Category: Social issues involving home computing

Articles

Spotify dabbling in podcasts and strengthening its ties with podcasters is placing it at risk of carrying anti-vaxx and similar disinformation

Joni Mitchell joins Neil Young’s Spotify protest over anti-vax content | Joni Mitchell | The Guardian

Nils Lofgren Pulls Music From Spotify – Billboard

My Comments

Spotify has over the last two years jumping on the podcast-hosting wagon even though they were originally providing music on demand.

But just lately they were hosting the podcast output of Joe Rogan who is known for disinformation about COVID vaccines. They even strengthened their business relationship with Joe Rogan using the various content monetisation options they offer and giving it platform-exclusive treatment.

There has been social disdain about Spotify’s business relationship with Joe Rogan due to social responsibility issues relating to disinformation about essential issues such as vaccination. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell had pulled their music from this online music service and an increasing number of their fans are discontinuing business with Spotify. Now Nils Lofgren, the guitarist from the E Street Band associated with Bruce Springsteen is intending to pull music he has “clout” over from Spotify and encourages more musicians to do so.

Tim Burrowes, who founded Mumbrella, even said in his Unmade blog about the possibility of Spotify being subject to what happened with Sky News and Radio 2GB during the Alan Jones days. That was where one or more collective actions took place to drive advertisers to remove their business from these stations. This could be more so where companies have to be aware of brand safety and social responsibility when they advertise their wares.

In some cases, Apple, Google and Amazon could gain traction with their music-on-demand services. But on the other hand, Deezer, Qobuz and Tidal could gain an increased subscriber base especially where there is a desire to focus towards European business or to deal with music-focused media-on-demand services rather than someone who is running video or podcast services in addition.

There are questions about whether a music-streaming service like Spotify should be dabbling in podcasts and spoken-word content. That includes any form of “personalised-radio” services where music, advertising and spoken-word content presented in a manner akin to a local radio station’s output.

Then the other question that will come about is the expectation for online-audio-playback devices like network speakers, hi-fi network streamers and Internet radios. This would extend to other online-media devices like smart TVs or set-top boxes. Here, it is about allowing different audio-streaming services to be associated with these devices and assuring a simplified consistent user experience out of these services for the duration of the device’s lifespan.

That includes operation-by-reference setups like Spotify Connect where you can manage the music from the online music service via your mobile device, regular computer or similar device. But the music plays through your preferred set of speakers or audio device and isn’t interrupted if you make or take a call, receive a message or play games on your mobile device.

What has come about is the content hosted on an online-media platform or the content creators that the platform gives special treatment to may end up affecting that platform’s reputation. This is especially where the content creator is involved in fake news or disinformation.

Article

Astroturfing more difficult to track down with social media – academic | RNZ News

My Comments

An issue that is raised in the context of fake news and disinformation is a campaign tactic known as “astroturfing”. This is something that our online life has facilitated thanks to easy-to-produce Websites on affordable Web-hosting deals along with the Social Web.

I am writing about this on HomeNetworking01.info due to astroturfing as another form of disinformation that we are needing to be careful of in this online era.

What is astroturfing?

Astroturfing is organised propaganda activity intended to create a belief of popular grassroots support for a viewpoint in relationship to a cause or policy. This activity is organised by one or more large organisations with it typically appearing as the output of concerned individuals or smaller community organisations such as a peak body for small businesses of a kind.

But there is no transparency about who is actually behind the message or the benign-sounding organisations advancing that message. Nor is there any transparency about the money flow associated with the campaign.

The Merrian-Webster Dictionary which is the dictionary of respect for the American dialect of the English language defines it as:

organized activity that is intended to create a false impression of a widespread, spontaneously arising, grassroots movement in support of or in opposition to something (such as a political policy) but that is in reality initiated and controlled by a concealed group or organization (such as a corporation).

The etymology for this word comes about as a play on words in relation to the “grassroots” expression. It alludes to the Astroturf synthetic turf implemented initially in the Astrodome stadium in Houston in the USA., with the “Astroturf” trademark becoming a generic trademark for synthetic sportsground turf sold in North America.

This was mainly practised by Big Tobacco to oppose significant taxation and regulation measures against tobacco smoking, but continues to be practised by entities whose interests are against the public good.

How does astroturfing manifest?

It typically manifests as one or more benign-sounding community organisations that appear to demonstrate popular support for or against a particular policy. It typically affects policies for the social or environmental good where there is significant corporate or other “big-money” opposition to these policies.

The Internet era has made this more feasible thanks to the ability to create and host Websites for cheap. As online forums and social media came on board, it became feasible to set up multiple personas and organisational identities on forums and social-media platforms to make it appear as though many people or organisations are demonstrating popular support for the argument. It is also feasible to interlink Websites and online forums or Social-Web presences by posting a link from a Website or blog in a forum or Social-Web post or having articles on a Social Web account appear on one’s Website.

The multiple online personas created by one entity for this purpose of demonstrating the appearance of popular support are described as “sockpuppet” accounts. This is in reference to children’s puppet shows where two or three puppet actors use glove puppets made out of odd socks and can manipulate twice the number of characters as each actor. This can happen synchronously with a particular event that is in play, be it the effective date of an industry reform or set of restrictions; a court case or inquiry taking place; or a legislature working on an important law.

An example of this that occurred during the long COVID-19 lockdown that affected Victoria last year where the “DanLiedPeopleDied” and “DictatorDan” hashtags were manipulated on Twitter to create a sentiment of popular distrust against Dan Andrews.  Here it was identified that a significant number of the Twitter accounts that drove these hashtags surfaced or changed their behaviour synchronously to the lockdown’s effective period.

But astroturfing can manifest in to offline / in-real-life activities like rallies and demonstrations; appearances on talkback radio; letters to newspaper editors, pamphlet drops and traditional advertising techniques.

Let’s not forget that old-fashioned word-of-mouth advertising for an astroturfing campaign can take place here like over the neighbour’s fence, at the supermarket checkout or around the office’s water cooler.

Sometimes the online activity is used to rally for support for one or more offline activities or to increase the amount of word-of-mouth conversation on the topic. Or the pamphlets and outdoor advertising will carry references to the campaign’s online resources so people can find out more “from the horse’s mouth”. This kind of material used for offline promotion can be easily and cheaply produced using “download-to-print” resources, print and copy shops that use cost-effective digital press technology, firms who screen-print T-shirts on demand from digital originals amongst other online-facilitated technologies.

An example of this highlighted by Spectrum News 1 San Antonio in the USA was the protest activity against COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in that country. This was alluding to Donald Trump and others steering public opinion away from a COVID-safe USA.

This method of deceit capitalises on popular trust in the platform and the apparently-benign group behind the message or appearance of popular support for that group or its message. As well, astroturfing is used to weaken any true grassroots support for or against the opinion.

How does astroturfing affect media coverage of an issue?

The easily-plausible arguments tendered by a benign-sounding organisation can encourage journalists to “go with the flow” regarding the organisation’s ideas. It can include treating the organisation’s arguments at face value for a supporting or opposing view on the topic at hand especially where they want to create a balanced piece of material.

This risk is significantly increased in media environments where there isn’t a culture of critical thinking with obvious examples being partisan or tabloid media. Examples of this could be breakfast/morning TV talk shows on private free-to-air TV networks or talkback radio on private radio stations.

But there is a greater risk of this occurring while there is increasingly-reduced investment in public-service and private news media. Here, the fear of newsrooms being reduced or shut down or journalists not being paid much for their output can reduce the standard of journalism and the ability to perform proper due diligence on news sources.

There is also the risk of an astroturfing campaign affecting academic reportage of the issue. This is more so where the student doesn’t have good critical-thinking and research skills and can be easily swayed by spin. It is more so with secondary education or some tertiary education situations like vocational courses or people at an early stage in the undergraduate studies.

How does astroturfing affect healthy democracies

All pillars of government can and do fall victim to astroturfing. This can happen at all levels of government ranging from local councils through state or regional governments to the national governments.

During an election, an astroturfing campaign can be used to steer opinion for or against a political party or candidate who is standing for election. In the case of a referendum, it can steer popular opinion towards or against the questions that are the subject of the referendum. This is done in a manner to convey the veneer of popular grassroots support for or against the candidate, party or issue.

The legislature is often a hotbed of political lobbying by interest groups and astroturfing can be used to create a veneer of popular support for or against legislation or regulation of concern to the interest group. As well, astroturfing can be used a a tool to place pressure on legislature members to advance or stall a proposed law and, in some cases, force a government out of power where there is a stalemate over that law.

The public-service agencies of the executive government who have the power to permit or veto activity are also victims of astroturfing. This comes in the form of whether a project can go ahead or not; or whether a product is licensed for sale within the jurisdiction. It can also affect the popular trust in any measures that officials in the executive government execute.

As well, the judiciary can be tasked with handling legal actions launched by pressure groups who use astroturfing to  create a sense of popular support to revise legislation or regulation. It also includes how jurors are influenced in any jury trial or which judges are empanelled in a court of law, especially a powerful appellate court or the jurisdiction’s court of last resort.

Politicians, significant officials and key members of the judiciary can fall victim to character assassination campaigns that are part of one or more astroturfing campaigns. This can affect continual popular trust in these individuals and can even affect the ability for them to live or conduct their public business in safety.

Here, politicians and other significant government officials are increasingly becoming accessible to the populace. It is being facilitated by themselves maintaining Social-Web presence using a public-facing persona on the popular social-media platforms, with the same account-name or “handle” being used on the multiple platforms. In the same context, the various offices and departments maintain their social-Web presence on the popular platforms using office-wide accounts. This is in addition to other online presences like the ministerial Web pages or public-facing email addresses they or the government maintain.

These officials can be approached by interest groups who post to the official’s Social-Web presence. Or a reference can be created to the various officials and government entities through the use of hashtags or mentions of platform-native account names operated by these entities when someone creates a Social Web post about the official or issue at hand. In a lot of cases, there is reference to sympathetic journalists and media organisations in order to create media interest.

As well, one post with the right message and the right mix of hashtags and referenced account names can be viewed by the targeted decision makers and the populace at the same time. Then people who are sympathetic to that post’s message end up reposting that message, giving it more “heat”.

Here, the Social Web is seen as providing unregulated access to these powerful decision-makers. That is although the decision-makers work with personal assistants or similar staff to vet content that they see. As well, there isn’t any transparency about who is posting the content that references these officials i.e. you don’t know whether it is a local constituent or someone pressured by an interest group.

What can be done about it

The huge question here is what can be done about astroturfing as a means of disinformation.

A significant number of jurisdictions implement attribution requirements for any advertising or similar material as part of their fair-trading, election-oversight, broadcasting, unsolicited-advertising or similar laws. Similarly a significant number of jurisdictions implement lobbyist regulation in relationship to who has access to the jurisdiction’s politicians. As outlined in the RNZ article that I referred to, New Zealand is examining astroturfing in the context of whether they should regulate access to their politicians.

But most of these laws regulate what goes on within the offline space within the jurisdiction that they pertain to. It could become feasible for foreign actors to engage in astroturfing and similar campaigns from other territories across the globe using online means without any action being taken.

The issue of regulating lobbyist access to the jurisdiction’s politicians or significant officials can raise questions. Here it could be about whether the jurisdiction’s citizens have a continual right of access to their elected government or not. As well, there is the issue of assuring governmental transparency and a healthy dialogue with the citizens.

The 2016 fake-news crisis which highlighted the distortion of the 2016 US Presidential Election and UK Brexit referendum became a wake-up call regarding how the online space can be managed to work against disinformation.

Here, Silicon Valley took on the task of managing online search engines, social-media platforms and online advertising networks to regulate foreign influence and assure accountability when it comes to political messaging in the online space. This included identity verification of advertiser accounts or keeping detailed historical records of ads from political advertisers on ad networks or social media or clamping down on coordinated inauthentic behaviour on social media platforms.

In addition to this, an increasingly-large army of “fact-checkers” organised by credible newsrooms, universities and similar organisations appeared. These groups researched and verified claims which were being published through the media or on online platforms and would state whether they are true or false based on their research.

What we can do is research further and trust our instincts when it comes to questionable claims that come from apparently-benign organisations. Here we can do our due diligence and check for things like how long an online account has been in operation for, especially if it is synchronous to particular political, regulatory or similar events occurring or being on the horizon.

Here you have to look out for behaviours in the online or offline content like:

• Inflammatory or manipulative language that plays on your emotions
• Claims to debunk topic-related myths that aren’t really myths
• Questioning or pillorying those exposing the wrongdoings core to the argument rather the actual wrongdoings
• A chorus of the same material from many accounts

Conclusion

We need to be aware of astroturfing as another form of disinformation that is prevalent in the online age. Here it can take in people who are naive and accept information at face value without doing further research on what is being pushed.

Article

How The #DanLiedPeopleDied Hashtag Reveals Australia’s ‘Information Disorder’ Problem | Gizmodo

My Comments

I read in Gizmodo how an incendiary hashtag directed against Daniel Andrews, the State Premier of Victoria in Australia, was pushed around the Twittersphere and am raising this as an article. It is part of keeping HomeNetworking01.info readers aware about disinformation tactics as we increasingly rely on the Social Web for our news.

What is a hashtag

A hashtag is a single keyword preceded by a hash ( # ) symbol that is used to identify posts within the Social Web that feature a concept. It was initially introduced in Twitter as a way of indexing posts created on that platform and make them easy to search by concept. But an increasing number of other social-Web platforms have enabled the use of hashtags for the same purpose. They are typically used to embody a slogan or idea in an easy-to-remember way across the social Web.

Most social-media platforms turn these hashtags in to a hyperlink that shows a filtered view of all posts featuring that hashtag. They even use statistical calculations to identify the most popular hashtags on that platform or the ones whose visibility is increasing and present this in meaningful ways like ranked lists or keyword clouds.

How this came about

Earlier on in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, an earlier hashtag called #ChinaLiedPeopleDied was working the Social Web. This was underscoring a concept with a very little modicum of truth that the Chinese government didn’t come clear about the genesis of the COVID-19 plague with its worldwide death toll and their role in informing the world about it.

That hashtag was used to fuel Sinophobia hatred against the Chinese community and was one of the first symptoms of questionable information floating around the Social Web regarding COVID-19 issues.

Australia passed through the early months of the COVID-19 plague and one of their border-control measures for this disease was to have incoming travellers required to stay in particular hotels for a fortnight before they can roam around Australia as a quarantine measure. The Australian federal government put this program in the hands of the state governments but offered resources like the use of the military to these governments as part of its implementation.

The second wave of the COVID-19 virus was happening within Victoria and a significant number of the cases was to do with some of the hotels associated with the hotel quarantine program. This caused a very significant death toll and had the state government run it to a raft of very stringent lockdown measures.

A new hashtag called #DanLiedPeopleDied came about because it was deemed that the Premier, Daniel Andrews, as the head of the state’s executive government wasn’t perceived to have come clear about any and all bungles associated with its management of the hotel quarantine program.

On 14 July 2020, this hashtag first appeared in a Twitter account that initially touched on Egyptian politics and delivered its posts in the Arabic language. But it suddenly switched countries, languages and political topics, which is one of the symptoms of a Social Web account existing just to peddle disinformation and propaganda.

The hashtag had laid low until 12 August when a run of Twitter posts featuring it were delivered by hyper-partisan Twitter accounts. This effort, also underscored by newly-created or suspicious accounts that existed to bolster the messaging, was to make it register on Twitter’s systems as a “trending” hashtag.

Subsequently a far-right social-media influencer with a following of 116,000 Twitter accounts ran a post to keep the hashtag going. There was a lot of very low-quality traffic featuring that hashtag or its messaging. It also included a lot of low-effort memes being published to drive the hashtag.

The above-mentioned Gizmodo article has graphs to show how the hashtag appeared over time which is worth having a look at.

What were the main drivers

But a lot of the traffic highlighted in the article was driven by the use of new or inauthentic accounts which aren’t necessarily “bots” – machine operated accounts that provide programmatic responses or posts. Rather this is the handiwork of trolls or sockpuppets (multiple online personas that are perceived to be different but say the same thing).

As well, there was a significant amount of “gaming the algorithm” activity going on in order to raise the profile of that hashtag. This is due to most social-media services implementing algorithms to expose trending activity and populate the user’s main view.

Why this is happening

Like with other fake-news, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, the #DanLiedPeopleDied hashtag is an effort to sow seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt while bringing about discord with information that has very little in the way of truth. As well the main goal is to cause a popular distrust in leadership figures and entities as well as their advice and efforts.

In this case, the campaign was targeted at us Victorians who were facing social and economic instability associated with the recent stay-at-home orders thanks to COVID-19’s intense reappearance, in order to have us distrust Premier Dan Andrews and the State Government even more. As such, it is an effort to run these kind of campaigns to people who are in a state of vulnerability, when they are less likely to use defences like critical thought to protect themselves against questionable information.

As I know, Australia is rated as one of the most sustainable countries in the world by the Fragile States Index, in the same league as the Nordic countries, Switzerland, Canada and New Zealand. It means that the country is known to be socially, politically and economically stable. But we can find that a targeted information-weaponisation campaign can be used to destabilise a country even further and we need to be sensitive to such tactics.

One of the key factors behind the problem of information weaponisation is the weakening of traditional media’s role in the dissemination of hard news. This includes younger people preferring to go to online resources, especially the Social Web, portals or news aggregator Websites for their daily news intake. It also includes many established newsrooms receiving reduced funding thanks to reduced advertising, subscription or government income, reducing their ability to pay staff to turn out good-quality news.

When we make use of social media, we need to develop a healthy suspicion regarding what is appearing. Beware of accounts that suddenly appear or develop chameleon behaviours especially when key political events occur around the world. Also be careful about accounts that “spam” their output with a controversial hashtag or adopt a “stuck record” mentality over a topic.

Conclusion

Any time where a jurisdiction is in a state of turmoil is where the Web, especially the Social Web, can be a tool of information warfare. When you use it, you need to be on your guard about what you share or which posts you interact with.

Here, do research on hashtags that are suddenly trending around a social-media platform and play on your emotions and be especially careful of new or inauthentic accounts that run these hashtags.

WhatsApp to allow you to search the Web for text related to viral messages posted on that instant messaging app

Article

WhatsApp Pilots ‘Search the Web’ Tool for Fact-Checking Forwarded Messages | Gizmodo Australia

From the horse’s mouth

WhatsApp

Search The Web (blog post)

My Comments

WhatsApp is taking action to highlight the fact that fake news and disinformation don’t just get passed through the Social Web. Here, they are highlighting the use of instant messaging and, to some extent, email as a vector for this kind of traffic which has been as old as the World Wide Web.

They have improved on their previous efforts regarding this kind of traffic initially by using a “double-arrow” icon on the left of messages that have been forwarded five or more times.

But now they are trialling an option to allow users to Google the contents of a forwarded message to check their veracity. One of the ways to check a news item’s veracity is whether one or more news publishers or broadcasters that you trust are covering this story and what kind of light they are shining on it.

Here, the function manifests as a magnifying-glass icon that conditionally appears near forwarded messages. If you click or tap on this icon, you start a browser session that shows the results of a pre-constructed Google-search Weblink created by WhatsApp. It avoids the need to copy then paste the contents of a forwarded message from WhatsApp to your favourite browser running your favourite search engine or to the Google app’s search box. This is something that can be very difficult with mobile devices.

But does this function break end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp implements for the conversations? No, because it works on the cleartext that you see on your screen and is simply creating the specially-crafted Google-search Weblink that is passed to whatever software handles Weblinks by default.

An initial pilot run is being made available in Italy, Brazil, Ireland (Eire), UK, Mexico, Spain and the USA. It will be part of the iOS and Android native clients and the messaging service’s Web client.

WhatsApp could evolve this function further by allowing the user to use different search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo. But they would have to know of any platform-specific syntax requirements for each of these platforms and it may be a feature that would have to be rolled out in a piecemeal fashion.

They could offer the “search the Web” function as something that can be done for any message, rather than only for forwarded messages. I see it as being relevant for people who use the group-chatting functionality that WhatsApp offers because people can use a group chat as a place to post that rant that has a link to a Web resource of question. Or you may have a relative or friend who simply posts questionable information as part of their conversation with you.

At least WhatsApp are adding features to their chat platform’s client software to make it easer to put the brakes on disinformation spreading through it. This could he something that could be investigated by other instant-messaging platforms including SMS/MMS text clients.

Video Series

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Behind The News – Media Literacy Series

How To Spot Fake News (Click or tap to play in YouTube)

Which News Sources Can Be Trusted (Click or tap to play in YouTube)

What Makes News, News (Click or tap to play on YouTube)

How To Spot Bias In The Media (Click or tap to play on YouTube)

Dishonesty, Accuracy And Ethics In The Media (Click or tap to play on YouTube)

My Comments

Regularly, I cover on HomeNetworking01.info the issue of fake news and disinformation. This is because of our consumption of news and information being part of our online lives thanks to the ubiquity and affordability of the Intermet.

I have highlighted the use of online sources like social media, Web portals, search engines or news aggregators as our regular news sources along with the fact that it is very easy to spread rumour and disinformation around the world thanks to the ease of publishing the Web provides. As well, it is easy for our contacts to spread links to Web resources or iterate messages in these resources via the Social Web, emails or instant-messaging platforms.

This issue has become of concern since 2016 when fake news and disinformation circulating around the Web was used to distort the outcome of the UK’s Brexit referendum and the US election that brought Donald Trump in to the presidency of that country.

Since then, I have covered efforts by the tech industry and others to make us aware of fake news, disinformation and propaganda such as through the use of fact-checkers or online services implementing robust data-security and account-management policies and procedures. It also includes articles that encourage the use of good-quality traditional media sources during critical times like national elections or the coronavirus and I even see the issue of being armed against fake news and disinformation as part of data security.

The ABC have run a video series as part of their “Behind The News” schools-focused TV show about the media which underscores the value of media literacy and discerning the calibre of news that is being presented. On Tuesday 6 July 2020, I watched “The Drum” and one of the people behind this series described it as being highly relevant viewing for everyone no matter how old we are thanks to the issue of fake news and disinformation being spread around the Web.

It is part of their continued media-literacy efforts like their “Media Watch” TV series run on Monday nights which highlights and keeps us aware of media trends and issues.

In that same show, they even recommended that if we do post something that critiques a piece of fake news or disinformation, we were to reference the material with a screenshot rather than sharing a link to the content. This is because interactions, link shares and the like are often used as a way to “game” social-network and search-engine algorithms, making it easier to discover the questionable material.

The first video looked at how and why fake news has been spread over the ages such as to drive newspaper sales or listenership and viewership of broadcasts. It also touched on how such news is spread including taking advantage of “thought and social bubbles” that we establish. As well, one of the key issues that was highlighted was fact that fake news tends to be out of touch with reality and to encourage us to research further about the article and who is behind it before taking it as gospel and sharing it further.

This second video of the series that touches on the quality of news and information sources that can be used to drive a news story. It examines the difference between the primary sources that provide first-had information “from the horse’s mouth” and secondary sources that evaluate or interpret the information.

It also touches on whether the news source is relying primarily on secondary sources or hearsay vs expert or authoritative testimony. They raise the legitimacy of contrasting opinion like academic debate or where there isn’t enough real knowledge on the topic. But we were warned about news sources that are opinion-dominant rather than fact-dominant. Even issues like false equivalence, bias or use of anonymous sources were identified along with the reason behind the source presenting the information to the journalist or newsroom.

This video even summed up how we assess news sources by emphasising the CRAP rule – Currency (how recent the news is), Reliability (primary vs secondary source as well as reliability of the source), Authority (is the source authoritative on the topic) and Purpose (why was the news shared such as biases or fact vs opinion).

The third video in the series talks about what makes information newsworthy. This depends on who is reporting it and the consumers who will benefit from the information. It also covered news value like timeliness, frequency of occurrence, cultural proximity, the existence of people in the public spotlight along with factors like conflict or the tone of the story. It completely underscored why and how you are told of information that could shape your view of the world.

The fourth video looks at bias within the media and why it is there. The reasons that were called out include to influence the way we think or vote or what goods or services we buy. It also includes keeping the media platform’s sponsors or commercial partners in a positive light, a media platform building an increasingly-large army of loyal consumers, or simply to pander to their audience’s extant biases.

It also looked at personal biases that affect what we consume and how we consume it, including the “I-am-right” confirmation bias, also known as the “rose-tinted glasses” concept. Even looking at how people or ideas are represented on a media platform, what kind of stories appear in that platform’s output including what gets top place; along with how the stories are told with both pictures and words can highlight potential biases. There was also the fact that a personal bias can be influenced to determine what we think of a media outlet.

The last of the videos looks at honesty, accuracy and ethics within the realm of media. It underscores key values like honest, accurate, fair, independent and respectful reporting along with various checks and balances that the media is subject to. Examples of these include the protections that the law of the land offers like the tort of defamation, contempt of court and similar crimes that protect the proper role of the courts of justice, hatred-of-minority-group offences and right-to-privacy offences. There is also the oversight offered by entities like broadcast-standards authorities and press councils who have effective clout.

The legal references that were highlighted were primarily based on what happens within Australia while British viewers may see something very similar there due to implied freedom of speech along with similarly-rigourous defamation laws. The USA may take slightly different approaches especially where they rely on the First Amendment of their Constitution that grants an express freedom of speech.

But it sums up the role of media as a check on the powerful and its power to shine a light on what needs to be focused on. The series also looks at how we can’t take the media for granted and need to be aware of the way the news appears on whatever media platform we use. This is although there is primary focus on traditional media but in some ways it can also be a way to encourage us to critically assess online media resources.

The video series underscores what the news media is about and covers this issue in a platform-agnostic manner so we don’t consider a particular media platform or type as a purveyor of fake or questionable news. As well, the series presents the concepts in a simple-to-understand manner but with the use of dramatisation in order to grab and keep our attention.

Here, I often wonder whether other public-service or community broadcasters are running a similar media-literacy video program that can be pitched at all age levels in order to encourage the communities they reach to be astute about the media they come across.

Articles

Google to add fact checking to images in its search user interfaces

Google adds a fact check feature for images | CNet

From the horse’s mouth

Google

Bringing fact check information to Google Images (Blog Post)

My Comments

Increasingly, images and video are being seen as integral to news coverage with most of us seeing them, especially photographs, of importance when corroborating a fact or news story.

But these are becoming weaponised to tell a different truth compared to what is actually captured by the camera. One way is to use the same or a similar image to corroborate a different fact, with this including the use of image-editing tools to doctor the image so it tells a different story.

I have covered this previously when talking about the use of reverse-image-search tools like Tineye or Google Image Search to verify the authenticity of an image and . It will be the same kind of feature that Google has enabled in its search interface when you “google” for something, or in its news-aggregation platforms.

Google is taking this further for people who search for images using their search tools. Here, they are adding images to their fact-check processes so it is easy to see whether an image has been used to corroborate questionable information. You will see a “fact-check” indicator near the image thumbnail and when you click or tap on the image for a larger view or more details, you will see some details about whether the image is true or not.

A similar feature appears on the YouTube platform for exhibiting details about the veracity of video content posted there. But this feature currently is available to users based in Brazil, India and the USA and I am not sure whether it will be available across all YouTube user interfaces, especially native clients for mobile and set-top platforms.

It is in addition to Alphabet, their parent company, offering a free tool to check whether an image has been doctored. This is because meddling with an image to constitute something else using something like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP is being seen as a way to convey a message that isn’t true. The tool, called Assembler, uses artificial intelligence and algorithms that detect particular forms of image manipulation to indicate the veracity of an image.

But I would also see the rise of tools that analyse audio and video material to identify deepfake activity, or video sites, podcast directories and the like using a range of tools to identify the authenticity of content made available through them. This may include “fact-check” labels with facts being verified by multiple newsrooms and universities; or the content checked for out-of-the-ordinary editing techniques. It can also include these sites and directories implementing a feedback loop so that users can have questionable content verified.

The coronavirus plague is having us at home, inside and online more….
(iStock by Getty Images)

The Covid-19 coronavirus plague is changing our habits more and more as we stay at home to avoid the virus or avoid spreading it onwards. Now we are strongly relying on our home networks and the Internet to perform our work, continue studying and connect with others in our social circles.

But this state of affairs is drawing out its own cyber-security risks, with computing devices being vulnerable to malware and the existence of hastily-written software being preferred of tasks like videoconferencing. Not to mention the risk of an increasing flow of fake news and disinformation about this disease.

What can we do?

General IT security

But we need to be extra vigilant about our data security and personal privacy

The general IT security measures are very important even in this coronavirus age. Here, you need to make sure that all the software on your computing devices, including their operating systems are up-to-date and have the latest patches. It also applies to your network, TV set-top and Internet-of-Things hardware where you need to make sure the firmware is up-to-date. The best way to achieve this is to have the devices automatically download and install the revised software themselves.

As well, managing the passwords for our online services and our devices properly prevents the risk of data and identity theft. It may even be a good idea to use a password vault program to manage our passwords which may prevent us from reusing them across services.  Similarly using a word processor to keep a list of your passwords which is saved on removeable media and printed out, with both the hard and electronic copy kept in a secure location may also work wonders here.

Make sure that your computer is running a desktop / endpoint security program, even if it is the one that is part of the operating system. Similarly, using an on-demand scanning tool like Malwarebytes can work as a way to check for questionable software. As well, you may have to check the software that is installed on all of the computing devices is what you are using and even verify with multiple knowledgeable people if that program that is the “talk of the town” should be on your computer.

If you are signing up with new online services, it may even be a better idea to implement social sign-on with established credential pools like Google, Facebook or Microsoft. These setups implement a token between the credential pool and the online service as the authentication factor rather than a separate username and password that you create.

As well, you will be using the Webcam more frequently on your computing devices. The security issue with the Webcam and microphone is more important with computing setups that have the Webcam integrated in the computer or monitor, like with portable computing devices, “all-in-one” computers or monitors equipped with Webcams.

Here, you need to be careful of which programs are having access to the Webcam and microphone on your device. Here, if newly-installed software asks for use of your camera or microphone and it is out of touch with the way the software works, deny access to the camera or microphone when it asks for their use.

If you install a health-department-supplied tracking app as part of your government’s contact-tracing and disease-management efforts, remember to remove this app as soon as the coronavirus crisis is over. Doing this will protect your privacy once there is no real need to manage the disease.

Email and messaging security

Your email and messaging platforms will become an increased security risk at this time thanks to phishing including business email compromise. I have covered this issue in a previous article after helping someone reclaim their email service account after a successful phishing attempt.

An email or message would be a phishing attempt if the email isn’t commensurate with proper business writing standards for your country, has a sense of urgency about it and is too good to be true. Once you receive these emails, it is prudent to report them then delete them forthwith.

In the case of email addresses from official organisations, make sure that the domain name represents the organisation’s proper domain name. This is something that is exactly like the domain name they would use for their Web presence, although email addresses may have the domain name part of the address following the “ @ “ symbol prepended with a server identifier like “mail” or “email”. As well, there should be nothing appended to the domain name.

Also, be familiar with particular domain-name structures for official organisation clusters like the civil / public service, international organisations and academia when you open email or surf the Web. These will typically use protected high-level domain name suffixes like “.gov”, “.int” or “.edu” and won’t use common domain name suffixes like “ .com “. This will help with identifying whether a site or a sender is the proper authority or not.

Messaging and video-conferencing

Increasingly as we stay home due to the risk of catching or spreading the coronavirus plague, we are relying on messaging and video-conferencing software more frequently to communicate with each other. For example, families and communities are using video-conferencing software like Zoom or Skype to make a virtual “get-together” with each other thanks to these platforms’ support for many-to-many videocalls.

But as we rely on this software more, we need to make sure that our privacy, business confidentiality and data security is protected. This is becoming more important as we engage with our doctors, whether they be general practitioners or specialists, “over the wire” and reveal our medical issues to them that way.

If you value privacy, look towards using an online communications platform that implements end-to-end encryption. Infact, most of the respected “over-the-top” communications platforms like WhatsApp, Viber, Skype and iMessage offer this feature for 1:1 conversations between users on the same platform. Some, like WhatsApp and Viber offer this same feature for group conversations between users on that same platform.

Video-conferencing software like Zoom and Skype

When you are hosting a video-conference using Zoom, Skype or similar platforms, be familiar with any meeting-setup and meeting-management features that the platform offers. If the platform uses a Weblink to join a video-conference that you can share, use email or a messaging platform to share that link with potential participants. Avoid posting this on the Social Web so you keep gatecrashers from your meeting or class.

As well, if the platform supports password-protected meeting entry, use this feature to limit who can join the meeting. Here, it is also a good idea to send the password as a separate message from the meeting’s Weblink.

Some platforms like Zoom offer a waiting-room function which requires potential participants to wait and be vetted by the conference’s moderator before they can participate. As well these platforms may have a meeting-lockout so no more people can participate in the video-conference. Here, you use this function when all the participants that you expect are present in the meeting.

You need to regulate the screen sharing feature that your platform offers which allows meeting participants to share currently-running app or desktop user interfaces. Here, you may have the ability to limit this function to the moderator’s computer or a specified participant’s computer. Here this will prevent people from showing offensive imagery or videos to all the meeting’s participants. As well, you may also need to regulate access to any file-sharing functionality that the platform offers in order to prevent the video conference becoming a vector for spreading malware or offensive material.

Fake news and disinformation

Just like with the elections that count, the coronavirus issue has brought about its fair share of fake news and disinformation.

Here, I would recommend that you use trusted news sources like the respected public-service broadcasters for information about this plague. As well, I would recommend that you visit respected health-information sites including those offered “from the horse’s mouth” by local, regional or national government agencies for the latest information.

As well, trust your “gut reaction” when it comes to material that is posted online about the coronavirus plague, including the availability of necessary food or medical supplies. Here, he careful of content that is “out of reality” or plays on your emotions. The same attitude should also apply when it comes to buying essential supplies online and you are concerned about the availability and price of these supplies.

Conclusion

As we spend more time indoors and online thanks to the coronavirus, we need to keep our computing equipment including our tablets and smartphones running securely to protect our data and our privacy.