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| Covid-19: How fake news and Modi government messaging fuelled India’s latest spiral of Islamophobia | Scroll |
| In Defence Colony – a lush, tony locality primarily built for retired defence personnel in the heart of prosperous South Delhi – a Muslim security guard was blamed when his employers, three of a family, tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the first week of April. | |
| ‘Creator’ of COVID-19: How Bill Gates became a right wing target amid global coronavirus scare | NY Times |
| The Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist has been attacked with falsehoods that he created the coronavirus and wants to profit from it. | |
| Behind rallies to reopen economy, a Minnesota activist and his family | Minnesota Public Radio |
| Last week, as cars and people filled the street in front of the governor’s residence, demanding an end to restrictions meant to fight COVID-19, a live video of the protest appeared on the group Minnesota Gun Rights’ Facebook page. | |
| Calling out fake news | The Hindu |
| The COVID-19 crisis sees a spurt in fake news posts and videos targeting the Muslim community. | |
| Misinformation about coronavirus is more troubling than you think | The Hill |
| The novel coronavirus and its global spread are garnering more coverage than any other news event in the modern era. And rightly so — the virus is quickly becoming one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and beyond. | |
| Politicians and scientists need strong connections during the coronavirus crisis — and beyond | The Conversation |
| The reaction of governments to the coronavirus pandemic perfectly illustrates the importance of maintaining strong links between the scientific and political communities. Federal and provincial political leaders in Canada are working closely with scientific experts to slow the spread of the infection, combat misinformation and respond quickly and effectively. | |
| Conspiracy theorists burn 5G towers claiming link to virus | Associated Press |
| LONDON – The CCTV footage from a Dutch business park shows a man in a black cap pouring the contents of a white container at the base of a cellular radio tower. Flames burst out as the man jogs back to his Toyota to flee into the evening. | |
| How Facebook Works for Trump | The Atlantic |
| Donald Trump won the presidency by using the social network’s advertising machinery in exactly the way the company wanted. He’s poised to do it again. | |
| How Not to Lose the COVID-19 Communication War | Slate |
| COVID-19 has put science in a tricky spot. The good news, as National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt explains, is that scientific expertise is back in high demand: “When the chips are down and everything is on the line and you can be the next person in the hospital bed, it’s the experts that you want to listen to.” But there’s a serious potential downside for science in having the public’s ear: Today’s high-profile expert assertions can be disproven by tomorrow’s events. For example, if public health interventions such as social distancing are effective, COVID-19-related deaths in the United States could stay well below predictions offered by epidemiological models. Successful policy interventions might seemingly prove early expert estimates “wrong.” | |
| Opinion | Dr. Oz’s hydroxychloroquine advocacy seduces Trump as coronavirus wellness woo surges | NBC News |
| Celebrity health advice was mostly bunk before this pandemic emerged. It is bunk now. And it will be bunk after the crisis passes. | |
| The Australian Government Looks to Implement New Laws to Make Google and Facebook Pay News Publishers | Social Media Today |
| In what could be a significant move in the broader regulation of the digital eco-sphere, the Australian Government has announced that it’s looking to provide financial assistance to struggling local news organizations by implementing a new, mandatory code of conduct which would require Google and Facebook to share any revenue they generate as a result of news content with the relevant publishers of such material. | |
| Facebook’s AI detects fake accounts with fewer than 20 friend requests | Venture Beat |
| In a paper highlighted today in a Facebook blog post, engineers describe an algorithm — SybilEdge — to detect fake accounts that evade Facebook’s anti-abuse filters at registration time but that haven’t friended enough people to perpetuate abuse. The goal is to mitigate the accounts’ ability to launch attacks against other users, in part by comparing the way users add friends to their extended social networks. | |
| Coronavirus: Could Reading About the Pandemic Cause Harm? | The Conversation |
| Scary health stories about COVID-19 might be causing “nocebo effects,” in which we become more ill because we expect to. | |
| Facebook to warn users who ‘liked’ coronavirus hoaxes, in bid to curb misinformation | Assosciated Press |
| New York: Have you liked or commented on a Facebook post about the COVID-19 pandemic? | |
| China and India lead surge in demand for news subscriptions | Nikkei |
| TOKYO — Growing numbers of consumers are seeking access to online news and entertainment, but with less than half willing to pay that could create information gaps along income lines, the World Economic Forum has warned. | |
| The corona conspiracies are unhinged – but is denouncing people all that helpful? | CapX |
| The go-to tool for puncturing outlandish conspiracy theories is Occam’s razor, the principle that the simplest explanation for something is also the most likely to be true. | |
| FBI concerned about potential for hate crimes during coronavirus pandemic | CNN |
| Federal investigators are concerned about the potential for hate crimes against minorities in the wake of the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic, according to the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. | |
| Data breach shows Iranians use chat apps to spy, researchers say | Bloomberg |
| After a ban on Telegram, some Iranians circumvented it by using software such as VPNs, which allowed them to bypass the country’s block on the Telegram website, according to Rashidi. Others began downloading unofficial versions of Telegram, called Hotgram and Telegram Gold, which rely on the same underlying code as the official app but aren’t operated by Telegram. Security experts suspected that the unofficial apps may have been developed by the Iranian government as a means to monitor the country’s citizens. | |
| Opinion: Canada’s elected leaders exhibit a woeful lack of digital engagement – now is time to change that | CBC News | CBC |
| Little has been done to realize the potential of using two-way digital connectivity to enrich democracy. | |
| ‘It’s overwhelming’: On the frontline to combat coronavirus ‘fake news’ | POLITICO |
| Fact-checkers in Europe and the Americas said the job was taking a toll on their mental health. | |
| RSF complains to UN about coronavirus press freedom violations | Reporters Without Borders |
| Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has written to two United Nations special rapporteurs asking them to formally condemn governments that have violated the right to information in connection with the coronavirus epidemic, thereby putting public health and lives in danger both in their own countries and the rest of the world. | |
| Why the confusion about Kim Jong Un’s health actually makes sense | CNN |
| Confusing and sometimes conflicting reports emerged Tuesday about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. That was followed by intense speculation on his whereabouts, his medical condition and the future of the world’s only hereditary communist state. | |
| Democracies Can’t Blame Putin for Their Disinformation Problem | Foreign Policy ($) |
| The focus on foreign subversion ignores the damage being done at home. | |
| Where is the vaccination against conspiracy theories? | The National |
| International research is under way to better understand the psychological, social and neuroscientific effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The early work has established what many of us would have anticipated: a rise in rates of depression and anxiety. Our own survey work across the UAE of 1,051 people and counting, undertaken by psychologists at Zayed University, echoes these findings. | |
| Jaaved Jaaferi to take legal action against social media user over fake tweet | IANS |
| Actor Jaaved Jaaferi said he will file a defamation suit against a social media user for circulating an alleged fake tweet under his name. A screenshot in the name of Jaaferi was doing the rounds on social media claiming the actor made anti-Hindu comments. | |
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