The New Digital Dark Age
1 year, 2 months ago

The New Digital Dark Age

Wired  

For researchers, social media has always represented greater access to data, more democratic involvement in knowledge production, and great transparency about social behavior. In 2024, we will face a grim digital dark age, as social media platforms transition away from the logic of Web 2.0 and toward one dictated by AI-generated content. However, changes in data access by social media platforms, as well as the explosion of generative AI misinformation, means that the tools that researchers and journalists developed in prior national elections for monitoring online activity won’t work. The EU’s Digital Services Act is a step in the right direction of regulation, including provisions to ensure that independent researchers can monitor social network platforms. Until then, the transition from social media to AI-mediated information means that, in 2024, a new digital dark age will likely begin.

Social Media Social Data Digital Online Twitter Researchers Social Media Platforms Media Platforms  dark  independent  twitter  digital  researchers  online  data  social  age  media  platforms  2024

History of this topic

20 years of YouTube and the future of the internet
4 weeks ago

20 years of YouTube and the future of the internet

Hindustan Times  

On March 3, the Supreme Court lifted its fortnight-old moratorium on a YouTuber making content. Around the same time, the government issued an advisory asking social media and OTT platforms to enforce stricter access controls for A-rated content, in line with the IT Rules 2021. When one of YouTube’s three co-founders Jawed Karim stood in front of an elephant enclosure …

BuzzFeed is launching a new, A.I.–powered social media network.
1 month, 3 weeks ago

BuzzFeed is launching a new, A.I.–powered social media network.

Slate  

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Slate recently received a five-page memo from Peretti that lays out concepts of a plan for BuzzFeed’s post–Big Tech future, including “a new social media platform built specifically to spread joy and enable playful creative expression.” The new platform …

AI in a make-believe world, netizens shower likes
1 month, 3 weeks ago

AI in a make-believe world, netizens shower likes

Deccan Chronicle  

Visakhapatnam: Social media platforms are flooded with AI- generated pictures and videos – and these are blurring the thin line between reality and fiction. Notably, platforms like Instagram have begun experimenting with a tag alerting viewers with a hint that these are “AI generated versions.” A feature has also been added, wherein it places users in fake and mirror-filled environments, …

Davos 2025: Trade, tariffs, AI and UN chief Guterres dominate World Economic Forum agenda
2 months, 1 week ago

Davos 2025: Trade, tariffs, AI and UN chief Guterres dominate World Economic Forum agenda

Associated Press  

DAVOS, Switzlerand — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres ratcheted up his warning about climate change and said the world’s thirst for fossil fuels is a “Frankenstein monster” that spares no one, while calling for greater attention to risks posed by artificial intelligence if its ascent goes ungoverned — even as some leaders played up its promise. “So I’m not worried about …

Don’t Count Out Human Writers in the Age of AI
2 months, 3 weeks ago

Don’t Count Out Human Writers in the Age of AI

Wired  

In 2025, human writers will reassert their worth. But 2025 will be a turning point, not for AI replacing us but for a renewed appreciation of the emotional, spiritual, political, cultural, and ultimately financial value of high-quality human writing. And in 2024, copywriters found their careers, seemingly doomed by AI, revived as humanizers for synthetic marketing content which does not …

Social-media companies decide content moderation is trending down
2 months, 3 weeks ago

Social-media companies decide content moderation is trending down

Live Mint  

Social-media companies never wanted to aggressively police content on their platforms. Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta Platforms will end fact-checking and remove speech restrictions across Facebook and Instagram shows how Donald Trump’s presidential election, and the U.S. political winds that swept him into a second term, have sharply accelerated a move by social-media giants away from refereeing what is said …

AI has not yet destroyed democracy
3 months ago

AI has not yet destroyed democracy

Live Mint  

With almost half the world’s population going to the polls, 2024 was dubbed a super election year, leading many experts to warn of a coming flood of political disinformation. Perhaps social-media users have become more discerning, while fact-checkers and digital platforms have done a better job of curtailing the spread of falsehoods—with Elon Musk’s X being an obvious exception. In …

Embrace the Shift to ‘Prosocial Media’
4 months ago

Embrace the Shift to ‘Prosocial Media’

Wired  

Today, our information feeds and social media are largely governed by algorithms optimized to maximize engagement, often amplifying the most inflammatory content. One crucial aspect of prosocial media is the ability to allow people to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading information, thereby fostering a more informed discourse. Prosocial media also addresses the centralization of social media platforms and the …

Growing social media app vows to shake up ‘toxic’ status quo
4 months, 1 week ago

Growing social media app vows to shake up ‘toxic’ status quo

The Independent  

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. They've cleverly addicted us to our own egos Zoe Kalar, WeAre8 founder Zoe Kalar, the app’s founder, …

US disrupts Russian government-backed disinformation campaign that relied on AI technology
8 months, 3 weeks ago

US disrupts Russian government-backed disinformation campaign that relied on AI technology

Associated Press  

WASHINGTON — A Russian propaganda campaign backed by the Kremlin that spread online disinformation in the United States and was boosted by artificial intelligence has been disrupted, the Justice Department said Tuesday. U.S. officials said the scheme was organized in 2022 after a senior editor at RT, a Russian-state-funded media organization that has registered with the Justice Department as a …

Politicians say they can make social media less ‘addictive’. Experts aren’t so sure
9 months ago

Politicians say they can make social media less ‘addictive’. Experts aren’t so sure

BBC  

Politicians say they can make social media less ‘addictive’. Experts aren’t so sure Getty Images New York just passed a law on "addictive" social media feeds for children, but some researchers are questioning what that actually means. "Young people across the nation are facing a mental health crisis fuelled by addictive social media feeds." The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for …

China’s AI-powered influence operations at India’s doorstep
10 months, 3 weeks ago

China’s AI-powered influence operations at India’s doorstep

Hindustan Times  

Modes of warfare have undergone several changes since the end of World War II. A recent report by the United States -based social media analytics firm Graphika revealed a pro-Chinese political spam operation promoting a new and distinctive form of video content, which has been operating since 2019 on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In November …

Meta now has an AI chatbot. Experts say get ready for more AI-powered social media
10 months, 4 weeks ago

Meta now has an AI chatbot. Experts say get ready for more AI-powered social media

LA Times  

“AI is increasingly driving lots of communication online,” a University of Pennsylvania professor says. “Our goal is to build the world’s leading AI and make it available to everyone,” said Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer at Meta, as he announced the chatbot’s launch two weeks ago. “We believe that meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant that …

Will hackers, trolls and AI deepfakes upset the 2024 election?
11 months ago

Will hackers, trolls and AI deepfakes upset the 2024 election?

LA Times  

More than 100 bills have been introduced in at least 39 states to limit and regulate AI-generated materials, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a nonpartisan organization that tracks election-related legislation. A recent threat analysis by Microsoft said a network of Chinese- One Chinese disinformation ploy, according to the Microsoft report, claimed that the U.S. government deliberately set the wildfires …

New AI video tools increase worries of deepfakes ahead of elections
1 year ago

New AI video tools increase worries of deepfakes ahead of elections

Al Jazeera  

The video that OpenAI released to unveil its new text-to-video tool, Sora, has to be seen to be believed. “We already need tougher measures from social media platforms on that existing problem.” Several companies that offer generative AI image makers, including Midjourney, OpenAI and Microsoft, have policies that are supposed to prevent users from generating misleading pictures. “And it tells …

New era of AI deepfakes complicates 2024 elections
1 year, 1 month ago

New era of AI deepfakes complicates 2024 elections

Live Mint  

The explosion of artificial-intelligence technology makes it easier than ever to deceive people on the internet, and is turning the 2024 U.S. presidential election into an unprecedented test on how to police deceptive content. Two weeks later, the New Hampshire attorney general’s office said it identified a Texas-based company named Life Corp.as the source of the calls and that it …

Meta to Label AI-generated Content on Facebook, Instagram: Will Self-regulation Suffice in Deepfake Age?
1 year, 1 month ago

Meta to Label AI-generated Content on Facebook, Instagram: Will Self-regulation Suffice in Deepfake Age?

News 18  

In a groundbreaking move, Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads – announced a new policy aimed at addressing the growing concern around AI-generated content. In a blog post, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said: “While companies are starting to include signals in their image generators, they haven’t started including them in AI tools that …

Social Media Is Getting Smaller—and More Treacherous
1 year, 2 months ago

Social Media Is Getting Smaller—and More Treacherous

Wired  

In 2024, social media will get small. Thrown off the platform after the January 6 insurrection, Trump moved to the much smaller Truth Social, a network whose main selling point seemed to be his presence. Millions of us find these spaces in subreddits, Facebook groups, or even on special-purpose social networks, such as Archive of One’s Own, which links together …

Trust in the digital world during the time of deepfakes
1 year, 2 months ago

Trust in the digital world during the time of deepfakes

Hindustan Times  

What would your elderly father’s response be if he received an emergency video message from you requesting a large sum of money? The Union government has already sent an advisory to social media intermediaries asking them to strengthen their systems for detecting and taking down deepfakes, and reports suggest that the ministry of electronics and IT is considering amendments to …

Experts warn of AI's impact on 2024 US election as deepfakes go mainstream and social media guardrails fade
1 year, 3 months ago

Experts warn of AI's impact on 2024 US election as deepfakes go mainstream and social media guardrails fade

ABC  

Nearly three years after rioters stormed the US Capitol, the false election conspiracy theories that drove the violent attack remain prevalent on social media and that country's television news. Defence force chief's deepfake and AI warning Photo shows Angus Campbell stands alongside Anthony Albanese at a press conference at parliament house General Angus Campbell warns the world is entering an …

As social media guardrails fade and AI deepfakes go mainstream, experts warn of impact on elections
1 year, 3 months ago

As social media guardrails fade and AI deepfakes go mainstream, experts warn of impact on elections

Associated Press  

NEW YORK — Nearly three years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the false election conspiracy theories that drove the violent attack remain prevalent on social media and cable news: suitcases filled with ballots, late-night ballot dumps, dead people voting. In June, YouTube announced that while it would still regulate content that misleads about current or upcoming elections, it would …

The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal
1 year, 3 months ago

The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal

The Independent  

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Here's a look back some of the biggest stories …

The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal
1 year, 3 months ago

The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal

Associated Press  

We lost Twitter and got X. Here’s a look back at some of the biggest stories in social media in 2023 — and what to watch for next year: GOODBYE TWITTER A little more than a year ago, Elon Musk walked into Twitter ’s San Francisco headquarters, fired its CEO and other top executives and began transforming the social media …

Govt may tell platforms to end deepfakes voluntarily
1 year, 4 months ago

Govt may tell platforms to end deepfakes voluntarily

Live Mint  

NEW DELHI : The government is likely to seek robust technology and AI-based solutions from social media platforms and significant intermediaries to proactively scan for, and flag, deepfake content on their platforms, two senior officials said seeking anonymity. Platforms will be discussing voluntary mechanisms to identify and block deepfake content that may be potentially harmful during high-level meetings with officials …

Most US adults think AI will add to election misinformation in 2024, shows new poll
1 year, 4 months ago

Most US adults think AI will add to election misinformation in 2024, shows new poll

Firstpost  

The poll found that nearly 6 in 10 adults think AI tools will increase the spread of false and misleading information during next year’s elections The warnings have grown louder and more urgent as 2024 approaches: The rapid advance of artificial intelligence tools threatens to amplify misinformation in next year’s presidential election at a scale never seen before. The poll …

X promises to clamp down on misinformation ahead of U.S. presidential election
1 year, 7 months ago

X promises to clamp down on misinformation ahead of U.S. presidential election

The Hindu  

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, claimed it would work to clamp down on misinformation and other related dangers as the U.S. presidential election race heats up. X said it would temporarily use a ‘Civil Integrity Policy’ to moderate harmful content, as well as its ‘Freedom of Speech, Not Reach’ policy to label accounts which posted content violating …

AI bots need consent to use our material, say news groups
1 year, 7 months ago

AI bots need consent to use our material, say news groups

The Hindu  

Artificial intelligence firms must ask for permission before using copyrighted text and images to generate content, a consortium of news groups said on Wednesday. Media organisations including AFP, Getty Images and the Associated Press said in an open letter that AI tools risk shattering their business models, flooding the web with misinformation and breaking copyright laws. AI tools like chatbot …

Elon Musk threatens to sue researchers who documented the rise in hateful tweets
1 year, 8 months ago

Elon Musk threatens to sue researchers who documented the rise in hateful tweets

The Hindu  

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has threatened to sue a group of independent researchers whose research documented an increase in hate speech on the site since it was purchased last year by Elon Musk. An attorney representing the social media site wrote to the Center for Countering Digital Hate on July 20 threatening legal action over …

With the rise of AI, social media platforms could face perfect storm of misinformation in 2024
1 year, 8 months ago

With the rise of AI, social media platforms could face perfect storm of misinformation in 2024

CNN  

New York CNN — Last month, a video posted to Twitter by Florida Gov. Instead, it eventually added a community note — a contributor-led feature to highlight misinformation on the social media platform — to the post, alerting the site’s users that in the video “3 still shots showing Trump embracing Fauci are AI generated images.” Experts in digital information …

AI-generated text is hard to spot. It could play a big role in the 2024 campaign
1 year, 9 months ago

AI-generated text is hard to spot. It could play a big role in the 2024 campaign

NPR  

AI-generated text is hard to spot. While there are still some ways to tell AI-generated images, software aimed at detecting machine-generated text — like Open AI's classifier and GPTZero — often fail. It can also be used to maintain automated accounts by writing human-like content for them to post before they become part of a concerted campaign to push one …

Thousands chatted with this AI ‘virtual girlfriend.’ Then things got even weirder
1 year, 9 months ago

Thousands chatted with this AI ‘virtual girlfriend.’ Then things got even weirder

LA Times  

Social media influencer Caryn Marjorie recently launched an AI chatbot “clone” of herself — and not everyone is happy about it. “I have seen my fans spend thousands of dollars in a matter of days chatting with CarynAI,” Marjorie said; one fan, at the bot’s encouragement, built a shrine-like photo wall of her. She added: “I see AI as a …

AI presents political peril for 2024 with threat to mislead U.S. voters
1 year, 10 months ago

AI presents political peril for 2024 with threat to mislead U.S. voters

The Hindu  

Computer engineers and tech-inclined political scientists have warned for years that cheap, powerful artificial intelligence tools would soon allow anyone to create fake images, video and audio that was realistic enough to fool voters and perhaps sway an election. When you can do that on a large scale, and distribute it on social platforms, well, it’s going to have a …

AI presents political peril for 2024 with threat to mislead voters
1 year, 10 months ago

AI presents political peril for 2024 with threat to mislead voters

Associated Press  

WASHINGTON — Computer engineers and tech-inclined political scientists have warned for years that cheap, powerful artificial intelligence tools would soon allow anyone to create fake images, video and audio that was realistic enough to fool voters and perhaps sway an election. When you can do that on a large scale, and distribute it on social platforms, well, it’s going to …

Chatbot gaffes that expose the chinks in the AI armour
2 years ago

Chatbot gaffes that expose the chinks in the AI armour

The Hindu  

That OpenAI’s ChatGPT has received a lot of attention is well known by now. “A 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center,” the chatbot wrote in the article, “found that 71% of Americans believe it is generally a good thing for society if robots and computers become more capable and sophisticated, while only 27% believe this would be a bad …

Column: Publishers and media watchdogs are struggling with an onslaught of AI-written content
2 years, 1 month ago

Column: Publishers and media watchdogs are struggling with an onslaught of AI-written content

LA Times  

Microsoft has brought artificial intelligence to its Bing search engine, but had to tweak the system when it began to issue weird responses. “Everyone’s talking about this, and a lot of people are focused on what this is going to mean for scientific publishing,” says H. Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals. “This whole craze has taken …

AI threatens to ruin career, expose personal data of user during a conversation. Elon Musk reacts
2 years, 1 month ago

AI threatens to ruin career, expose personal data of user during a conversation. Elon Musk reacts

Hindustan Times  

Microsoft's Bing AI chatbot has been surrounded by controversies since its release. One such conversation was recently posted on Twitter which shows how the chatbot threatened to ruin a user’s career and also expose their personal data. Twitter user Toby Ord, whose bio says he is a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, shared the post. “A short conversation with …

What will 2022 bring in the way of misinformation on social media? 3 experts weigh in
3 years, 3 months ago

What will 2022 bring in the way of misinformation on social media? 3 experts weigh in

Salon  

At the end of 2020, it seemed hard to imagine a worse year for misinformation on social media, given the intensity of the presidential election and the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. Absent regulation, misinformation will get worse Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State University While misinformation has always existed in media – think of the Great Moon …

2021 brings new norms for social media platforms to follow; firms share concerns but subscribe
3 years, 3 months ago

2021 brings new norms for social media platforms to follow; firms share concerns but subscribe

India TV News  

Explosive confrontations and standoffs between social media giants and the government marked a stormy start to 2021, and the coming year promises to be just as action-packed as India brings in legislation to protect personal data, enforces tighter checks on digital platforms and regulates cross border transfer of information. The year began on a turbulent note for social media platforms …

A New Year in misinformation: What garbage will spread on social media in 2022?
3 years, 3 months ago

A New Year in misinformation: What garbage will spread on social media in 2022?

Salon  

At the end of 2020, it seemed hard to imagine a worse year for misinformation on social media, given the intensity of the presidential election and the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media platforms have morphed into public information utilities that control how most people view the world, which makes misinformation they facilitate a fundamental problem for society. The …

Haugen urges lawmakers to avert impasse on social media laws
3 years, 4 months ago

Haugen urges lawmakers to avert impasse on social media laws

Associated Press  

WASHINGTON — Ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen implored lawmakers Wednesday to avert the usual congressional stalemates as they weigh proposals to curb abuses on social media platforms by limiting the companies’ free-speech protections against legal liability. Enacted when many of the most powerful social media companies didn’t even exist, the law allowed companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to …

Facebook, Google, Twitter face grilling by UK lawmakers
3 years, 5 months ago

Facebook, Google, Twitter face grilling by UK lawmakers

India TV News  

British lawmakers are set to grill Facebook and other tech giants Thursday over how they handle online safety as European efforts to regulate social media companies gain momentum. Representatives from Facebook, Google, Twitter, and TikTok will be questioned by members of a parliamentary committee scrutinizing the British government’s draft online safety legislation. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appeared before the U.K. …

Facebook says AI helped reduce hate speech on its platform
4 years, 1 month ago

Facebook says AI helped reduce hate speech on its platform

The Hindu  

Facebook said nearly 97% of the hate speech and harassment content taken down in the final three months of last year were detected by automated systems, before any human flagged it. The social network, in its ‘Community Standards Enforcement Report’, noted that in the fourth quarter ending December 2020, hate speech prevalence dropped to about 0.08% of total content from …

Facebook, Twitter outpaced by smaller platforms in fight against harmful content
4 years, 1 month ago

Facebook, Twitter outpaced by smaller platforms in fight against harmful content

The Hindu  

Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet's YouTube made smaller strides than their social media rivals including TikTok and Reddit at battling harmful content such as hate speech and misinformation during the second half of 2020, a study released on Monday showed. Advertising agency IPG Mediabrands released its "Media Responsibility Index," examining how the top social media platforms performed in 10 areas including …

Apple CEO Tim Cook says algorithms are evil, harming society
4 years, 2 months ago

Apple CEO Tim Cook says algorithms are evil, harming society

India Today  

In an attack on social media platforms, Apple CEO, Tim Cook, urged the world to understand the consequences of blindly trusting algorithm-based platforms that reward dangerous behaviour and even push people towards extremism and polarisation -- all in the name of increasing user engagement. "Can't turn a blind eye to algorithms" Addressing millions across the globe, Cook alluded to the …

The threat of deepfakes
4 years, 2 months ago

The threat of deepfakes

The Hindu  

The protesters who created chaos in Capitol Hill on January 6 believe that the 2020 U.S. election was stolen by the Democrats. Deepfakes — synthetic media, meaning media that are either manipulated or wholly generated by Artificial Intelligence — even have the power to threaten the electoral outcome of the world’s oldest democracy. So far, it has not enacted any …

how social media fared in 2020
4 years, 3 months ago

how social media fared in 2020

The Hindu  

The year 2020 was crucial for Facebook and Twitter, testing the social networks' abilities to curb hate speech and misinformation. Actions in India Facebook was summoned by the joint parliamentary committee in September to discuss how the company allegedly failed to regulate the content favouring the country’s ruling Hindu nationalist party. Several users including author Salman Rushdie and Congress leader …

Facebook working on new tech that can read human brain
4 years, 3 months ago

Facebook working on new tech that can read human brain

India Today  

Facebook is apparently planning to build a new neural sensor that can read people’s minds and convert these thoughts into actions. Facebook has also announced a new tool that summarises news articles into bullets so that readers do not have to spend much time on them, a move that can potentially impact publishers on the social media platform. “We are …

Why The Social Dilemma is the most important documentary of our times
4 years, 6 months ago

Why The Social Dilemma is the most important documentary of our times

The Independent  

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. You don’t get a much clearer statement of social media’s dangers …

AI-Generated Text Is the Scariest Deepfake of All
4 years, 8 months ago

AI-Generated Text Is the Scariest Deepfake of All

Wired  

When pundits and researchers tried to guess what sort of manipulation campaigns might threaten the 2018 and 2020 elections, misleading AI-generated videos often topped the list. Even social media platforms recognize this distinction; their deepfake moderation policies distinguish between media content that is synthetic and that which is merely “modified”. In fact, that knowledge may ultimately pose a different kind …

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