Tag: midterms
US Midterms 2022 results LIVE: Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s parties square off in key poll
TaxWatch: IRS should brace for ‘broad and deep’ scrutiny if Republicans win the midterms
Russia Reactivates Its Trolls and Bots Ahead of Tuesday’s Midterms
“It’s clear they are trying to get them to cut off aid and money to Ukraine,” said Alex Plitsas, a former Army soldier and Pentagon information operations official now with Providence Consulting Group, a business technology company. The campaign — using accounts that pose as enraged Americans like Nora Berka — have added fuel to the most divisive political and cultural issues in the country today. It has specifically targeted Democratic candidates in the most contested races, including the Senate seats up for grabs in Ohio, Arizona and Pennsylvania, calculating that a Republican majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives could help the Russian war effort. The campaigns show not only how vulnerable the American political system remains to foreign manipulation but also how purveyors of disinformation have evolved and adapted to efforts by the major social media platforms to remove or play down false or deceptive content. The agencies urged people not to like, discuss or share posts online from unknown or distrustful sources. They did not identify specific efforts, but social media platforms and researchers who track disinformation have recently uncovered a variety of campaigns by Russia, China and Iran.
These are much smaller campaigns than those in the 2016 election, where inauthentic accounts reached millions of voters across the political spectrum on Facebook and other major platforms. The efforts are no less pernicious, though, in reaching impressionable users who can help accomplish Russian objectives, researchers said. “The audiences are much, much smaller than on your other traditional social media networks,” said Brian Liston, a senior intelligence analyst with Recorded Future who identified the Nora Berka account. “But you can engage the audiences in much more targeted influence ops because those who are on these platforms are generally U.S. conservatives who are maybe more accepting of conspiratorial claims.” Some characteristics of an inauthentic user to look out for include: no profile picture, no identifying biographical details, and posts exclusively on political issues that often include false or misleading posts and little engagement. They may also link to obscure websites like electiontruth.net, which Recorded Future said was almost certainly linked to the Russian campaign.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Twitter’s Ex-Election Chief Is Worried About the US Midterms
Twitter is reportedly holding off on paid verifications until after the US midterms
Twitter has delayed the rollout of paid account verification until after the end of the US midterm elections, according to The New York Times. The company reportedly made the decision on Saturday after it briefly began rolling out its $8 per month Twitter Blue service. In the hours after the company released an iOS app update that gave people a preview of its new verification system, both employees and users raised concerns that paid badges could lead to confusion ahead of a pivotal election.
According to The Times, one Twitter employee, writing in an internal company Slack channel, asked management why the social network was “making such a risky change” with the “potential of causing election interference.” A day later, a manager on the project said “we’ve made the decision to move the launch of this release to November 9th, after the election.”
Twitter did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. The majority of the company’s public relations team was let go on Friday. Before Elon Musk announced Twitter’s revamped subscription service on Tuesday, the company had reserved blue badges for the accounts of notable politicians, celebrities, journalists and other prominent figures. While the system the company used for handling verification requests was often a mess, it was at least designed to limit impersonation. It’s unclear how the company plans to prevent that kind of behavior moving forward.
The November 9th release date is likely to come with a sigh of relief for the engineers working on paid verifications. Before Sunday, Elon Musk had reportedly told employees they had until November 7th to ship the feature or else they would be fired.
China-based network tried to influence midterms, but long lunches and 9-to-5 hours hampered efforts
YouTube is still battling 2020 election misinformation as it prepares for the midterms
YouTube and Google are the latest platforms to share more about how they are preparing for the upcoming midterm elections, and the flood of misinformation that will come with it.
For YouTube, much of that strategy hinges on continuing to counter misinformation about the 2020 presidential election. The company’s election misinformation policies already prohibit videos that allege “widespread fraud, errors, or glitches” occurred in any previous presidential election. In a new blog post about its preparations for the midterms, the company says it’s already removed “a number of videos related to the midterms” for breaking these rules, and that other channels have been temporarily suspended for videos related to the upcoming midterms.
The update comes as YouTube continues to face scrutiny for its handling of the 2020 election, and whether its recommendations pushed some people toward election fraud videos. (Of note, the Journal of Online Trust and Safety published a study on the topic today.)
In addition to taking down videos, YouTube also says it will launch “an educational media literacy campaign” aimed at educating viewers about “manipulation tactics used to spread misinformation.” The campaign will launch in the United States first, and will cover topics like “using emotional language” and “cherry picking information,” according to the company.
And Both Google and YouTube will promote authoritative election information in their services, including in search results. Before the midterms, YouTube will link to information about how to vote, and on Election day, videos related to the midterms will link to “timely context around election results.” Similarly, Google will surface election results directly in search, which it has done in previous elections as well.
The company is also trying to make it easier to find details about local and regional races. Beginning in “the coming weeks,” Google will highlight local news sources from different states in election-related searches.