TrueMedia, an AI watchdog partnered with Microsoft, claims to be a non-partisan outfit that informs the public and policymakers about the proliferation of AI deepfakes designed to mislead voters during elections. In a glowing New York Times profile earlier this year presenting him as a foremost expert on the topic, University of Washington professor Oren Etzioni warned…
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The 2024 Paris Olympics draw to a close today, one of the most covered and discussed events of the year. Amid the flood of information, media blacklisting platform NewsGuard sought to bolster its image as an authority on “disinformation” and “misinformation” with a series on “false Olympics claims.” In a July 30 edition of its…
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SUMMARY “Media Literacy,” which teaches school children which information sources to trust and which to avoid, is expanding at the state level. Ed-tech platform Newsela, which is used in over 90% of American schools, is a leading provider of media literacy educational material. Newsela makes news articles readable for children of different reading levels, but…
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The federal government is sending billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to four of the big six global advertising agencies, which include some of the leading architects of online censorship. These multinational corporations have spent much of the last decade demanding online censorship of “hate speech,” “disinformation,” and “harmful content” on social media platforms,…
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SUMMARY The advertising industry plays a pivotal role in online censorship through collective boycotts of platforms and websites that host disfavored content. Two organizations that led the way on boycotting and financial blacklisting, Sleeping Giants and NewsGuard, emerged directly from the advertising industry. Brand and advertising agencies typically use the pretext of “brand safety” for…
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The Cambridge Social-Decision Making Lab (CSDMLab) has a Misinformation Susceptibility Test (MIST) that purports to test people’s susceptibility to so-called “misinformation.” Researchers at the lab have used the results of the test to portray younger people (millennials and Gen Z) and conservatives, who tend to rely less on mainstream media sources for news, as particularly…
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SUMMARY The Digital Services Act (DSA) creates a unified framework for government-directed content moderation across the European Union. Each EU member state now has a “digital services coordinator,” with the power to penalize online platforms if they fail to adequately address “systemic risks,” including hate speech and misinformation. These official speech commissars can deputize third…
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Some of the censorship industry’s leading organizations are using public concern over kids’ online browsing habits to install themselves as gatekeepers to the minds of America’s K-12 students, determining what sources and viewpoints they should be exposed to, and what should be hidden from view. Screen usage among kids and adolescents is at an all-time…
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In 2022, the DHS awarded $750,000 under their Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Program (TVTP) to the developers of a counter-disinformation video game for children in grades 6-9. The project, titled “Defenders Against Disinformation: Defeating Disinformation with Digital Gaming” used the funds to create a video game that pitted “superhero” governments, industry partners, and legacy…
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Overview: NewsGuard is a private company offering various products that purport to combat “misinformation.” Their leading product is a browser extension that attaches a “reliability” score to virtually every news website on the internet, with scores ranging from 1-100. A 2021 study by the Media Research Center found a 27-point difference in NewsGuard scores between…
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