Category: Uncategorized

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  • A Trump Transition

    There are less than 50 days left in the US presidential election, and the internet is on fire with talk about what will happen if Trump doesn’t win. And it’s not just social media. Even major news outlets have floated the idea that if Trump loses, the country is facing a Constitutional Crisis. Back in…

  • Fake News Kills!

    Fake News Kills!

    We spend a lot of time here on Infotagion talking about the danger of disinformation. It’s a threat to democracy, a threat to a stable world order, and in many cases seems to encourage authoritarianism. [cough] Donald Trump. We also do our fair share of handwriting over the possibility that it could be a direct…

  • QAnon

    QAnon

    In another move that seems to be leaving Facebook in the disinformation dust, Twitter has stepped up and cracked down on QAnon conspiracy theory and the users that promote it. QAnon is a loosely knit theory that holds that Donald Trump — who wishes Ghislaine Maxwell well, and that barely knew Jeffrey Epstein in all…

  • Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian Interference

    Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian Interference

    The report was the result of a bipartisan investigation that lasted three and a half years, examined more than a million documents and took evidence from over 200 witnesses As we said, it’s the final volume (volume five) of the inquiry reports, and comes in at 966 pages It documents extensive contacts between the Trump…

  • iOS 14

    iOS 14

    I’ve been looking at privacy and iPhones. Apple is known for being more user-centric than, say Google or Facebook, at least with regard to privacy, as it operates off a completely different financial model. Where Google and Facebook are selling ads based on their massive data-gathering operations, Apple is selling hardware. They’re shipping atoms, not…

  • TikTok vs Trump

    TikTok vs Trump

    Til-Tok is a relatively new social media platform that emphasises funny, quick videos made by users. It got popular in the west when it merged with the Musical-ly app in 2018, and rebranded itself from it’s original Chinese name, Douyin. The last time we saw Til-Tok in the news was following Donald Trump’s much touted…

  • Facebook Ads and Healthcare

    Facebook Ads and Healthcare

    Anne Bordon King, an advocate against pseudoscience who does work around fake cures for autism was recently diagnosed with cancer, and has written an editorial about it in the New York Times. Since her diagnosis, she says she’s been bombarded with quackery ads on her Facebook wall. Mostly they’re for what she calls “alternative cancer…

  • The IRA is Outsourcing to Africa

    The IRA is Outsourcing to Africa

    I’ve been looking this week at new developments in Russian trolling. Pressure from Western governments on the companies, as well as pressure from users, has forced the hand of Twitter and Facebook. Tech companies are beginning to pay more attention to Russian trolling campaigns. And in response, Russian troll farms have become more creative. Earlier…

  • Is Cambridge Analytica Back?

    Is Cambridge Analytica Back?

    A bit of panic swept around the internet this week because it looked like Cambridge Analytica was rearing its head again. Journalist Carole Cadwalladr tweeted an OMG with a video seeking out Facebook whistleblowers. But what really set off the panic was that the post was from an account called “Cambridge Analytica”. The tweet is…