Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Here is the issue raised by Facebook's revelations this week about disinformation that we need to face squarely: The political interests of the president of the United States coincide with the purposes of foreign forces using social media to divide us along the lines of race and culture. President Trump's refusal to make combating Russian interference a high priority, despite warnings from inside his own administration about the dangers, is obviously a scandal.
Facebook says it has identified and deleted pages and accounts on its website attempting to mislead its users and sow discord among voters ahead of the US congressional elections in November amid accusations of Russian meddling in the US voting process. Facebook, the world's largest social media company with more than 2 billion monthly active users, said on Tuesday it had removed 32 fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram to combat alleged foreign meddling in US elections.
Facebook said Tuesday it shut down 32 fake pages and accounts involved in an apparent "coordinated" effort to stoke hot-button issues ahead of November midterm US elections, but could not identify the source although Russia is suspected of involvement. It said the "bad actor" accounts on the world's biggest social network and its photo-sharing site Instagram could not be tied directly to Russian actors, who American officials say used the platform to spread disinformation ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.
Republican senators said Wednesday that the government faces a momentous task in preventing foreigners from using social media to interfere in U.S. elections, citing concerns about the First Amendment and the sprawling nature of the internet. Experts testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee said Russia and other foreign actors are using high-tech means to polarize Americans not only on elections, but also on highly charged issues like race and immigration.
Facebook set off a firestorm on Tuesday, announcing that it had uncovered "sophisticated" efforts, possibly linked to Russia, to manipulate US politics and by extension the upcoming midterm elections. The company was careful to hedge its announcement; it did not connect the effort directly to Russia or to the midterms, now less than a hundred days away.
In this Wednesday, April 11, 2018, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. FILE- In this Wednesday, April 11, 2018, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Facebook Inc. has identified a coordinated political influence campaign ahead of November's U.S. congressional elections and taken down dozens of fake accounts on its site, the company said on Tuesday. A Russian propaganda arm tried to tamper in the 2016 U.S. election by posting and buying ads on Facebook, according to the company and U.S. intelligence agencies.
Facebook announced on Tuesday that it had detected a coordinated influence operation whose activities appeared to target divisive political issues ahead of the 2018 midterm elections . The company detected the activity as part of an ongoing investigation into election interference, its representatives said, and had removed 32 pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram as a result.
In this Wednesday, April 11, 2018, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. FILE- In this Wednesday, April 11, 2018, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
A poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV found that most Americans ages 15 to 34 think voting in the midterm elections gives their generation some say about how the government is run, and 79 percent of this group say leaders from their generation would do a better job running the country. The poll found young people eager to vote for someone who shared their political views on issues like health care and immigration policy.
A poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV found that most Americans ages 15 to 34 think voting in the midterm elections gives their generation some say about how the government is run, and 79 percent of this group say leaders from their generation would do a better job running the country. The poll found young people eager to vote for someone who shared their political views on issues like health care and immigration policy.
Rafael Edward Cruz Senate GOP shoots down talk of impeaching Rosenstein Cruz counters O'Rourke's call for six debates with proposal for five Family separation bills blocked on Senate floor MORE on Saturday pushed back against Facebook for banning conspiracy theorist and InfoWars founder Alex Jones, suggesting the platform was infringing on the First Amendment. "Am no fan of Jones - among other things he has a habit of repeatedly slandering my Dad by falsely and absurdly accusing him of killing JFK - but who the hell made Facebook the arbiter of political speech? Free speech includes views you disagree with," Cruz tweeted.
Am no fan of Jones - among other things he has a habit of repeatedly slandering my Dad by falsely and absurdly accusing him of killing JFK - but who the hell made Facebook the arbiter of political speech? Free speech includes views you disagree with. #1A https://t.co/RC5v4SHaiI I demand the right to enter the Cruz residence and insult his family repeatedly, with no way for him to make me leave.
A photo showing a Trump 2020 campaign flag flying atop a state-operated ferry on the Outer Banks has rubbed some people the wrong way since it hit social media. Catherine Mitchell posted the photo in the community section of the North Carolina Ferry System Facebook page Thursday evening, saying it was taken aboard the MV Frisco ferry.
Sorry, we're having problems with our video player at the moment, but are working to fix it as soon as we can Facebook has released details of scores of online ads targeted at its users by Brexiteers during the EU referendum campaign. The messages, handed to a House of Commons committee inquiry into fake news, confirm that Vote Leave relied heavily on its controversial claim - described as "misleading" by the official statistician - that the UK hands A 350 million a week to the EU which could otherwise be spent on the NHS.
Green lower receiver for the AR-15 was printed by Cody Wilson in November 2012. MUST CREDIT: Photo courtesy of Cody Wilson Green lower receiver for the AR-15 was printed by Cody Wilson in November 2012.
EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager holds a press conference Wednesday to announce a record $5 billion antitrust fine against Google. Google "800-pound gorilla" and the answer that you're likely to get is ... Google.
Google "800-pound gorilla" and the answer that you're likely to get is a Google. The tech giant, technically a subsidiary of Alphabet, dominates the internet search realm and its Android operating system is installed in about 80 percent of personal devices worldwide.
If the information in the FBI's Carter Page warrant constituted probable cause for wiretapping an American political campaign, then the process and the officials involved in it carried out one of the most significant known violations of American civil liberties in recent history. The documents released over the weekend reveal quite clearly that the only information that even remotely connected Page and the 2016 campaign to Russia came solely from Fusion GPS dossier and a Yahoo News report that was based on the same information from the same source.
Earlier this year, the political world was gripped by an accusation from Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., that the government's application for a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was born of bias and almost entirely reliant on a dossier of information compiled on the dime of Democratic operatives. Nunes had a memo that made that argument; eventually, and probably with not a lot of goading, President Donald Trump was convinced to release it publicly.