Disinfo Docket 15 July

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Highlights
- Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts With New Guardrails to Deter Repeat Offenses (Meta, 12 July)
- Misinformation spreads swiftly in hours after Trump rally shooting (Washington Post, 14 July)
This is not a video of the shooter at Trump's Pennsylvania rally. This is the exact same X user who pretended to be the shooter in an odd trolling attempt.
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) July 14, 2024
He posted this video an hour ago and quickly deleted it. It's now being shared as if it's a message by the real shooter. https://t.co/ShDpQ1UxzN pic.twitter.com/S5wEqpu0QX
Media ecosystems & #disinformation expert Théophile Lenoir talks about major trends in #infospace evolution, #generativeAI, the changing of the social media landscape and platform policy. See the full video: https://t.co/T2huAjKp8v @TheoLenoir pic.twitter.com/EIFGlrUQBc
— EUvsDisinfo (@EUvsDisinfo) July 14, 2024
1. Academia & Research
- More fun with Community Notes data: Use of X's crowdsourced fact-checking system has steadily grown over time, but so has the practice of using other X posts as sources for notes (Conspirator Norteño, 14 July)
- Online manipulation expert Renée DiResta: ‘Conspiracy theories shape our politics in extremely mainstream ways’ (Guardian, 14 July)
2. Platforms & Technology
- Meta Is Getting Rid of CrowdTangle—and Its Replacement Isn’t as Transparent or Accessible (CJR, 9 July)
- OpenAI promised to make its AI safe. Employees say it ‘failed’ its first test. (Washington Post, 12 July)
- OpenAI illegally barred staff from airing safety risks, whistleblowers say (Washington Post, 13 July)
- Training AI requires more data than we have — generating synthetic data could help solve this challenge (Conversation, 14 July)
- Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales warns of addictive nature of social media (Nikkei Asia, 14 July)
Meta
- Meta remove restrictions on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts (Independent, 13 July)
X (Twitter)
- EU charges Elon Musk’s X for letting disinfo run wild (Politico, 12 July)
- EU threatens Musk’s X with a fine of up to 6% of global turnover (The Record, 12 July)
- How effective were Community Notes on X during elections in India and the U.K.? (Logically, 9 July)