A new report from CBS News and ’60 Minutes’ reveals social media platforms -including Google and YouTube- have removed more than 300 advertisements posted by President Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
“How to handle political ads on social media has become a growing concern as the 2020 U.S. presidential election approaches,” reports CBS News. “Facebook has taken most of the heat, after refusing to remove an ad for President Trump’s reelection featuring false information about his opponent Joe Biden.”
“While political ads on social media do not adhere to different rules than political ads on TV, they have come under specific scrutiny because of their unique ability to disseminate – broadly and rapidly — bad information, and the platforms’ inability to properly police them,” adds the report.
“Well, first of all there are lots of very successful conservative creators on YouTube… Our systems, our algorithms, they don’t have any concept of understanding what’s a Democrat, what’s a Republican. They don’t have any concept of political bias built into them in any way. And we do hear this criticism from all sides. We also have people who come from more liberal backgrounds who complain about discrimination. And so I think that no matter who you are, we are trying to enforce our policies in a consistent way for everybody,” said YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.
Read the full report here.
Source: CBS News
ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA: Employees Erupt with ‘Applause’ After Google Ditches Heritage Foundation Leader
Google abruptly caved to left-wing pressure on social media and other liberal activists this week; announcing their plans to ditch an advisory board that included the president of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
“Google’s decision to drop their AI advisory board entirely in response to left-wing critics within the company was met with applause from staff at an all-hands meeting Thursday,” reports the Daily Caller.
In case you ever wonder what Google and their employees think of you:
Applause At Google’s All-Hands Meeting As Company Drops Heritage Foundation President https://t.co/ixFh0RXfpc via @dailycaller— Christopher Bedford (@CBedfordDC) April 5, 2019
“Internal emails from within the company, first published by the Daily Caller, show staffers in revolt over the addition of Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation, to the advisory board,” adds the article.
“We didn’t get it right,” said the Head of Responsible Innovation at the technological giant.
Read the full report at the Daily Caller.
ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook Introducing ‘TRUSTWORTHINESS RATING’ for All Users
Social media giant Facebook is quietly introduced new technology that assigns its users a “trustworthiness score” between zero and one; ranking people who appear to be malicious actors as a method of cracking down on “fake news.”
According to the Washington Post, Facebook has been working on the software for more than a year in a prolonged campaign to remove individuals seeking to “game tech systems” for negative purposes.
“The previously unreported ratings system, which Facebook has developed over the last year, shows that the fight against the gaming of tech systems has evolved to include measuring the credibility of users to help identify malicious actors,” writes the Post.
The developers behind the project aren’t disclosing what factors will influence a user’s rating; adding the score will not be an “absolute indicator” and may fluctuate over time.
“The score is one measurement among thousands of new behavioral clues that Facebook now takes into account as it seeks to understand risk. Facebook is also monitoring which users have a propensity to flag content published by others as problematic, and which publishers are considered trustworthy by user,” adds the article.
Read the full story here.
