There should be little doubt that the video clip doctored to make Speaker Pelosi look drunk should be seen as a sign of new hazards to come in the digitally-enhanced war on reality. The video is not even very sophisticated compared to what is actually possible right now with technology like “deepfakes,” and we can expect to see far more ...
At a recent gathering of college alumni, a friend asked, “Is it me, or are you less active on Facebook these days?” He was right. I have all but bailed on the platform. As a practical matter, it was just becoming a big time-suck; and as we all know from experience, engaging via social media doesn’t only occupy the measurable ...
It may be hip these day to talk about platform responsibility, but just a couple years ago, there were no mainstream conversations about how the operations and policies of online service providers might be enabling misinformation, hate speech, propaganda, etc. And while mea culpas from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey make headlines, and Google tries to pitch the ...
In several posts on the subject of Facebook and fake news, I have opined that if we users are going to believe and disseminate bogus information, that’s mostly an us problem, one which Facebook likely cannot solve. In that spirit, there is an extent to which I agree with Mike Masnick’s Techdirt post on May 2 calling Facebook’s plans to ...
During Tuesday’s Joint Senate Committee hearing, as Mark Zuckerberg kept promising to take better control over content on Facebook, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked the CEO point blank if the site is a neutral platform or a publisher. Cruz acknowledged the company’s right to act as a publisher but also alluded to the fact that its liability protection under Section ...
