Why Does the U.S. Copyright Office Require Libraries to Lie to Users about Their Fair Use Rights? They Won’t Say.; The Scholarly Kitchen, July 5, 2023

RICK ANDERSON, The Scholarly Kitchen; Why Does the U.S. Copyright Office Require Libraries to Lie to Users about Their Fair Use Rights? They Won’t Say.

"Let’s be clear about what the problem is here. It’s not that patrons who use library-provided copies of copyrighted works in a manner beyond the scope of “private study, scholarship, or research” are in legal danger if their use falls within the full range of the fair use provisions in section 107. Again, the language of section 108 makes it very clear that owners of such copies are entirely within their rights to make full (fair) use of them, regardless of what the copyright warning notice prescribed by the Copyright Office says. The problem is that the Copyright Office, under color of authority ostensibly assigned to it by statute, requires libraries to misinform patrons about their rights. Although library patrons are in reality free to make full fair use of copies we provide them (or copies they make on our premises), we must tell them – every time they make or request a copy from us – that they have only a small subset of those rights.

How much does this disinformation end up constraining patrons’ exercise of their full rights under the law? It’s impossible to know, of course. But as a profession that sees itself at the vanguard of the fight against both mis- and disinformation, it certainly should rankle us that we’ve been drafted into a disinformation campaign that affects so many information seekers so directly.

It should rankle us even more that the U.S. Copyright Office, the very entity that has created this issue and is uniquely empowered to fix it, seems to have no interest in doing so. I hope my library colleagues (and everyone else who cares about libraries and archives, and about fair use) will join me in calling on the Copyright Office to change the language of its prescribed copyright warning notice, bringing it into full conformity with what the law actually says. (I’ve created an online petition for this purpose, and encourage all interested to sign it.)"

G.O.P. Targets Researchers Who Study Disinformation Ahead of 2024 Election; The New York Times, June 19, 2023

 Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel , The New York Times; G.O.P. Targets Researchers Who Study Disinformation Ahead of 2024 Election

"On Capitol Hill and in the courts, Republican lawmakers and activists are mounting a sweeping legal campaign against universities, think tanks and private companies that study the spread of disinformation, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online."

With Climate Panel as a Beacon, Global Group Takes On Misinformation; The New York Times, May 24, 2023

 Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times; With Climate Panel as a Beacon, Global Group Takes On Misinformation

"The findings suggest that the most effective responses to false information online are labeling content as “disputed” or flagging sources of state media and publishing corrective information, typically in the form of debunking rumors and disinformation.

Far less certain, the report argues, is the effectiveness of public and government efforts to pressure social media giants like Facebook and Twitter to take down content, as well as internal company algorithms that suspend or play down offending accounts. The same is true of media literacy programs that train people to identify sources of misinformation.

“We’re not saying that information literacy programs don’t work,” said Sebastián Valenzuela, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile who oversaw the study. “What we’re saying is that we need more evidence that they work.”

The panel’s inspirational model, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was founded in 1988, a time when climate change was equally contested. Its scientists, working under the auspices of the United Nations, toiled for decades before its assessments and recommendations came to be recognized as scientific consensus."

WHO kicks off deliberations on ethical framework and tools for social listening and infodemic management; World Health Organization (WHO), February 10, 2023

World Health Organization (WHO) ; WHO kicks off deliberations on ethical framework and tools for social listening and infodemic management

"WHO has convened a panel of experts to discuss ethical considerations in social listening and infodemic management. The aim of the ethics expert panel is to reach a consensus on ethical principles for social listening and other infodemic management activities and provide recommendations for health authorities and researchers.

The panel brings together experts from academia, health authorities, and civil society, with a wide range of expertise such as in biomedical ethics, data privacy, law, digital sociology, digital health, epidemiology, health communication, health promotion, and media studies.

An infodemic is an overabundance information, including misinformation, that surges during a health emergency. During a health emergency, people seek, receive, process and act on information differently than in other times, which makes it even more important to use evidence-based strategies in response. Infodemic management practice, underpinned by the science of infodemiology, has rapidly evolved in the recent years. Tools and experience that were developed during COVID-19 pandemic response have already been applied to other outbreaks, such as ebola, polio and cholera. 

Social listening in public health is the process of gathering information about people's questions, concerns, and circulating narratives and misinformation about health from online and offline data sources. Data gleaned from social media platforms are being used in a number ways to identify and understand outbreaks, geographic and demographic trends, networks, sentiment and behavioral responses to public health emergencies. Offline data collection may include rapid surveys, townhalls, or interviews with people in vulnerable groups, communities of focus and specific populations. These data are then integrated with other data sources from the health system (such as health information systems) and outside of it (mobility data) to generate infodemic insights and inform strategies to manage infodemics.

However, the collection and use of this data presents ethical challenges, such as privacy and consent, and there is currently no agreed-upon ethical framework for social listening and infodemic management. 

The panel will focus on issues such as data control, commercialization, transparency, and accountability, and will consider ethical guidelines for both online and offline data collection, analysis and reporting. The goal is to develop an ethical framework for social listening and infodemic management to guide health authorities when planning and standing up infodemic insights teams and activities, as well as for practitioners when planning and implementing social listening and infodemic management."

Twitter takeover: fears raised over disinformation and hate speech; The Guardian, October 28, 2022

Dan Milmo and Alex Hern, The Guardian ; Twitter takeover: fears raised over disinformation and hate speech

"Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition has been polarizing, sparking reactions from politicians, regulators and non-profits across different continents.

Some have expressed concerns about potential changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies now that it’s in the hands of the Tesla billionaire, while others celebrated how they expect the platform’s newly minted leader will handle content and speech on Twitter.

Senior politicians in the UK and Europe on Friday warned Musk over content moderation on Twitter, with the EU stressing the platform will “fly by our rules” and a UK minister expressing concerns over hate speech under the billionaire’s ownership.

The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, wrote on the platform on Friday that “in Europe, the bird will fly by our rules”, in response to Musk’s earlier tweet saying “the bird is freed” in apparent confirmation that he had bought the business.

The EU is introducing the Digital Services Act, which includes provisions for removal of illegal content including hate speech."

Barack Obama Takes On a New Role: Fighting Disinformation; The New York Times, April 21, 2022

 Steven Lee Myers and Cecilia Kang , The New York Times; Barack Obama Takes On a New Role: Fighting Disinformation

The former president has embarked on a campaign to warn that the scourge of online falsehoods has eroded the foundations of democracy.

"Mr. Obama’s approach to the issue has been characteristically deliberative. He has consulted the chief executives of Apple, Alphabet and others. Through the Obama Foundation in Chicago, he has also met often with the scholars the foundation has trained; they recounted their own experiences with disinformation in a variety of fields around the world.

From those deliberations, potential solutions have begun taking shape, a theme he plans to outline broadly on Thursday. While Mr. Obama maintains that he remains “close to a First Amendment absolutist,” he has focused on the need for greater transparency and regulatory oversight of online discourse — and the ways companies have profited from manipulating audiences through their proprietary algorithms."

Sandy Hook review: anatomy of an American tragedy – and the obscenity of social media; The Guardian, March 13, 2022

Charles Kaiser , The Guardian; Sandy Hook review: anatomy of an American tragedy – and the obscenity of social media

"Those recommendations are the result of the infernal algorithms which are at the heart of the business models of Facebook and YouTube and are probably more responsible for the breakdown in civil society in the US and the world than anything else invented.

“We thought the internet would give us this accelerated society of science and information,” says Lenny Pozner, whose son Noah was one of the Sandy Hook victims. But “really, we’ve gone back to flat earth”."

Ukraine's libraries are offering bomb shelters, camouflage classes and, yes, books; NPR, March 9, 2022

 Bill Chappell, NPR; Ukraine's libraries are offering bomb shelters, camouflage classes and, yes, books

"Libraries are playing vital roles in supporting Ukraine's war effort from giving families shelters during Russian bombing raids to making camouflage nets for the military and countering disinformation. 

"It's really scary when schools, libraries, universities, hospitals, maternity hospitals, residential neighborhoods are bombed," Oksana Brui, who is the president of the Ukrainian Library Association, told NPR...

Even in peacetime, Ukraine's libraries try to counteract the influence of disinformation, training people in media and information literacy. But this is war, and everything about life in Ukraine is now different. The country's librarians are hard at work trying to keep their collections safe — and making sure people can access books and other materials.

"Today Ukraine is fighting not only for its own independence and the future of its children," Brui said. 

She stressed that Ukrainians are fighting — and dying — for European values. She urged everyone to support Ukraine, to establish a no-fly zone, and unite to stop the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Today it is destroying Ukraine, and tomorrow it could be any other country," Brui said." 

Fighting Disinformation Can Feel Like a Lost Cause. It Isn’t.; The New York Times, March 7, 2022

Jay Caspian Kang, The New York Times; Fighting Disinformation Can Feel Like a Lost Cause. It Isn’t.

"Joel Breakstone, the director of the Stanford History Education Group, believes that there needs to be more attention paid to what, exactly, is taught in these media literacy programs. Frequently used lessons like the memorably named Currency Reliability Authority Purpose (CRAP) test ask students to put their information through a gantlet of questions. But Breakstone believes they do not really work for a variety of reasons, the most salient being that most people don’t really know how to check sources and the reliability of information.

What he and his group suggest, instead, is a more comprehensive approach that teaches kids how to assess not only the reliability of the specific information they’ve found online but also who published it and for what purpose. In doing this, students are looking at the whole ecosystem in which the information resides, which improves their ability to question things that may seem to come from sources that look reputable enough."

Ronn Torossian Admits To "Ethical Lapses" Amid News Site Controversy; PRovokeMedia, February 23, 2022

Diana Marszalek, PRovokeMedia ; Ronn Torossian Admits To "Ethical Lapses" Amid News Site Controversy

"After finally admitting to owning Everything-PR, 5WPR founder and CEO Ronn Torossian apologized for his lack of transparency on the issue, acknowledging making “missteps including ethical lapses and errors in judgment” during the 20-year history of his firm...

Torossian’s apology comes following Crain’s New York Business’s report last week that he does indeed own Everything-PR, despite years of denial, and used the site to boost his own firm while slamming other agencies...

“In addition to being a cowardly and blatant violation of PRSA's Code of Ethics, Ronn’s actions are a stain on our profession and undermine our role as guardians of facts and integrity for those we serve. We strongly condemn his and his firm’s direct role in perpetrating disinformation while pretending to be a legitimate industry news site," said PRSA-NY's board said in a statement."

ALA Stands with Ukrainian Library Community; American Libraries, March 1, 2022

 American Libraries; ALA Stands with Ukrainian Library Community

"On March 1, the American Library Association (ALA) released a statement in support of the Ukrainian library community. The full statement reads as follows:

ALA and its divisions support our Ukrainian colleagues and will work with the global library community to answer the appeal from the Ukrainian Library Association to provide accurate information as a means to support democracy and freedom of expression.

ALA has adopted into its policies Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.”

ALA continues to encourage our members to help raise public consciousness regarding the many ways in which disinformation and media manipulation are used to mislead public opinion in all spheres of life, and further encourages librarians to facilitate this awareness with collection development, library programming, and public outreach that draws the public’s attention to those alternative sources of information dedicated to countering and revealing the disinformation.

American Library Association Executive Board

American Association of School Librarians Board of Directors

Association for Library Service to Children Board of Directors

Association of College and Research Libraries Board of Directors

Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures Board of Directors

Public Library Association Board of Directors

Reference and User Services Association Board of Directors

Young Adult Library Services Association Board of Directors

United for Libraries Board of Directors"

How to avoid falling for and spreading misinformation about Ukraine; The Washington Post, February 24, 2022

Heather Kelly, The Washington Post ; How to avoid falling for and spreading misinformation about Ukraine

"Anyone with a phone and an Internet connection is able to watch the war in Ukraine unfold live online, or at least some version of it. Across social media, posts are flying up faster than most fact-checkers and moderators can handle, and they’re an unpredictable mix of true, fake, out of context and outright propaganda messages.

How do you know what to trust, what not to share and what to report? Tech companies have said they’re trying to do more to help users spot misinformation about Ukraine, with labels and fact checking. On Saturday, Facebook parent company Meta announced it was adding more fact-checkers in the region dedicated to posts about the war. It’s also warning users who attempt to share war-related photo when they’re more than a year old — a common type of misinformation.

Here are some basic tools everyone should use when consuming breaking news online."

Putin's war was launched on a runway of lies; CNN, February 25, 2022

Opinion by Frida Ghitis, CNN ; Putin's war was launched on a runway of lies

"In the end, Putin did exactly what President Biden told the world he would do: He invaded Ukraine on a runway of lies.

In Russia, where most people get their news from government-controlled media, many believed Putin's claims of a nefarious threat from Ukraine. But the rest of the world saw the propaganda fall flat in real time. 

"Orwellian" doesn't begin to describe the falsehoods. Putin announced he was sending "peacekeepers," as he ordered his military machine to move into Ukrainian territory. His soldiers went into Ukraine to supposedly "de-Nazify" -- smearing the Nazi label on a country that is a democracy, though a flawed one, whose president happens to be Jewish. Putin claimed Moscow needed to move in to defend Ukraine's Russian speakers from a nonexistent "genocide" by Ukrainians (a tactic made infamous of World War II).

Washington succeeded in thoroughly delegitimizing not only the phony Russian justification for war, but Putin's own credibility before the entire world. It may take some time for the Russian people, too, to grasp the depth of the deception, but eventually they will."

How They Did It: Sandy Hook Families Savor Long-Awaited Legal Wins; The New York Times, February 20, 2022

Elizabeth Williamson, The New York Times; How They Did It: Sandy Hook Families Savor Long-Awaited Legal Wins

After early defeats in Congress, relatives of those lost in the 2012 shooting fought on, besting a renowned gun maker and an infamous conspiracy theorist.

"Mr. Pozner, the father of Noah Pozner, the youngest Sandy Hook victim, is a technology consultant who understood the online conspiracy world, and how social media algorithms hasten the spread of harmful content. He has devoted his life since the shooting to battling conspiracy theorists and the social platforms that enable them. His nonprofit, the HONR Network, has succeeded in getting hundreds of thousands of pieces of harmful content removed from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other platforms, and persuaded hosting companies to take down entire websites devoted to denying the shooting. Mr. Pozner’s efforts have made him a target. He has moved nearly a dozen times after hoaxers, his moniker for the Sandy Hook deniers, posted his address online. In 2017 a Florida woman, Lucy Richards, was jailed for threatening Mr. Pozner’s life.

Mr. Jones has repeatedly maligned Mr. Pozner and Noah’s mother, Veronique De La Rosa, on Infowars. For years Mr. Jones falsely claimed an interview Ms. De La Rosa gave to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Newtown shortly after Noah’s death was faked before a studio “green screen.” Mr. Pozner had Mr. Jones’s shows making false claims about Noah and his family removed from YouTube. In a fury, Mr. Jones showed millions of viewers addresses and phone numbers linked to Mr. Pozner.

Last week, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court affirmed Mr. Pozner’s 2019 victory in a separate defamation lawsuit against James Fetzer, another conspiracy theorist who edited a 400-page book titled “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.” The Wisconsin court dismissed Mr. Fetzer’s appeal on Wednesday."

The Sandy Hook Father Who Refused to Let Alex Jones Win; The New York Times, February 10, 2022

Kara Swisher, The New York Times; The Sandy Hook Father Who Refused to Let Alex Jones Win

Conspiracy theories have loomed over the school shooting in which his son, Noah, died. Leonard Pozner reflects on how the truth can triumph online.

"I’m Kara Swisher, and you’re listening to “Sway.” Today I want to talk about how the information age has become the misinformation age. From Covid deniers to QAnon enthusiasts and big lie believers, it sometimes feels like we live in a post-truth world. In fact, it feels like we already live there all the time now.

My guest today is no stranger to that. Leonard Pozner is the father of Noah, who, in 2012, at only age six, was murdered at the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Noah was one of 20 children and six educators who lost their lives in that massacre. And while much of America mourned the tragedy, some did not. Rumors abounded online, calling Sandy Hook a hoax. Amongst the chief conspiracists, conservative talk show host and founder of Infowars, Alex Jones."

Joni Mitchell Removes Her Songs From Spotify Over Joe Rogan’s Vaccine Disinfo; The Daily Beast, January 28, 2022

Blake Montgomery, The Daily Beast; Joni Mitchell Removes Her Songs From Spotify Over Joe Rogan’s Vaccine Disinfo

"The move comes after Neil Young, who shares a manager with Mitchell, removed all his music from Spotify for the same reason. Both Young and Mitchell cited an open letter from over 200 doctors decrying disinformation and vaccine hesitancy peddled on The Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in the world. Spotify inked a $100 million deal with Rogan for exclusive distribution rights to his show.

“They can either have Rogan or Young. Not both,” the “Heart of Gold” singer said. He added that the move would likely be a financially damaging one for both himself and his record label.

Both Young and Mitchell are survivors of polio and staunch proponents of vaccination science."

Final Report: Commission on Information Disorder; Aspen Institute, November 2021

Aspen Institute ; Final Report: Commission on Information Disorder

"Information disorder is a crisis that exacerbates all other crises."

Opinion: America is sick with information disorder. Time for a cure.; The Washington Post, November 23, 2021

Editorial Board, The Washington Post ; Opinion: America is sick with information disorder. Time for a cure.

"“Information disorder” is a malady that comes in many forms, from made-up news to manipulated media to misunderstood satire. According to a six-month investigation by a commission at the Aspen Institute, the United States is  not trying nearly hard enough to find a cure.

The report starts, as any study aimed at restoring trust and truth ought to, by acknowledging reality: “In a free society, a certain amount of misinformation will always exist.” The hope isn’t to punish every exaggeration, piece of propaganda or flat-out lie but to home in on the most egregious damage caused by specific types of mis- and disinformation — by discouraging people from spreading falsehoods and minimizing the fallout when they do. This is easiest in “empirically grounded” areas, in which facts can most clearly be found: public health and election integrity foremost among them."

Dominion: will one Canadian company bring down Trump's empire of disinformation?; The Guardian, April 4, 2021

David Smith, The Guardian; Dominion: will one Canadian company bring down Trump's empire of disinformation?

"“Libel laws may prove to be a very old mechanism to deal with a very new phenomenon of massive disinformation,” said Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist. “We have all these fact checkers but lots of people don’t care. Nothing else seems to work, so maybe this will.”...

Eisen, a former White House “ethics czar”, suggests that the Dominion case could provide at least one model for dealing with the war on truth.

“The United States and the world need to deal with disinformation,” he said.

“There can be no doubt that every method is going to be required but certainly libel law provides one very important vehicle for establishing consequences and while there’s no such thing as a guarantee when you go to court, this is an exceptionally high risk for Fox with a large price tag attached as well.”...

 RonNell Andersen Jones, a law professor at the University of Utah, told the Washington Post: “We are seeing the way that libel has become a real battleground in the fight against disinformation."

The Most Popular J&J Vaccine Story On Facebook? A Conspiracy Theorist Posted It; NPR, April 15, 2021

Miles Parks, NPR ; The Most Popular J&J Vaccine Story On Facebook? A Conspiracy Theorist Posted It

""This is what I would call the perfect storm for misinformation," said Jennifer Granston at Zignal Labs, a media intelligence platform...

In most cases, the social media companies say they can't do much to respond in cases such as this, since people largely are sharing articles based on factual information, even if the commentary and subtext around the posting is meant to further false ideas.

"It's a really insidious problem," said Deen Freelon, a communications professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in an interview with NPR last month. "The social media companies have taken a hard line against disinformation; they have not taken a similarly hard line against fallacies."

Many anti-vaccine activists have adopted this tactic as a way of getting around social media networks' policies designed to halt the spread of false information....

Often, misinformation peddlers with a specific agenda will fill in knowledge gaps with false information, knowing people are desperate for any information at all."