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New Report Finds ‘Algorithmic Audits’ Need More Clarity to Bring Accountability...
11/21/22
Authors recommend guidelines for designing and deploying audits of opaque AI systems to mitigate algorithmic harms to users and society. WASHINGTON...
Major changes are coming to the EU’s digital landscape. Will they take hold in...
07/18/22
The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are poised to remake the EU’s regulatory environment. Julia Tréhu explains...
The US Is Writing a New Digital Doctrine
07/13/22
Russia’s war in Ukraine has pushed the US into a new era in defense of both cybersecurity and the open internet. In its infancy, the commercial...
Key Changes Coming with the EU’s New Digital Regulation
07/06/22
On July 5, the European Union adopted the long-awaited Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts in an overwhelming vote. The formally adopted...
IN THE NEWS: Elon Musk takes on the world’s regulators, Twitter-style
04/28/22
Elon Musk’s pending purchase of Twitter has sent tremors through politics, activism and journalism circles as people try to understand what...
IN THE NEWS: EPISODE 52: THE DIGITAL MARKETS AND DIGITAL SERVICES ACTS: WHAT DO THEY...
04/18/22
In this “Transatlantic Takeaway” episode, hosts Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson and Rachel Tausendfreund dissect sweeping new EU digital laws and...
Obama’s Right, Elon’s Wrong: Democracy Needs to Defend Itself Against Disinformation
04/14/22
Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter in order to protect free speech and therefore democracy demonstrates a lack of understanding of the threat...
Daily Wire, Children’s Health Defense Capitalize on Vaccine-Hesitant Messaging...
02/24/22
During the second half of 2021, anti-vaccine promoters managed to evade platform policies, distorting the information system with outsize footprints,...
Assessing the NUDGE Act
02/14/22
Last week, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced the Nudging Users to Drive Good Experiences on Social Media...
Disinformation, Radicalization, and Algorithmic Amplification: What Steps Can Congress...
02/07/22
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series from leading experts with practical solutions to democratic backsliding, polarization,...
Immediate Bipartisan Fixes for Social Media
12/14/21
The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files , and other recent reporting such as by ProPublica and MIT Review’s Karen Hao, demonstrate...
Hearing on “Social Media Platforms and the Amplification of Domestic Extremism...
10/28/21
On Thursday, October 28, 2021, Karen Kornbluh testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs on "Social...
TTC in Context: Critical Technologies
10/20/21
On September 29, the European Union and the United States held the inaugural meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Pittsburgh....
TTC in Context: AI Regulation
10/20/21
On September 29, the European Union and the United States held the inaugural meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Pittsburgh....
Engagement with False Content Producers Plummeted on Twitter and Facebook
08/24/21
Sites that gather and present information irresponsibly (according to the news-rating service NewsGuard) accounted for a record-high one-fifth...
A "Full Stack" Approach to Public Media in the United States
07/26/21
Over the course of U.S. history, and especially in turbulent times, the federal government and civil society have sought to promote civic information....
Designing Against Dark Patterns
07/12/21
Summary Policy that seeks to regulate the Internet must reckon with its design. As recent regulatory efforts—including the European Union’s...
The Stakes of User Interface Design for Democracy
06/30/21
Summary The January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol demonstrated that rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories pose an existential...
Engagement with Deceptive Sites on Facebook and Twitter Dropped in the First Months...
05/25/21
Engagement with content from deceptive sites on Facebook and Twitter retreated from last year’s historic highs during the first three months...
Biden’s Battle Against Vaccine Hesitancy
04/30/21
In his Joint Address to Congress, President Biden averred that he was “marshalling every federal resource” to vaccinate the population and...
IN THE NEWS: Attacks on Fauci grow more intense, personal and conspiratorial
04/06/21
For over a year, Anthony Fauci has been a bogeyman for conservatives, who have questioned his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and accused him...
Broadband as Civic Infrastructure: Community Empowerment, Equity, and a Digital New...
03/23/21
The coronavirus pandemic has shined a spotlight on equity issues in communications policy. As policymakers turn their attention to digital equity,...
Effectiveness of Online Political Ad Disclosure Labels: Empirical Findings
03/08/21
Read the Full Study on the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy and Law Website
The Technology 202: How social media helped fuel false claims about Texas power outages
02/23/21
Conservatives' false claims that frozen wind turbines caused mass power outages in Texas started with a photo taken out of context on Twitter....
How the Disinformation Supply Chain Created a Deceptive Narrative about the Texas...
02/19/21
Severe weather hobbled the electrical grid in Texas last week, but it did not hobble the United States’ disinformation supply chain. In just...
Transparency and Accountability Mechanisms for Facial Recognition
02/03/21
This brief is one of two presenting strategies for addressing challenges associated with facial recognition. These briefs provide policymakers...
Facial Recognition in the Public Sector: The Policy Landscape
02/03/21
This brief is one of two presenting strategies for addressing challenges associated with facial recognition. These briefs provide policymakers...
Opinion: Facebook and Twitter can do something about deceptive news. So why don’t...
02/01/21
IF IT looks like a news site, publishes like a news site and posts like a news site, is it a news site? Don’t count on it. A study from the...
Scoop: Verified tweeters smashed records sharing deceptive content
01/28/21
Verified accounts on Twitter shared more content from deceptive websites than ever in 2020, according to new research from the German Marshall...
Social Media Engagement with Deceptive Sites Reached Record Highs in 2020
01/27/21
On January 6, a mob stormed the Capitol over false claims of voter fraud. Those false claims spread widely on social media: Facebook and Twitter...
Building Back Better with Distributed Computing
01/19/21
The United States can create jobs, better compete against China, and at the same time address major social challenges if it leverages the emerging...
Opinion: Three steps to help treat America’s debilitating information disorder
01/13/21
This op-ed originally appeared in The Washington Post on January 13, 2021. The alarm many of us have sounded — that what happens online is...
Splinternet or Democratic Data Alliance
01/08/21
This year will be a pivot point when it comes to state sovereignty over data and the internet. The trend toward “digital sovereignty” began...
The Technology 202: Facebook removes some pages appearing to coordinate to push health...
12/09/20
Facebook just took down prominent pages that were directing their millions of followers to false claims about the coronavirus , the flu vaccine,...
Health Sites Built Coordinated Networks of Facebook Pages to Spread False Content,...
12/09/20
A number of health websites with a history of publishing false content about vaccines and other topics have built coordinated networks on Facebook...
Platform Regulation Should Focus on Transparency, Not Content
12/02/20
Despite efforts by digital platforms to curb the tsunami of disinformation surrounding U.S. elections, cyberspace remains awash in conspiracy...
The Biden Administration Should Pursue a Digital Trade Agreement
11/23/20
Over the past four years, President Donald Trump has put international trade policy on the front page with regularity—at least when his own...
How Well Did Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube Handle Election Misinformation?
11/10/20
In the early hours of the Wednesday after Election Day, as President Donald Trump inaccurately claimed victory in several states and leveled...
Facebook Takes Action as Reopen Groups Morph Again to Share Voter Fraud Conspiracies
11/06/20
As the election results continue to be counted, allegations of voter fraud and conspiracies maintaining that the election was stolen are circulating...
Is it time for a new agency to oversee Big Tech? Many say yes
10/23/20
The Justice Department's decision to sue Google this week elicited mixed reactions, but there's one point on which everyone agreed: The antitrust...
Fighting COVID misinformation
10/23/20
In July, a video entitled ‘America’s frontline doctors’ was a runaway train racing across the major digital platforms. The video – hosted...
New Study by Digital New Deal Finds Engagement with Deceptive Outlets Higher on Facebook...
10/12/20
Four years ago, the country was learning about disinformation and the impact it can have on U.S. (and world) elections. Since then, social media...
On Facebook, Misinformation Is More Popular Now Than in 2016
10/12/20
During the 2016 presidential election, Russian operatives used Facebook , Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms to spread disinformation...
Bulldozing the Public Square
10/01/20
Read the Article at Democracy Journal (External Site) The Breitbart-hosted conspiracy theory video, “America’s Frontline Doctors,” was...
The Internet’s Lost Promise And How America Can Restore It
09/30/20
In the United States, Russia sought to help one presidential candidate over another in the 2016 election—not only through hacking and the release...
On TikTok, the Trump Administration Is Adopting China’s Own Vision for the Internet
09/22/20
Over the past seven weeks, the Trump administration has ordered the sale of TikTok to a U.S. buyer, declared that the U.S. government would take...
Disinformation about Oregon Wildfires Still Circulating in Private Facebook Groups...
09/16/20
Last week, a debunked conspiracy theory linking the Oregon wildfires to Antifa groups began circulating online. The conspiracy was disseminated...
Exclusive: False fire rumors keep spreading on Facebook despite ban
09/16/20
Conspiracy theories about the origin of fires in Oregon are still spreading through private Facebook groups days after the social media giant...
Social Media Platforms Need to Flatten the Curve of Dangerous Misinformation
08/21/20
On Thursday, Casey Newton reported that Facebook is piloting a circuit breaker to stop viral spread of posts in some circumstances. Such a tool,...
Targeting Greta Thunberg: A Case Study in Online Mis/Disinformation
07/22/20
The German Marshall Fund’s Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative worked with MediaCloud to examine misinformation and disinformation...
China Tries to Push U.S. Tech Companies Around in Hong Kong. Here's How to Push Back.
07/17/20
At the same time that China becomes more assertive in clamping down on internet freedom, the U.S. is shooting itself in the foot. China expanded...
Facial Recognition Is Here But We Have No Laws
07/08/20
At protests against police violence across the country, law enforcement authorities have deployed the tanks, tear gas and military equipment...
On Facial Recognition, the U.S. Isn’t China—Yet
06/18/20
As protests grow, the police leverage their technological advantage. Widespread surveillance cameras capture the crowds, and facial recognition...
A Public Option to Fund Public Interest Journalism
05/04/20
Today, democracy is challenged by the structures of the digital media landscape, as public interest media, especially local journalism, has shrunk...
The Rise of the Parapolitical Sites as the Leading False-Content Producers
05/01/20
Misinformation and disinformation are polluting the digital information ecosystem. As the World Health Organization declares an “infodemic,”...
Islamophobia and Gab: From Fringe Platforms to Mainstream Social Media
04/22/20
Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, an enormous amount of attention has been focused on the need to investigate “coordinated inauthentic...
Five Steps to Combat the Infodemic
03/26/20
GMF’s Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative released on March 24 a Policy Roadmap to safeguard the information ecosystem. Access to reliable...
Roadmap for Safeguarding Digital Democracy
03/24/20
Executive Summary Even before a global pandemic hit, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the Doomsday Clock had advanced for the...
The End of Techno-Utopianism
09/13/19
Editor's Note: This piece is part of a full report, " Reassessing 1989 ," which looks at the major events of that year, including the fall of...
It’s Time to Crack Down on White Supremacist Havens like 8chan
08/16/19
Since March of this year, at least three mass shootings were announced on the website 8chan with screeds seemingly designed to spread dangerous...
Tech Companies Must Fight White Supremacy, Regardless of Political Dangers
08/07/19
Responding to the recent bloodshed in El Paso and elsewhere, President Trump laid heavy blame on the internet and then invited social media companies...
To Defeat White Supremacy, We Need an International Effort
07/18/19
At the June 2019 G20 summit, Vladamir Putin proclaimed liberal democracy is “obsolete,” and has “outlived its purpose.” Putin was echoing...
To Fight Online Disinformation, Reinvigorate Media Policy
06/13/19
The doctored video falsely depicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as ill or drunk spreading on social media is a wake-up call that even as the...
