• Subtle visual cues in online forums nudge users to reveal more than they would like

    Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but icons may be even more powerful in nudging people to disclose more information online, according to an interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers. In a study, researchers found that people using an online sexual health forum featuring computer graphics, called icons, that implied a sense of crowd size and connectivity, revealed more sensitive information than visitors to a site without those visual cues.

  • The manipulation of social media metadata

    Bad actors manipulate metadata to create effective disinformation campaigns. and a new study provides tips for researchers and technology companies trying to spot this “data craft.” “Data craft” is the term the report’s author uses to describe all those “practices that create, rely on, or even play with the proliferation of data on social media by engaging with new computational and algorithmic mechanisms of organization and classification.”

  • U.S. documents suggest charges filed against WikiLeaks founder Assange

    U.S. court documents suggest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been criminally charged by prosecutors in a case that could be related to the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the U.S. elections. News outlets report that the disclosure was included as part of a court filing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, in a case unrelated to Assange.

  • Using social media to weaken impact of terrorist attacks

    Governments and police forces around the world need to beware of the harm caused by mass and social media following terror events. In a new report, leading counter-terrorism experts from around the world offer guidance to authorities to better manage the impacts of terror attacks by harnessing media communication. “People only know what they see or read, so the immediate panic social media – and then on the news – perpetuates rumors and creates fear. This is exactly what terrorists want,” says one expert.

  • Democrats say they may tie legislation to protection of Russia probe

    A leading Democrat says his party is looking at introducing a bill to Congress that would protect the probe investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and any possible collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign.

  • Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bower had links to British far right

    Robert Bowers, 46, who killed eleven worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pennsylvania on 27 October, was in touch with neo-Nazis in Britain who share the same brand of conspiracy theories that Jews control the world and that Jewish financier George Soros is funding immigration to the United States and Europe. British security sources, who shared the information with the Times, note that this apparent collaboration comes against the backdrop of heightened concerns in Britain about the level of right-wing extremist activity as MI5 takes on an increasing role in countering the threat.

  • Facebook blocks 115 accounts after alert from U.S. authorities

    Facebook says it has blocked 115 user accounts after U.S. authorities alerted the social network to suspicious activity that may be linked to a foreign country. The company’s move, announced in a blog post late on 5 November, came hours after U.S. law enforcement agencies warned that, as U.S. voters go to the polls on 6 November, they should be wary of attempts by Russia, Iran, and other countries to spread fake news on social media.

  • Days after synagogue massacre, online hate is thriving

    A website popular with racists that was used by the man charged in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was shut down within hours of the slaughter, but it hardly mattered: Anti-Semites and racists who hang out in such havens just moved to other online forums.

  • Hate speech is still easy to find on social media

    The alleged Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s activity on the Gab social media site has drawn attention to that site’s role as a hate-filled alternative to more mainstream options like Facebook and Twitter. Those are among the social media platforms that have promised to fight hate speech and online abuse on their sites. However, as I explored online activity in the wake of the shooting, it quickly became clear to me that the problems are not just on sites like Gab. Rather, hate speech is still easy to find on mainstream social media sites, including Twitter. I also identified some additional steps the company could take.

  • Hate crimes expert fears that shootings like Pittsburgh could become more common

    The gunman who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday could herald a new era of hate crimes, according to an expert who has tracked similar attacks since the 1990s. “We have more people drawn to white supremacist rhetoric who see themselves as on a mission to change the world,” said one criminologist. The Pittsburgh shooter’s online activity distinguished him from the majority of people who commit hate crimes. He was a deeply committed white supremacist who steeped himself in anti-Semitic and xenophobic propaganda.

  • Mathematicians to help solve the fake news voting conundrum

    With the American midterm elections around the corner, rumors of a U.K. general election in the winter, and a potential second referendum on Brexit, mathematicians have produced a mathematical model that details the impact of fake news on voting behavior.

  • Target USA: Key takeaways from the Kremlin’s “Project Lakhta”

    On 19 October, the Department of Justice announced charges against Elena Khusyaynova, a St. Petersburg-based accountant, for working as part of a conspiracy to wage “information warfare against the United States of America.” According to the FBI, Khusyaynova worked as the chief accountant for “Project Lakhta,” a Russian interference operation targeting citizens in the United States, EU, Ukraine, and Russia. The new charges confirm many assessments of the conduct and strategy behind Russia’s Internet Research Agency, and also highlight several key aspects of the Kremlin’s ongoing influence campaign in the United States.

  • Study finds marked rise in far right’s use of anti-Semitic attacks on social media

    Continuing what began during the 2016 presidential election, the members of far-right extremist groups and the so-called “Alt Right” have stepped up “online propaganda offensives” in the runup to the upcoming midterm elections to attack and try to intimidate Jews and especially Jewish journalists, according to a new study. The most popular term used by Trump supporters “by one or two orders of magnitude” was “Soros,” referring to George Soros, the Jewish billionaire that anti-Semites use to blame for anyone who resists conservatives.

  • White supremacists' anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant sentiments often intersect

    Robert Bowers, the suspect in Saturday’s deadly shooting spree in Pittsburgh, appears to have hated Jews for a variety of reasons, but one anti-Semitic trope in particular seems to have motivated him in the days prior to the shooting, and may have even played a role in his decision to unleash his hateful attack: the common white supremacist conspiracy theory that Jews are behind efforts to impose mass immigration on the United States, with the goal of harming or destroying the white race.

  • Conspiracy theories about Soros aren’t just false. They’re anti-Semitic.

    Blaming Jewish outsiders for dissent and social unrest isn’t new. On Monday eight days ago, a pipe bomb was sent to the home of George Soros, the billionaire whose Open Society Foundation supports many liberal causes in many countries. Soros’s name has also become a central element in conspiracy theories around the world. Talia Lavin writes in the Washington Post that it is no surprise that Soros would wind up as a target of a bomber who appears to have been an avid consumer of conspiracy theories. Soros has become the subject of “escalating rhetoric on the right… which posits Soros as a nefarious force, fomenting social dissent and paying members of a migrant ‘caravan, that has been the subject of intense right-wing fearmongering leading up to the November midterms. And that rhetoric draws on old, and deep-rooted, anti-Semitic ideas that have been deployed by the right for decades.”