Maria Ressa blasts social media as she receives Nobel Peace Prize

Maria Ressa warned against the role of unfettered social media in spreading lies and division.

The crucial role of journalism in a free democratic society was the message of  the two journalists -- Maria Ressa and Dmetry Murotov -- who received the Nobel Peace Prize Friday.

"Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that's coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money," said Filipina American Ressa as she received the coveted award.

She accused U.S. social media giants like Facebook of spreading a "flood of toxic sludge" sowing division and hate through their platforms.

"Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that's coursing through our information ecosystem," said Ressa, the first Filipino American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

The 58-year old co-founder the online news outlet Rappler in the Philippines has long been a vocal critic of social media that she accused Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte of weaponizing by hiring trolls to spread lies and half-truths against her and Rappler because of their criticism of Duterte's extrajudicial was on drugs that has fostered vigilante violence throughout the Philippines.

READ or WATCH Maria Ressa's Nobel Peace Prize speech.

"The attacks against us in Rappler began five years ago when we demanded an end to impunity on two fronts: Duterte's drug war and Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook," she said.

“These American companies controlling our global information ecosystem are biased against facts, biased against journalists,” she said. “They are — by design — dividing us and radicalizing us.”

The 2020 elections in the U.S. and the upcoming Presidential election in the Philippines in 2022 are war zones with democracy in the two countries at stake, she has warned earlier.

"You have to know what values you are fighting for, and you have to draw the lines early -- but if you haven't done so, do it now: where this side you're good, and this side, you're evil," she told her Nebel audience in Oslo, Norway. "Some governments may be lost causes, and if you're working in tech, I'm talking to you: How can you have election integrity if you don't have integrity of facts?"

The social network has been under intense scrutiny in recent years for how its algorithms promote content. CEOs and representatives of Facebook, Twitter and other media giants have been grilled by Congressional committees for their role in spreading false information. U.S. civil rights organizations have tried to convince Facebook leadership that it must address the use of its platform to spread voter disinformation, to intimidate and incite hate against vulnerable populations, and to otherwise undermine democracy. 

Ressa and her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was a young girl became an American citizen in 1973. She worked for CNN before founding Rappler.

Murotov, 60, is the editor in chief of Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s most outspoken national newspaper, for more than 25 years. He warned about the escalation of war rhetoric and the rise of authoritative leaders.

“The world has fallen out of love with democracy,” Muratov said in his acceptance  speech. “The world has become disappointed with the elites in power. The world has begun to turn to dictatorship.”

Facebook, Instagram unblock #Sikh; apologize for 'mistake'

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After blocking hashtag #Sikh for nearly three months, Instagram and Facebook finally unblocked the hashtag after admitting that they made a “mistake.”

Tribune India reported users learned about the blocked hashtag after attempting to post about the injustices faced in Operation Blue Star of 1984. According to Independent, users were unable to search or post anything if they used hashtag #Sikh. Instead, users read an error message that said, “Posts for this hashtag are temporarily hidden because of unusual activity that may not meet Instagram’s Community Guidelines.”

This issue was recently brought to widespread public attention after Sikh Press Association, a national news agency representing the Sikh community, publicly questioned Instagram and Facebook on June 3rd. Sikh Press Associate wrote in a tweet, “In the same week that #Neverforget1984 trends on Twitter, Instagram seemingly conspires to suppress the truth about the atrocities of the 1984 Sikh genocide by censoring the faith of 27 million people.”

Times of India dubbed Operation Bluestar as a “painful memory” to the Sikh community. The Operation was carried out by the Indian Army in June 1984 to wipe out militants in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a city in India. In the process, millions of Sikhs were killed.

Canada-based author Rupi Kaur also tweeted: “The hypocrisy of @facebook’s approach to free speech: Zuckerberg says fb’s [facebook’s] principles prohibit him from blocking trump as he incites violence & hate. Meanwhile as Sikhs raise their voice to mark the injustices of 1984: Sikh hashtags are blocked. @amy-xiaoshi-depaolainstagramcomms do better.

In response to Kaur, Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief executive said he had never heard about the issue before. “Not sure what’s going on here, but we’re looking into it and will circle back,” wrote Mosseri from his personal account.

Soon after, Instagram announced that the block had been reversed. In a tweet, Instagram wrote, “Thanks for your patience today. We investigated this issue and found that these hashtags were mistakenly blocked on March 7th following a report that was inaccurately reviewed by our teams.”

The social media platform claimed the tag was added to a ban list after a report was inaccurately filtered out by its teams. Instagram immediately owned up to its mistake by tweeting, “We became aware that these hashtags were blocked today following feedback we received from the community, and quickly moved to unblock them. Our processes fell down here, and we’re sorry.”

The company further stressed, “This is an incredibly important, painful time for the Sikh community. We designed hashtags to allow people to come together and share with one another. It’s never our intention to silence the voices of this community, we are taking the necessary steps so this doesn’t happen again.”

Earlier this week, Instagram tendered an apology for inadvertently blocking #BlackLivesMatter. Instagram explained that a defect in its spam detection system caused the latest glitch, according to India Today.

However, Mail Online suggested that unlike Facebook and Instagram’s other apparent mixups in the recent months, the word Sikh had been blocked because of the companies’ human error, instead of algorithm.

As the company failed to follow up on why and how the word ‘Sikh’ was blocked or how the ban escaped detection for so long, many netizens took on social media to portray their rage.

One user commented directly on Instagram Comms thread, “This is nowhere near enough information or a proper explanation. An entire community erased as a hashtag from Instagram and Facebook over an ‘inaccurately reviewed report.”

Many others demanded further explanation behind what happened how these global social media giants would never make the same mistake again.

Kamala Haris wants Facebook to clamp down on misleading GOP advertisements about the Census

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Kamala Harris wants Facebook to take stronger measures against misleading ads.

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US Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) took Facebook executives to task over misleading 2020 Census advertisements on its site.
In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg on March 5, Harris criticized the company for its “failure to enforce [its] policies banning misinformation.”

Facebook had run “thousands” of ads from Donald Trump Make America Great Again, a fundraising arm of President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, asking users to take the “Official 2020 Congressional District Census.”

“President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today. We need to hear from you before the most important election in American history,” the ad said. It then asked users to “respond NOW” and text “TRUMP to 8022,” according to The New York Times.

But instead of being taken to the U.S. Census Bureau government site, users were instead redirected to a Trump campaign page with “misleading information on how to take the census,” including dates, times, locations, and methods, according to Harris’s letter. The census had not begun to survey the public at the time.

The ads were still approved and ran for “hours,” even after the company was made aware of the misinformation by Vanita Gupta, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Harris is just one of the Democrats criticizing Facebook for running the misleading ads. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called it “a robust unacceptable interference in the census” in a press conference Thursday, The Hill reported.

In response, a Facebook spokesman replied that they received Harris’s letter and “look forward to clarifying the policies Facebook has in place to prevent confusion around the official U.S. census.”

The advertisements have since been removed, but Harris is concerned that the company’s initial approval of the ads is a signal that Facebook is “now backing away from full enforcement of those policies.” Such misinformation in future elections could result in voter disenfranchisement.

It is also a concern for the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, which the U.S. Census Bureau has recognized as difficult to count, due to language barriers and the “large number of first-generation immigrants, estimated to be at least two-thirds of the over 22 million AAPI in the US,” according to AAPI Data.

There’s already confusion, worry, and lack of knowledge about the census, which is why activist groups are taking it upon themselves to educate communities on the benefits of taking the census, including how the information may be used.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus member An Le had expressed concern about non-English speakers, particularly in California, who would fall through the cracks without appropriate outreach and information.

Gupta echoed the concerns of Harris and other civil rights leaders in a recent statement:

“While we’re gratified that Facebook shut down Trump’s attempt to sow confusion about how and when to participate in the 2020 census, it’s disturbing that the ads weren’t immediately removed,” Gupta said. “We will continue to hold Facebook accountable to enforce it. Nothing should distract from making sure everyone gets counted.”

Sunday Read: Facebook bans hundreds of fake accounts generated by Epoch Times

EPOCH TIMES

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Facebook Friday (Dec. 20) removed hundreds of accounts generated by the Epoch Times which included profile photos produced using artificial intelligence, reported the New York Times.

The newspaper, founded in 2000 by followers of the Falun Gong religious movement “as an antidote to communist propaganda,” has reportedly been spending millions of dollars to reach new readers with its pro-Donald Trump message.

The Epoch Times is backed by the Falun Gong and tied to disinformation campaigns with a pro-Trump bias.

“This was a large, brazen network that had multiple layers of fake accounts and automation that systematically posted content with two ideological focuses: support of Donald Trump and opposition to the Chinese government,” Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said to the New York Times.

NBC News described the publication as "straddling the line between an ultraconservative news outlet and a conspiracy warehouse." The newspaper dramatically expanded its U.S. coverage following the election of Donald Trump and has become one of Trump's most ardent defenders on social media, spending at least $1.5 million on pro-Trump advertisements in the first half of 2019. 

Shortly after NBC News published its report, Facebook announced that it had banned the Epoch Times from advertising on the platform.

It featured the fake news Trump likes to rail against except, of course, when it benefits him. The Epoch Media group denied to the New York Times that it is behind the accounts removed by Facebook and claimed Facebook did not contact it.

Examples of postings from the fake accounts.

The Epoch Media Group acknowledged some of its former employees are involved with the banned accounts, but said that is not evidence of a connection.

According to Fast Company, the Epoch Times strongly opposes the Chinese communist party with a decidedly strong pro-Trump bias.

In news articles, videos and social-media posts, however, the Epoch Times — along with video production company New Tang Dynasty, which is also owned by parent organization Epoch Media Group — has repeatedly promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents claim that Trump is leading a secret effort to uncover a global pedophile ring that includes many top Democrats, media figures and other members of the so-called "Deep State."

In August, NBC News reported the Epoch Times purchased 11,000 pro-Trump ads on Facebook at a cost of $1.5 million in six months. The ads spread conspiracy theories and criticized “fake news” media. Facebook banned the Epoch Times from advertising following the report.

Both the Epoch Times and the Shen Yun dance troupe make up the bulk of the outreach efforts of the Falon Gong. Shen Yun isn't just a dance show. It's also part of an elaborate messaging strategy for Falun Gong — also known as Falun Dafa — a Chinese religious and political group persecuted within China that opposes the country's ruling party. The Chinese government began to consider the group a threat in 1999 due to its large following.

Dancers are trained at the Fei Tan Academy of the Arts, which is part of a 427-acre refuge for Falun Gong adherents in upstate New York. Profits from Shen Yun shows go towards maintaining the academy. The dance companies also, unusually, have a mixture of paid and unpaid performers, according to Hazlitt.

Shen Yun has a wide reach. It's playing in 94 different American cities this year, and has dozens of other shows in Canada, Mexico, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand — but not, as you can imagine, China.
Shen Yun has resisted talking to media about the accusations, but social media is full of comments to indicate that dance entertainment is not the primary goal of the company. 

On Friday, fact-checking website Snopes reported that an affiliated organization called “The BL,” for “The Beauty of Life,” has recently been posting pro-Trump ads on Facebook. The Epoch Times denies that it is tied to The BL, however, Snopes reported that it’s largely run by former executives from the paper.

Facebook has come under criticism for choosing to continue to publish political advertising that might have false claims.  Other online companies such as Google and Twitter, have overhauled their political ads policies and severely limited campaigns’ ability to target voters — and Facebook is under mounting pressure to do the same.

The Verge reports that those fake accounts would post BL content in other Facebook groups while pretending to be Americans. Pro-Trump messages were often posted “at very high frequencies” and linked to off-platform sites belonging to the BL and The Epoch Times. The accounts and pages were managed by individuals in the US and Vietnam.

In an apparent shift from its policy, Facebook said that it removed 610 accounts, 89 Facebook pages, 156 groups, and 72 Instagram accounts that were connected to the organization. Around 55 million accounts followed one of these Facebook pages and 92,000 followed at least one of the Instagram accounts. The organization spent nearly $9.5 million in advertisements, according to Facebook.

The Epoch Times claimed, "NBC News and MSNBC content about us has been riddled with inaccuracies, blatant errors, and misrepresentations.

“We take advantage of different marketing platforms to grow our subscriber base, including Facebook," The Epoch Times said in a statement to its readers. "On Facebook, we use video ads to drive subscriptions. The Epoch Times’ subscription advertisements have no political agenda. The only reason some of them are run as ‘political advertising’ is that online platforms require them to be categorized as such.”

"The Epoch Times is an independently owned media and not owned or operated by Falun Gong, as we clarified in our statement to NBC News," concluded the Epoch statement.

REPORT: Asian Americans slowly move into Facebook senior leadership

FACEBOOK

Although Facebook has shown slight improvement in its goals to diversify its workforce, the social media giant admitted it had a long way to go, according to its sixth annual diversity report released Tuesday (July 16).

"Since 2014, when our strategic efforts began, we've made some progress increasing the number of people from traditionally underrepresented groups employed at Facebook but we recognize that we need to do more," the report says.

Asian Americans in senior management improved from 21.6% in 2018 to 24.9%, a vast improvement since diversity statistics have been gathered for the social media company in 2014 when Asian Americans made up only 19% of its leadership team.

However, looking at the overall US workforce where Asian Americans make up 43% of workers they are still underrepresented in leadership roles when you take into account that the total Asian workforce in the US actually increased from 35% to 44% from 2014 to 2019.

SCREEN CAPTURE / BLOOMBERG NEWS

In general, the high-tech industry has come under criticism for its lack of diversity in its workforce and the perceived bamboo ceiling hampering Asian American advancement. As a result, some companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo have begun programs to increase the diversity of its employees with varying degrees of success.

The situation with Asian Americans slow move into the board rooms at Facebook is an industry-wide problem. There is a perception that Asian Americans - men and women - lack the leadership qualities to be effective managers.

It's difficult to gauge the progress made without the actual number of positions Facebook is talking about considering the company has experienced tremendous growth in five years.

The report reveals that the company, globally, is 63.1 percent male and 36.9 percent female, only slightly changed from the 63.7 percent male and 36.3 percent female workforce that it reported last year. In technical roles, that changes to 77 percent male and 23 percent female, whereas last year, it was 78.4 percent and 21.6 percent. Among senior leadership, it's 67.4 percent male, down from 70 percent last year.

As for ethnicity data, Facebook only breaks out its stats for the US.  Facebook says, its US workforce is 44.2 percent white, 43 percent Asian, 5.2 percent Hispanic, and 3.8 percent Black, with 3.1 percent of its employees reporting being from two or more backgrounds, and 0.7 percent marked down as "other."

By comparison, last year, Facebook said that its US workforce was 46.6 percent white, 41.4 percent Asian, 4.9 percent Hispanic, and 3.5 percent Black, with 3 percent reporting two or more, and 0.6 percent reporting as "other."

"Since 2014, when our strategic efforts began, we've made some progress increasing the number of people from traditionally underrepresented groups employed at Facebook but we recognize that we need to do more," Facebook says in its report.

The report reveals that the company, globally, is 63.1 percent male and 36.9 percent female, only slightly changed from the 63.7 percent male and 36.3 percent female workforce that it reported last year. In technical roles, that changes to 77 percent male and 23 percent female, whereas last year, it was 78.4 percent and 21.6 percent. Among senior leadership, it's 67.4 percent male, down from 70 percent last year.

As for ethnicity data, Facebook only breaks out its stats for the US. Across its American operations, Facebook says, its workforce is 44.2 percent white, 43 percent Asian, 5.2 percent Hispanic, and 3.8 percent Black, with 3.1 percent of its employees reporting being from two or more backgrounds, and 0.7 percent marked down as "other."

By comparison, last year, Facebook said that its US workforce was 46.6 percent white, 41.4 percent Asian, 4.9 percent Hispanic, and 3.5 percent Black, with 3 percent reporting two or more, and 0.6 percent reporting as "other."

A majority of the Asian Americans employeed by Facebook are concentrated in the technical fields where they make up over 51% of the workforce. They are least represented in marketing and business operations where they compose 24.7% of the workforce.

Asian Americans make up 43% of Facebook's US workforce.

Asian Americans make up almost 25% of Facebook's American senior management team.

Despite these relatively small changes, Facebook touts that it's been moving in the right direction, with more women and people from underrepresented groups joining its technical organizations, and more women joining the ranks of leadership by being promoted from within.

"Today, there are more people of diverse backgrounds and experiences, more people of color, more women in both technical and business roles, and more underrepresented people in leadership here," wrote Maxine Williams, Facebook's Global Diversity Officer in a blog.

"Most notably, we’ve achieved higher representation of women in leadership by focusing on hiring and growing female leaders within the company. Over the last several years, the majority of new female leaders were internally promoted. Also, since 2014, we have increased the number of Black women at Facebook by 25X and the number of Black men by 10X. And importantly, even as we have grown, we have worked very hard on making Facebook a more welcoming, respectful workplace."

Recognizing the difficulties in having its workforce more representative of the US, Facebook has nevertheless set lofty goals for itself.

"We envision a company where in the next five years, at least 50% of our workforce will be women, people who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islanders, people with two or more ethnicities, people with disabilities, and veterans," continued Williams in her blog. "In doing this, we aim to double our number of women globally and Black and Hispanic employees in the US. It will be a company that reflects and better serves the people on our platforms, services and products. It will be a more welcoming community advancing our mission and living up to the responsibility that comes with it."

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Facebook's Zuckerbergs' security chief accused of making racis remarks

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Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg.

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The man in charge of security for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is accused of sexual harassment and making racist remarks about Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, as well as uttering homophobic comments, reported the Business Insider.
The accusations against Liam Booth come from two former employees of the CEO's private staff. One was reportedly part of Zuckerberg’s household staff and the other is the former executive assistant to Booth. Neither accuser has been publicly named, but both have retained a law firm to represent them.

Both have written legal demand letters which outline “horrific levels of sexual harassment and battery” and a racist, homophobic and transphobic environment, according to the Business Insider.

The two also accused Brian Mosteller, the managing director of Zuckerberg’s private office, to not responding to the two’s complaints.

CNET reports Facebook spends $20 million each year on Zuckerberg’s security and travel.

”The allegations against Liam Booth were brought to the office’s attention for the first time by The Bloom Firm after both former employees had left employment by the family office and engaged legal counsel,” said Ben LaBolt, Zuckerberg’s family office spokesman. 

“As soon as The Bloom Firm presented these allegations, the family office engaged Munger, Tolles & Olson, an outside law firm, to conduct an investigation of all allegations made by The Bloom Firm to determine whether the claims have merit. The investigation is ongoing. Mr. Booth is on administrative leave pending the completion of this investigation.”

Booth referred reporters to Zuckerberg’s spokesperson. Mosteller did not respond.

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DHS plans to monitor social media activity of immigrants

LOST AMIDST the cyclone of issues swirling around the White House and its current occupant, mainstream media hasn't had time to focus on a policy that allows the government to monitor the social media accounts and internet search history of legal immigrants.

The Department of Homeland Security intends to launch this highly questionable and threat to privacy in October 18, the same day that the latest iteration of President Donald Trump’s travel ban is set begin.

This policy would mean the government will be able to delve into an immigrant's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts in hopes finding somewhere among the selfies and food porn a smidgen of anti-government sentiment such as "Trump (fill in the blank)."

"This chills and deters the free speech and association not just of these immigrants and visitors, but also of all the U.S. citizens who communicate with them," said Adam Schwartz in a statement from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for free speech  rights online.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the new rule in the Federal Register last week, saying it wants to include "social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results" as part of people's immigration file, according to Buzzfeed which first broke the story.

"DHS published this notice in the Federal Register on Sept. 18 to comply with the administrative requirements of the Privacy Act to help address these requirements, not launch a new policy initiative," the agency said. "DHS, in its law-enforcement and immigration-process capacity, has and continues to monitor publicly-available social media to protect the homeland."

The policy applies to not just immigration applicants, but also to naturalized U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

In a statement issued Thursday (Sept. 28), the ACLU said that the new rule “makes clear that the government intends to retain the social media information of people who have immigrated to this country, singling out a huge group of people to maintain files on what they say."

"This would undoubtedly have a chilling effect on the free speech that's expressed every day on social media. This collect-it-all approach is ineffective to protect national security and is one more example of the Trump administration's anti-immigrant agenda."” said Faiz Shakir, ACLU national political director.

The new policy will require immigrants during the vetting process for visas to disclose their social media accounts of the last five years . The agency will now collect inforation including “social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results” on immigrants, including permanent residents and naturalized citizens.

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