Biden bids farewell with dark warning for America: the oligarchs are coming; The Guardian, January 15, 2025

David Smith in Washington , The Guardian; Biden bids farewell with dark warning for America: the oligarchs are coming

"The primetime speech did not mention Donald Trump by name. Instead it will be remembered for its dark, ominous warning about something wider and deeper of which Trump is a symptom.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said.

The word “oligarchy” comes from the Greek words meaning rule (arche) by the few (oligos). Some have argued that the dominant political divide in America is no longer between left and right, but between democracy and oligarchy, as power becomes concentrated in the hands of a few. The wealthiest 1% of Americans now has more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.

The trend did not start with Trump but he is set to accelerate it. The self-styled working-class hero has picked the richest cabinet in history, including 13 billionaires, surrounding himself with the very elite he claims to oppose. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has become a key adviser. Tech titans Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – collectively worth a trillion dollars – will be sitting at his inauguration on Monday.

Invoking former president Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address in January 1961 that warned against the rise of a military-industrial complex, Biden said: “Six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex. It could pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power.”

In an acknowledgement of news deserts and layoffs at venerable institutions such as the Washington Post, Biden added starkly: “The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. Truth is smothered by lies, told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable, to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.”

Zuckerberg’s recent decision to abandon factcheckers on Facebook, and Musk’s weaponisation of X in favour of far-right movements including Maga, was surely uppermost in Biden’s mind. Trust in the old media is breaking down as people turn to a fragmented new ecosystem. It has all happened with disorienting speed."

This company rates news sites’ credibility. The right wants it stopped.; The Washington Post, December 24, 2024

Will Oremus

 and 

Naomi Nix

, The Washington Post; This company rates news sites’ credibility. The right wants it stopped.

"At a time when social media, podcasts and partisan outlets are displacing the mainstream media as news sources, the battle over NewsGuard’s future is symptomatic of a broader societal struggle over who gets to arbitrate the truth."

AI and the Public; Library Journal, November 11, 2024

 Matt Enis, Library Journal; AI and the Public

"In a recent leadership brief, the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) explains that “technology has always played a role in spreading misinformation and disinformation, but the advancement of artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, has ushered in an era of unprecedented expansion in the volume, sophistication, and believability of falsified information.” Citing a report by NewsGuard, the brief notes that websites with AI-generated false articles have increased by more than 1,000 percent since May 2023. Separately, the brief cites a testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum by Jessica Brandt, a policy director at the Brookings Institution, which describes AI “deepfake” technologies—which generate replica audio or video of a person’s voice or likeness—as a significant misinformation threat.

“We’re really in an unprecedented era,” Brooks Rainwater, president and CEO of ULC, tells LJ. Misinformation “is just going to be even more and more pervasive. And this is where public libraries come in as that trusted resource for community members, being able to talk with those community members…. As people have those conversations about what’s real and what’s not real, I do feel that [libraries] hold a unique position moving forward.”

The brief also connects the problem of misinformation with the rise in social isolation—when real-life social connections erode and people spend more time online, they often become more vulnerable to misinformation and extreme viewpoints.

“One of the ways to counter that is humanizing those conversations,” Femi Adelakun, director of research and data for ULC, tells LJ. “Public libraries are well positioned to do that. You’re more likely to argue over a topic online and never get to a resolution. When you come together in person, [you can] actually have a discussion.”"

Disinformation Transformed Miami Politics. This Radio Station Is One Reason Why.; Politico, November 29, 2024

ALI BIANCO , Politico; Disinformation Transformed Miami Politics. This Radio Station Is One Reason Why

"If you’re from Miami, Radio Mambí’s celebratory vibe is no surprise. This is, after all, the radio station that has been a touchstone for Miami’s Cuban exiliados, or exiles, since they arrived. It’s the radio station that made Miami Cuban politics. But since the 2016 election, it’s morphed into a hotbed of misinformation — one that impacted the 2024 presidential election...

If you tuned in to Radio Mambí 710 AM in 2020, you might have heard a caller questioning the results in Georgia and Pennsylvania, demanding recounts or denouncing the election as a fraud. In 2021, you might have heard the hosts repeat claims that Black Lives Matter and Antifa members were behind the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — and you definitely would have heard claims that President Joe Biden was a socialist. In 2024, listeners tuning in heard callers and hosts calling Vice President Kamala Harris a Marxist extremist, sharing concerns about the “humanitarian crisis” in Springfield, Ohio, or spreading theories about voters being registered without proof of citizenship — with the hosts rarely stepping in to correct the record.

You’d never guess that Mambí, the focus of a national controversy about disinformation in Latino communities, is now owned by Democrats."

From Bannon to Musk: The decade that made misinformation the new normal; EL PAÍS, November 25, 2024

 JAVIER SALAS, EL PAÍS ; From Bannon to Musk: The decade that made misinformation the new normal

"The key insight came from researcher Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, who explained: “Misinformation is not a piece of content. It is a strategy.”"

Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with Sandy Hook families' backing; AP, November 14, 2024

Dave Collins | AP; Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with Sandy Hook families' backing

"The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement Thursday provided by his lawyers.

The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive for an undisclosed sales price. The purchase gives a satirical outlet — which carries the banner of “America’s Finest News Source” on its masthead — control over a brand that has long peddled misinformation and conspiracy."

BLUESKY SURGES WITH 700,000 NEW MEMBERS AS USERS FLEE X AFTER US ELECTION; CEO Today, November 12, 2024

CEO Today; BLUESKY SURGES WITH 700,000 NEW MEMBERS AS USERS FLEE X AFTER US ELECTION

"Bluesky Surges with 700,000 New Members as Users Flee X After US Election: A Social Media Revolution in the Making

In the wake of the US election, a quiet revolution has been unfolding in the world of social media. The platform Bluesky has seen a dramatic increase in user growth, with over 700,000 new members joining in just one week following the election results. This surge has propelled Bluesky’s user base to 14.5 million globally, up from 9 million in September. The platform’s meteoric rise is largely attributed to disillusioned social media users seeking a safer, more regulated alternative to X (formerly Twitter), especially after the platform underwent a radical transformation under Elon Musk's ownership and his association with US president-elect Donald Trump.

Bluesky, which originated as a project within Twitter before becoming an independent platform in 2022, has quickly become a refuge for those seeking a break from the rising tide of far-right activism, misinformation, and offensive content that has overtaken X in recent months. As X grapples with growing controversy and user dissatisfaction, Bluesky is capitalizing on the opportunity to position itself as a civil and balanced alternative...

The Growing Backlash Against X and Musk’s Vision

The rise of Bluesky is part of a broader trend of backlash against X since Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform. Under Musk’s leadership, X has shifted its focus, alienating a significant portion of its user base. In the aftermath of the US election, many have expressed concerns about the platform's increasing alignment with far-right political groups and its potential transformation into a propaganda tool for Trump and his supporters.

For example, a prominent critic of X, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who had 250,000 followers on X, noted that she picked up 21,000 followers within her first day on Bluesky after moving to the platform. She shared her concerns about X's potential evolution into a far-right radicalization machine under Musk’s stewardship. Ben-Ghiat said, "After January, when X could be owned by a de facto member of the Trump administration, its functions as a Trump propaganda outlet and far-right radicalization machine could be accelerated."

This sentiment reflects the growing sense of unease among users about the political direction of X. As Musk’s political ties become clearer and his rhetoric becomes more controversial, users who once considered X a neutral platform for conversation now see it as a space increasingly hostile to their values. For many, Bluesky is emerging as the antidote to this growing disillusionment."

Top election official says colleagues gave Elon Musk ‘hand-delivered’ notes to stop him from spreading misinformation; Fortune, November 1, 2024

SASHA ROGELBERG , Fortune; Top election official says colleagues gave Elon Musk ‘hand-delivered’ notes to stop him from spreading misinformation

"Elon Musk is accused of rampantly spreading election misinformation, and it has been a thorn in the side of election officials working double time to try and mitigate the spew of unfounded claims about meddling and alleged voter fraud. Some officials have even gone to measures like dispatching personal notes to the CEO of Tesla and X, who endorsed Donald Trump in July following as assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa.

“I’ve had my friends hand-deliver stuff to him,” Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County, Ariz.  recorder, told CNN. Richer, a Republican, has come under fire from conservatives for defending the 2020 election outcome that Trump lost.

But so far, the efforts of Richer’s colleagues have fallen short. “We’ve pulled out more stops than most people have available to try to put accurate information in front of [Musk],” Richer said. “It has been unsuccessful.”

Musk cast false information about election security, including insisting Americans vote in-person and on paper, citing a debunked conspiracy that ballot machines switched votes, at a Philadelphia town hall event on Oct. 18. Musk historically has voted by mail, and his super PAC, America PAC, has encouraged mail-in voting.

His social media platform X has also failed to quash election lies. A report from Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) on Wednesday found X’s Community Notes feature “failed to counter false” claims about the election, with 209 of 283 (74%) analyzed posts not showing notes correcting false information."

What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family; NPR, October 22, 2024

Katia Riddle , NPR; What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family

"Every year the American Psychological Association takes a look at the leading causes of stress in the U.S., and publishes an annual report. This year the report shows all the usual suspects like money, health and family are still wearing people down, but one issue is dominating – politics.

Seven out of 10 adults say the future of the nation is a significant source of stress in their lives and the issue crosses party lines: 80% of Republicans rated it a top stressor, so did 79% of Democrats and 73% of Independents. Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and APA’s deputy chief, professional practice, says she was surprised by the findings...

The report – called Stress in America 2024: A Nation in Political Turmoil — details the results of a survey conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of the APA. More than 3,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and older were surveyed between August 1st and 23rd, 2024...

A majority of respondents are also concerned about misinformation and disinformation — 82% said they are worried that people are basing their values and opinions on false or inaccurate information.

Bufka says one of the problems is Americans are not seeing the things that matter to them represented in the political discourse...

There is some positive news in the report. Three out of five people felt hopeful about the election results. Stress can also galvanize people into action; 80% of survey respondents say they do intend to vote in the Presidential election."

Elon Musk says X users fight falsehoods. The falsehoods are winning.; The Washington Post, October 30, 2024

Will Oremus

, 

Trisha Thadani

 and 

Jeremy B. Merrill

, The Washington Post; Elon Musk says X users fight falsehoods. The falsehoods are winning.

"When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he laid off swaths of workers tasked with moderating the platform and embraced an experimental approach: asking users to fact-check one another.

Musk has touted the crowdsourcing program, called Community Notes, as “the best source of truth on the internet.” But the majority of accurate fact checks proposed by users on political posts are never shown to the public, according to research from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and a separate data analysis by The Washington Post — suggesting that the feature is failing to provide a meaningful check on misinformation."

A GOP operative accused a monastery of voter fraud. Nuns fought back.; The Washington Post, October 23, 2024

 Praveena Somasundaram, The Washington Post; A GOP operative accused a monastery of voter fraud. Nuns fought back.

"The day before, a Republican operative in the battleground state falsely suggested to his nearly 58,000 followers on X that no one lived at the monastery and that mail ballots cast from there would be “illegal votes.” Cliff Maloney, who hired 120 people to go door-to-door across Pennsylvania urging Republican voters to return their mail ballots, wrote on X that one of those workers had “discovered” an Erie address where 53 people were registered to vote but “NO ONE lives there.”

The address Maloney posted belonged to the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, where Schmidt and 54 other sisters live full time. And the Catholic order, known for its engagement in social justice issues, was alarmed by the accusations.

“To be unjustly accused of voter fraud is just really disgusting, ugly,” Schmidt, the prioress, told The Washington Post.

“To be unjustly accused of voter fraud is just really disgusting, ugly,” Schmidt, the prioress, told The Washington Post...

The Benedictine Sisters are planning to take legal action. Ahead of Nov. 5, just like in homes across the country, “there’s a lot of angst about the upcoming election in our house,” Schmidt said."

Is X a threat to American democracy?; The Tufts Daily, October 16, 2024

 Olivia Bye, The Tufts Daily; Is X a threat to American democracy?

"Park’s experience on the site mirrors that of X’s roughly 550 million monthly users and can largely be attributed to X’s acquisition by multi-billionaire businessman and investor Elon Musk in October 2022. In the two years following Musk’s purchase of X, the site has seen unprecedented levels of misinformation and disinformation clouding its user base, a trend that has only been exacerbated in recent months by the 2024 presidential election. The combination of growing artificial intelligence capabilities and a social media platform that has, in nearly every sense, exonerated its regulations of what can or cannot be shared to the site has raised the question: Is X a threat to American democracy?...

However, Associate Professor of Political Science Michael Beckley is skeptical that the increase in political misinformation sets this year’s presidential election apart, citing comparable patterns that have occurred throughout history. “We’ve seen similar things when radio first came out. [People wondered], was this going to allow strong men to rally people behind their cause? We saw the same thing with TV,” he said. “So [the misinformation] is jarring, but I don’t see it as a unique factor. It is rather a pretty chronic factor in a democratic system.”

Kelly Greenhill, an associate professor of Political Science, identifies the normalization of false information spread by notable figures as a key reason behind increased disinformation in the media... 

Greenhill suggests that possibly the best solution to avoid X’s abundance of misinformation is, simply, to leave. “People don’t have to use X. They can leave. They can delete their accounts. They can also leave social media. They may not want to, and they may not choose to, but they can,” she wrote. Some users are choosing to do just that; social media sites that have advertised themselves as alternatives to X, such as Bluesky and Mastodon, have amassed popularity in recent years."

Elon Musk expands his empire of misinformation; CNN, October 15, 2024

 Allison Morrow, CNN; Elon Musk expands his empire of misinformation

"At any Tesla event, you have to go in expecting a good amount of smoke and mirrors. This is the company run by Elon Musk, after all — its self-anointed Technoking who’s made overpromising and underdelivering a theme of his career.

But Thursday’s “Cybercab” robotaxi unveiling was, even by Musk-ian standards for bluster, one giant optical illusion. The kind of spectacle that should remind everyone that the world’s richest person is someone who promotes and appears to relish misinformation and hyperbole on a mass scale, whether he’s speaking to investors, his millions of followers on X or whichever politician he feels is most likely to agree with his increasingly right-wing and conspiracy-laden worldview...

The robotaxis, Tesla’s fully driverless vehicles that it hopes to put into service next year, were the main event. But the company’s humanoid Optimus robots stole some of the spotlight as they danced and mingled with the crowd, pouring drinks and playing charades.

That all would have been impressive if not for a few liiiittttle things. Like, the fact that the robots were not actually autonomous and were being operated remotely by humans, which was first reported by Bloomberg. At one point, an attendee even got a bartending bot to admit that it was being assisted by a human.

“This was not disclosed, and many thought they were operating autonomously,” Gordon Johnson, a longtime Tesla critic and short-seller, said in a note Monday.  “In our view, this is very deceptive.”

The event — rather appropriately held on a Hollywood stage — was light on details about how Tesla plans to improve its “Full Self Driving” system, or how it plans to actually get its driverless cars on the road."

JD Vance says 'no,' he does not think Trump lost in 2020; NPR, October 16, 2024

Jason Breslow , NPR; JD Vance says 'no,' he does not think Trump lost in 2020

"For weeks, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has faced repeated questions on the campaign trail about whether he believes former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. On Wednesday, he flatly answered "no." 

Vance's comment came during an appearance in Williamsport, Pa., after a reporter asked him, "What message do you think it sends to independent voters when you do not directly answer the question, did Donald Trump lose in 2020?”"

What Keeps Latino Voting-Rights Activists Up at Night? Disinformation; The New York Times, October 17, 2024

Jazmine Ulloa , The New York Times; What Keeps Latino Voting-Rights Activists Up at Night? Disinformation

"Latino voting rights groups are hoping the increased scrutiny will shed more light on content that they say appears designed to manipulate Hispanic audiences. The Pew Research Center in March issued the latest of its studies showing that Latinos, who may prove to be a decisive voting group in November, are more likely to rely on social media outlets for news than Black or white people. That has made the electorate more likely than the general population to receive, consume and share misinformation. At the same time, Russian-owned media has emerged as a major purveyor of news across Mexico and Latin America, researchers said.

“We see the influencers, we see the content creators, but we don’t know who is funding them,” said Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, the founder of We Are Más, a communications firm based in South Florida that tracks disinformation. Now that the government has opened cases into Russia’s involvement in American media, she added, “the more we will know, the more we will see the trail.”"

‘Armed Militias’ Claims In N.C. Driven By Social Media Misinformation; Forbes, October 14, 2024

Peter Suciu, Forbes; ‘Armed Militias’ Claims In N.C. Driven By Social Media Misinformation

""The amount of misinformation and disinformation we've seen around the recent hurricanes and help efforts is a strong example of how powerful those effects have become," explained Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

Misinformation began even before Hurricane Helene made landfall, with the dubious claims that government officials were controlling the weather and directing the storm to hit "red states." The misinformation only intensified after the storm left a path of destruction.

"Over the last weeks we've seen death threats against meteorologists and now first responders in emergency situations," said Lampe. "There are a few things that are challenging about this. One is that belief persistence, which is the effect where people tend to keep believing what they have believed, makes it so that new information often doesn't make a difference in changing people's minds. We tend to think that good information will swamp out bad information, but unfortunately, it's not that simple."

Social media can amplify such misinformation in a way that was previously impossible.

"We saw that a small group of people acting on misinformation can disrupt services of the majority of people with a need," added Lampe.

"False information, especially on social media platforms, spreads incredibly fast. It's crucial to distinguish between misinformation and disinformation," said Rob Lalka, professor at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business and author of The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power.

"Misinformation refers to false, incomplete, or inaccurate information shared without harmful intent, while disinformation is deliberately false information designed to deceive," Lalka continued...

"New technologies are making it increasingly hard to tell what's real and what's fake," said Lalka. "We now live in an era where Artificial Intelligence can generate lifelike images and audio, and these powerful tools should prompt us all to pause and consider whether a source is truly trustworthy.""

Louisiana librarian, anti-book banning author to speak on censorship at Iowa City Book Festival; The Gazette, October 11, 2024

 Elijah Decious, The Gazette; Louisiana librarian, anti-book banning author to speak on censorship at Iowa City Book Festival

"The librarian, who has for decades worked in the same school she attended as a child, filed three police reports — each of which went nowhere.

So the 2020 Louisiana School Librarian of the Year and 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year decided to do something more — sue her harassers for defamation. Requesting damages of just $1, she wanted to set an example for the students who look to her to combat bullies, and for the librarians across the country facing similar challenges.

“I was raised to speak out, love thy neighbor,” she said. “I’m just doing what I was raised to do.”

“That Librarian,” her new book released in August, is part memoir and part manifesto on the front lines of America’s latest culture war. As she maps the book banning crises occurring across the country, she calls on book lovers to fight for intellectual freedom — a right fundamental to everyone’s freedom of speech.

As she studies book bans and court cases, she notices a few trends. Since book bans started in states like Texas, Florida and Louisiana, she said book censorship has spread to all 50 states in some way or another.

But now, in some of the states that were first to initiate the discussion, the pendulum is swinging back as others realize the mistruths they were fed — like the idea that librarians were putting pornography on children’s book shelves."

FEMA Chief: Hurricane Misinformation Is ‘Worst That I Have Ever Seen’; The New York Times, October 8, 2024

Stuart A. Thompson , The New York Times; FEMA Chief: Hurricane Misinformation Is ‘Worst That I Have Ever Seen’

"Disaster relief officials have issued several warnings this week that falsehoods and rumors spreading online about the government’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton have harmed relief efforts.

Former President Donald J. Trump and other prominent conservatives have spread several false claims about the federal response to Helene in recent days. Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on Tuesday that the claims had made the agency a target of partisan rebuke and put lives at risk.

“It’s absolutely the worst that I have ever seen,” Ms. Criswell said during a phone call with reporters on Tuesday morning.

Misinformation and rumors often circulate amid natural disasters, as information is scarce and tensions are high. But the scale and speed of falsehoods that have circulated during Helene and Milton have surprised officials, including Ms. Criswell, who said on Tuesday that she had “anticipated some of this, but not to the extent that we’re seeing.”

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research group that studies online platforms, found that debunked claims about Hurricane Helene and FEMA’s response were circulating widely on X, the platform owned by Elon Musk that has increasingly become a haven for misinformation. The group found that just 33 posts containing claims debunked by government sources were seen more than 160 million times by Monday."

Helene recovery is more political online than on the ground; NPR, October 7, 2024

Jeff Brady, Liz Baker , NPR; Helene recovery is more political online than on the ground

"Elon Musk’s social media platform X has been an especially fertile place for politically charged rumors and conspiracies. Sometimes they have been fueled by the billionaire himself.

On Friday Musk fed into a common complaint online that governments are preventing private citizens from offering help to people in need. Musk wrotethat his “blood is boiling” after engineers from his company SpaceX tried to offer help via helicopter but “@FEMA wouldn’t let them land to deliver critical supplies.”

Actually the Federal Aviation Administration regulates airspace and the FAA said in a statement that following Helene the skies have been crowded and it's trying to maintain safety. A federal official confirmed to NPR that there have been more than 30 cases where two aircraft almost collided, as air traffic in the region increased 300% after the storm. There are no restrictions to aerial recovery operations.

Perhaps no area in North Carolina has been the subject of more blatant false online rumors than Chimney Rock — including the persistent untrue claim that FEMA abandoned the village so that the Biden administration can mine lithium there.

“Anything that you see, that you hear that sounds like that is not true,” says village mayor Peter O’Leary."

Gov. Lee says untruths are being spread about relief efforts; Johnson City Press, October 3, 2024

 Robert Hook, Johnson City Press; Gov. Lee says untruths are being spread about relief efforts

"Gov. Bill Lee said Thursday he is “inspired” by the work of volunteers and first responders in addressing flood relief needs in East Tennessee and “disheartened” to hear misinformation is being spread about that relief getting to flood victims.

He was referring to reports being posted on social media and elsewhere falsely claiming that food, water and other supplies for flood victims are being intercepted or diverted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and related agencies.

“It’s sad that would happen ... that people would push out that misinformation when aid is so badly needed,” Lee told Six Rivers Media by phone while touring recovery efforts in Greene and Cocke counties. “It’s ridiculous and disheartening. We don’t need this kind of distraction now.”"