. Increasing extremity in one group…

Many scientists are asking themselves: What can I do?... the answer from ... 314 Action is: Get elected... most scientists view their work as pure and noble, and politics as a dirty game... since Trump’s victory, “many more scientists are realizing why their voices are needed... Scientists bring a unique perspective in how they ... think about …

Back in 2004, I was one of about thirty people to become the first bloggers ever to get a press pass to a major party’s convention... we were the story. We were followed around by mainstream media, and at any given moment, at least a few of us were giving interviews on radio or TV... it was a great honor to be in the room for Obama’s breakthrough …

Fake news has been around as long as real news...  Social media has certainly transformed how fake news circulates, speeding up its circulation and extending its reach and impact...  a much more important problem ... is the continuing delegitimization of real news by American conservatives...  This is not “fake news.” It is a blatantly ideolog…

The Five Star Movement controls ... sprawling network of websites and social media accounts that are spreading fake news, conspiracy theories, and pro-Kremlin stories to millions... profitable sites that describe themselves as “independent news” outlets but are actually controlled by the party leadership... crossposted scores of fake stories... o…

these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy... We’ve monitored more than 7,000 social media accounts over the last 30 months and at times engaged directly with them. Trump isn’t the end of Russia’s social media and hacking …

foolish to assume that “experience” is an unalloyed asset ... In this age of rage against anything or anyone that can be depicted as “the establishment” ... a handicap to be an “insider” and a great advantage to be an “outsider”... calling them dangerous did not amount to an answer to the grievances driving substantial numbers of voters ... tell…

the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end... many good effects... But the fixation on diversity ... produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life.