Growing misinformation

The scale of the problem is evident in Facebook data showing it removed more than 12 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram (which it also owns) between March and October this year for containing misinformation that may lead to imminent physical harm, such as content relating to fake preventative measures or exaggerated cures.

During the same period the social media giant displayed warnings on about 167 million pieces of content on Facebook. The warnings are based on articles written by its fact-checking partners.

The recent approval of COVID-19 vaccines has led social media users to focus on misinformation about the vaccines efficacy and safety.

This includes misinformation about side-effects as well as conspiracy theories, including unfounded and false claims that the vaccines are being used to insert microchips into people and that Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is spreading COVID-19 to profit from the vaccine.

Its given a boost to existing anti-vaccination sentiment, with The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald tracking three anti-vaccination Facebook groups in Australia using the Facebook-owned tool Crowd Tangle and finding that over the last 12 months the groups have recorded 22,000 likes, a growth of 57 per cent.

The social media platforms know the surfacing of misinformation is a problem and are scrambling to tackle the issue.

Facebook has made anti-vaccination groups, such as those tracked by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, difficult to find by removing them from search results on the platform.

Its a practice known as shadow banning, where the platforms try to limit the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 online by making content more difficult to find rather than de-platforming it completely.

The platforms have also restricted the use of hashtags used by misinformation spreaders, such as #covidisahoax and #vaccinescauseautism.

If you type these hashtags into Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, all you get is a message advising that posts using the hashtag have been temporarily hidden as some content in those posts goes against our community standards.

Ninety-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first patient in the world to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside of a medical trial after it was approved by the UK regulator.Credit:Getty Images

Facebook this week started sending notifications to users who shared, commented on or liked posts which contain misinformation about COVID-19. The notifications provide these users with links to trustworthy sources on the virus.

Our position on vaccine misinformation is clear we remove false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side-effects of the vaccines, including conspiracy theories, and continue to remove COVID-19 misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm, says Josh Machin, head of public policy for Facebook Australia.

Twitter announced on Friday that when someone in Australia searches for certain keywords associated with vaccines on its platform, a prompt will direct them to the Department of Healths information resources on vaccination and its Twitter account.

From Monday Twitter will start removing the most harmful information and begin to label tweets that contain potentially misleading information on the vaccines in the same way it labels political tweets that are factually incorrect.

TikTok also released new guidelines this week detailing how users will be directed to relevant and trusted information from public health experts when they search for COVID-19 misinformation.

TikToks head of trust and safety for the Asia Pacific region, Arjun Narayan, says misinformation in itself is not new and has existed through the ages.

Its just a given everything is on social media these days, everything is digital, so a lot of the societal fault lines now manifest on social media, he says. Misinformation survives and thrives in an information vacuum and the best antidote ... is countering that with accurate information.

Narayan says TikToks proactive detection algorithms and its team of over 1000 content moderators around the world also remove misinformation about COVID-19 from the video platform in Australia.

Any medical misinformation which poses a threat to public interest, which creates a health hazard, we do not allow for that kind of content on the platform, he says. So when it comes to dangerous conspiracy theories, we have zero tolerance for that.

The social media platforms efforts are not a simple matter of altruism. The British government has announced it will introduce laws next year under which Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok will be fined more than 18 million ($31.6 million) if they allow users to post child exploitation material, terrorist content or anti-vaccination disinformation.

Disinformation is distinguished from misinformation in that it is made with intent.

In Australia different agencies deal with each of these issues, with the eSafety Commissioner having regulatory oversight over cyber-bullying material, image-based abuse and child exploitation material, while the Therapeutic Goods Administration has powers to take action against illegal advertising of therapeutic products.

There is currently no broad regulation of online misinformation in Australia, a spokesperson for the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) says.

The government has asked the ACMA to oversee the development of a voluntary code of practice on disinformation and news quality for digital platforms but it is not expected to be in place until next year.

Between March and October of 2020, Facebook removed more than 12 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram for containing misinformation.

Dr Belinda Barnet, a senior lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, says the social media platforms need to do more.

If a piece of content containing information about vaccination, for example, starts to go viral it needs to be immediately fact-checked, she says. Its in their capacity to do this - they know immediately which content is going viral and has been shared a thousand times.

Barnet says misinformation is increasing in Australia and shadow banning is limited in its efficacy.

The people it doesnt catch, this particular policy, is the people that already belong to these groups, so if you are already part of an anti-vaccination group, you can immediately see this [misinformation] content and any content related to it, she says.

Barnet is also concerned the platforms strategy does not prevent high-profile social media users spreading misinformation, such as celebrity chef and anti-vaxxer Pete Evans, who suggested sunlight could be the best vaccine, and politician Mark Latham, who last week posted on Twitter that the University of Queenslands COVID-19 vaccine was deliberately implanted with the HIV-AIDS virus.

Well have a problem on our hands, not as big as America, but as the government has already pointed out when it comes to the rollout of the vaccination, there will be people who believe this misinformation, Barnet says.

The risk is by drawing attention to misinformation and calling it out we are unintentionally amplifying something that might otherwise go unnoticed and ignored.

Associate Professor Adam Dunn at the University of Sydney has been studying misinformation on social media related to vaccinations for the past five years and published research in July in the American Journal of Public Health looking at 21.7 million vaccine-related tweets.

The research found that for typical Twitter users, the vast majority of the content they see or engage with is not critical of vaccination or promoting misinformation. Only about 5 per cent of social media users belong to communities where vaccine-critical content is more common, and the tiniest fraction of users are posting or passing along vaccine-critical content.

Misinformation makes up a tiny proportion of what most people see, so it seems a massive stretch to suggest that it could be changing their beliefs and decisions, Dunn says. Were worrying too much about people being anti-vaccine, what we need to worry about first is making sure that everybody who needs access to the vaccines has access to the vaccines.

However Mrozinski believes it is important misinformation is called out and limited in its reach: By the time it is being seen by hundreds of millions of people the damage has been done, thats how the word spreads.

At times Mrozinski admits its a hassle, as he and other health professionals are subject to onslaughts from anti-vaxxers when they post on social media, but he is determined to continue.

People who are against things always seem to shout louder and make the most noise, he says.

Stay across the news you need to know related to the pandemic. Sent Monday and Thursday. Sign up here.

Cara is the small business editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald based in Melbourne

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No sense to them: Tackling COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on social media - Sydney Morning Herald

MOSCOW Finally free of the shadow of President Trump, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, is looking to put relations with the United States back on a sound footing with the incoming administration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Joe Biden, it seems to me, knows Ukraine better than the previous president, Mr. Zelensky said in his first interview with an American news organization since the election.

Before his presidency, he had close ties to Ukraine, and he understands the Russians well, he understands the difference between Ukraine and Russia, and, it seems to me, he understands the Ukrainian mentality, Mr. Zelensky said. It will really help strengthen relations, help settle the war in Donbas and end the occupation of our territory. The United States can help.

During the Obama years, Mr. Biden was put in charge of relations with Ukraine, where he worked with varying degrees of success to crack down on corruption and, after 2014, to end the war in Eastern Ukraine, an area referred to in Ukraine as the Donbas.

That background plus the business activities there of his son Hunter Biden drew the attention last year of Mr. Trump, who saw Mr. Biden as a potential rival for the presidency. Uncomfortably for Mr. Zelensky, that dynamic drew Ukraine into American politics just months after he was sworn in as a corruption-fighting president in May 2019.

They roped us in, said Mr. Zelensky, a former comedian turned politician, speaking more freely about the matter with Mr. Trumps looming departure. But I think we behaved with dignity suitable to a sovereign country.

As he took office, Mr. Zelensky had hoped to gain diplomatic backup from the United States in negotiations to end the grinding war with Russian-led separatists in eastern Ukraine. But that strategy unraveled in the impeachment scandal last year.

After that, Mr. Zelensky largely refrained from public discussion of U.S. policy toward Ukraine, lest he offend one side or the other.

Freed now from those restraints, Mr. Zelensky is setting out again, more than a year after his ill-fated first effort, to win greater American engagement in ending the only active war in Europe today.

More than 13,000 people have died in the war in the flatlands of eastern Ukraine since Russia intervened militarily six years ago to support breakaway enclaves. These days the two armies fight sporadically along a 280-mile trench line, lobbing mortar and artillery fire at one another.

Like the Berlin Wall, this front line divides people by East-West politics, not ethnicity. Villages on both sides speak a mix of Ukrainian and Russian. The Ukrainian central government wants to integrate with the European Union, while Russia seeks to retain the country within a sphere of influence.

The negotiations to end the conflict are also geopolitical. France and Germany now mediate in so-called Normandy format talks. Mr. Zelensky has since early in his presidency sought a U.S. role in negotiations.

William B. Taylor Jr., a former United States ambassador to Kyiv who served as chief of mission last year during the events leading to Mr. Trumps impeachment, said Mr. Zelensky is correct in thinking relations with America may turn a hopeful new corner. Zelenskys instincts are still good, he said in a telephone interview.

U.S.-Ukraine relations will become stronger and more coherent and that will benefit Zelensky, Mr. Taylor said. I am encouraged and optimistic about the new administrations Ukraine policy.

Mr. Zelensky, in the interview by video link from Kyiv, said he was grateful for American support during the Trump administration, including for the stiffening of sanctions against Russia. I should thank the United States in the period of Donald Trump, he said. But he allowed that more could be done, such as encouraging American investment in government-controlled areas near the conflict.

We really dont want to be running on a treadmill, he said, referring to European-led negotiations that have dragged on inconclusively for six years. A cease-fire has diminished but not halted the violence.

The Trump administration has been largely absent from the process. The president fully promoted the baseless claim that Ukraine, rather than Russia, had meddled in the 2016 presidential election, and he thought Ukraine subtly favored Hillary Clinton.

In that toxic atmosphere, the nominal U.S. envoy to the settlement talks, Kurt Volker, found himself alongside Mr. Trumps personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, negotiating not on matters of war and peace but rather a request that Mr. Zelensky investigate Mr. Trumps political opponent, Mr. Biden, and his family leading ultimately to Mr. Trumps infamous phone call asking Mr. Zelensky to do us a favor and hinting about withholding military aid if he didnt.

As the impeachment saga unfolded, Mr. Zelensky walked a narrow path, declining to announce an investigation of the Bidens while helping Mr. Trump by cracking down on leaks that might have aided Democrats with impeachment.

Despite Mr. Zelenskys efforts, the Trump administration ignored Ukraine after the impeachment, not bothering to appoint a new peace envoy or to push the confirmation of a new ambassador.

In the interview, Mr. Zelensky said he resented efforts to draw Ukraine into American politics, which could only be harmful to the countrys interests.

I dont want Ukraine to become the subject of a fight between Democrats and Republicans, he said. We are beautiful partners. But partners in what? Lets be partners in geopolitics, in the economy between our countries. But certainly not between personalities, and moreover with two pretenders to the presidency of the United States.

Mr. Biden is expected to encourage Mr. Zelensky to press ahead with his anticorruption agenda and to make a clean break with Ukraines shadowy business oligarchs, some of whom promulgate pro-Russian views on their television channels.

Mr. Zelensky has dragged his feet on this score. One oligarch who aided Mr. Zelensky in his campaign, Ihor Kolomoisky, cost Ukraine $5.6 billion in a bank bailout amid allegations of embezzlement, raising fears that Kyivs elite were siphoning off Western aid money. Mr. Kolomoisky denies wrongdoing.

Mr. Zelensky said he saw no need to demonstrate distance from Mr. Kolomoisky. Im not certain that I should show something now, he said, as that would indicate his decisions had been influenced in the past, which he denied. A new law rules out oligarchic meddling in banking oversight in Ukraine, he said.

When the subject turned to coronavirus vaccines, Mr. Zelensky had trouble containing his frustration with Mr. Trump and his executive order banning the export of vaccines. Before the ban, Ukraine had been in talks with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to speed up delivery but now has to settle for its first commercial vaccine shipments months later than expected because of Mr. Trumps executive order.

Russia has gleefully seized on the U.S. export ban for propaganda purposes, floating the idea that Ukraine, with friends like these, might consider turning instead to Moscow for lifesaving vaccines no matter that Russia is also backing the separatist war.

Of course, it is impossible to explain to Ukrainian society why, when America and Europe are not giving you vaccines, you shouldnt take vaccines from Russia, Mr. Zelensky said. He was bracing, he said, for an information war on the issue.

Still, as the largest democracy in the former Soviet Union, he said, Ukraine remained a natural long-term partner for the United States.

It seems to me the United States relates to Ukraine like the United States relates to democracy, he said. No matter who is president, he will always respect democracy and, in the same way, regardless who is president there will always be this relationship with Ukraine. At least, that is how I see it.

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With Trump Fading, Ukraines President Looks to a Reset With the U.S. - The New York Times

When you join the lobbying profession, you know immediately you become Public Enemy No. 1. Frankly, you can't blame the public for feeling this way.

As a profession we let Washington define who we are and how we operate. We don't have a bully pulpit the way candidates, members of Congress and presidents do. We do not have a public forum where the people can hear us.

When attacks come, we bury our heads in the sand and don't stand up for ourselves and what we do. We simply hide and wait for the onslaught to pass. It's easy for elected officials to blame lobbyists for the dysfunction in Washington, the alternative being for them to look in the mirror and point the finger at themselves for their direct failures on behalf of those who elected them. When in doubt, create a boogeyman the public hates or distrusts more than you.

When you become a lobbyist, you know that every election year you will become the scapegoat for all the failures of both Congress and the incumbent president's administration. You know that in one breath members of Congress and the president will blame you for a policy stalemate and then in the next breath call you and ask you for a campaign contribution. These same elected leaders will tell their constituents how they need to halt the influence that lobbyists have in Washington. But when they leave their campaign rallies, they will call us asking for help on their campaign.

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The reality is that it's good politics to trash a profession the public does not know much about. It's good business to spread lies, and only then to turn to us and use us to get you elected. Frankly, shame on people in our business for allowing it.

Joe Biden campaigned on improving ethics in the capital, but now that he's been elected that seems like it was just a tagline to get votes. He is imposing restrictions on lobbyists serving in his administration and on government boards, yet his transition team is filled with big-name lobbyists. His team has said that not all lobbyists will be banned. Some will be given waivers to serve.

My questions for the president-elect are: Why some and not all? If our profession is the problem in Washington, as you claim, then why does your team include lobbyists? Why the need for waivers? Why not simply ban all of us, not just some of us?

The answer is simple. You have been in elected politics for more than 40 years and you know the true value of what we do and the information and expertise we will offer you and your new administration. So, while it may get you a good public reception to claim you are banning lobbyists, then quietly you will enlist us. It is the Washington way.

But while Biden's policy discriminates against a class of people because of what they do, it makes exceptions for people close to you or who have been big donors to you over the years. The American people deserve better than this. Frankly, our profession deserves to be treated better than this.

The next president campaigned on the promise to create a diverse administration. Some will say he is doing just that. I take a different view. The policies he is putting in place not only discriminate against a whole class of professionals, but they also tell lobbyists of color they are not welcome to serve in the new administration. At a time when we should be celebrating public service and are asking corporate America to be more inclusive, Biden is doing the exact opposite. His bans limit lobbyists of color from creating opportunities to be selected to top positions in government and their chosen fields. That is exactly what the president-elect has criticized corporate America for doing.

As his new administration begins, I would urge Biden to reconsider his lobbyist ban for the reasons here. Barack Obama did much the same after he was elected president a dozen years ago and it turned into a black eye for his administration, which relaxed its rules six years later in the aftermath of an unfavorable federal appeals court ruling.

Since 2009 we have seen a growing trend of people taking themselves off the lists of registered federal lobbyists so they could serve in the Obama and Trump administrations. We suspect that will continue under a Biden administration unless he changes course.

Such shadow lobbying is a real problem and one our profession is fighting against. The new president should work with us on creating policies that create more transparency, not less. But an outright ban is going to continue the rise of shadow lobbyists at a time when the American people are tired of corruption in government.

Please, Mr. President-elect: Work with us and not against us. I would urge you to be honest in your policies. If you ban lobbyists, you need to ban all lobbyists, not just some. You need to return the campaign donations you have taken during your campaign to every lobbyist or political action committee. You need to stop taking money from lobbyists or corporate America for your inauguration. And you need a universal diversity and inclusion policy that is inclusive of all, not just some.

As a profession, we want to work with you on transparency. We want to work with you on ethics reform. This is only possible if your administration is open and honest about your policies and does not create carve-outs for big donors or close friends. You cannot hold the rest of us accountable if you are not going to follow your own lead.

Leadership starts at the top with one policy for all, not just some well-connected Washington insiders.

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Biden's ban on lobbyists in his administration would be unwise and discriminatory - The Fulcrum