Related Research Articles
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American technology giant Meta Platforms. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age limit is 14 years. As of December 2022, Facebook claimed 3 billion monthly active users. As of October 2023 Facebook ranked as the 3rd most visited website in the world with 22.56% of its traffic coming from the United States. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.
Parler is a now-closed American alt-tech social networking service associated with conservatives. Launched in August 2018, Parler marketed itself as a free speech-focused and unbiased alternative to mainstream social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Journalists described Parler as an alt-tech alternative to Twitter, with its users including those banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose their moderation policies.
Section 230 is a section of Title 47 of the United States Code that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
The Federalist is an American conservative online magazine and podcast that covers politics, policy, culture, and religion, and publishes a newsletter. The site was co-founded by Ben Domenech and Sean Davis and launched in September 2013.
Social media analytics or Social media monitoring is the process of gathering and analyzing data from social networks. It is commonly used by marketers to track online conversations about products and companies. One author defined it as "the art and science of extracting valuable hidden insights from vast amounts of semi-structured and unstructured social media data to enable informed and insightful decision-making."
Minds is an open-source and distributed social network. Users can earn money or cryptocurrency for using Minds, and tokens can be used to boost their posts or crowdfund other users. Minds has been described as more privacy-focused than mainstream social media networks. Writers in The New York Times, Engadget, and Vice have noted the volume of far-right users and content on the platform, following a trend across social media. Minds describes itself as focused on free speech, and minimally moderates the content on its platform. Its founders have said that they do not remove extremist content from the site out of a desire to deradicalize those who post it through civil discourse.
Social media played an important role in shaping the course of events leading up to, during, and after the 2016 United States presidential election. It enabled people to have a greater interaction with the political climate, controversies, and news surrounding the candidates. Unlike traditional news platforms, such as newspapers, radio, and magazines, social media gave people the ability to comment below a candidate's advertisement, news surrounding the candidates, or articles regarding the policy of the candidates. It also allowed people to formulate their own opinions on public forums and sites and allowed for greater interaction among voters. The accessibility of information online enabled more voters to educate themselves on candidates' positions on issues, which in turn enabled them to form unique opinions on candidates and vote on those opinions, ultimately impacting the election's outcome.
Donald Trump's use of social media attracted attention worldwide since he joined Twitter in May 2009. Over nearly twelve years, Trump tweeted around 57,000 times, including about 8,000 times during the 2016 election campaign and over 25,000 times during his presidency. The White House said the tweets should be considered official statements. When Twitter banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 during the final days of his term, his handle @realDonaldTrump had over 88.9 million followers. On November 19, 2022, Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, reinstated his account, although Trump has stated he will not use it in favor of his own social media, Truth Social. The first tweet since 2021 was made in August 2023 about his mugshot from Fulton County Jail, but the account has since remained inactive.
Deplatforming, also known as no-platforming, has been defined as an "attempt to boycott a group or individual through removing the platforms used to share information or ideas", or "the action or practice of preventing someone holding views regarded as unacceptable or offensive from contributing to a forum or debate, especially by blocking them on a particular website."
In the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected without their consent by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, predominantly to be used for political advertising.
Social media use in politics refers to the use of online social media platforms in political processes and activities. Political processes and activities include all activities that pertain to the governance of a country or area. This includes political organization, global politics, political corruption, political parties, and political values.
Social media was used extensively in the 2020 United States presidential election. Both incumbent president Donald Trump and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden's campaigns employed digital-first advertising strategies, prioritizing digital advertising over print advertising in the wake of the pandemic. Trump had previously utilized his Twitter account to reach his voters and make announcements, both during and after the 2016 election. The Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden also made use of social media networks to express his views and opinions on important events such as the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the controversial appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
The Oversight Board is a body that makes consequential precedent-setting content moderation decisions on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, in a form of "platform self-governance".
Yael Eisenstat is vice president at the Anti-Defamation League, where she heads the Center for Technology and Society. A long-time democracy activist, she was most recently the Senior Advisor for Tech and Democracy at the Institute for Security and Technology and a Future of Democracy Fellow at the Berggruen Institute. She was a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, a National Security Advisor to former Vice President Joe Biden, and diplomat. In 2019–2020, she was a visiting fellow at Cornell Tech, focusing on technology's effects on democracy where she taught a course on tech, media and democracy. From 2017 to 2019, she was an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University. From June - November 2018, she was the Global Head of Elections Integrity Ops for political advertising at Facebook. She has become a vocal critic of the company since leaving. Currently, she specializes in ethics, technology and policy.
Rumble is an online video platform, web hosting and cloud services business headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with its U.S. headquarters in Longboat Key, Florida. It was founded in October 2013 by Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian technology entrepreneur. The cloud services business hosts Truth Social, and the video platform is popular among American right and far-right users. The platform has been described as "alt-tech".
Emma L. Briant is a British scholar and academic researcher on media, contemporary propaganda, surveillance and information warfare who was involved in exposing the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal concerning data misuse and disinformation. She became Associate Professor of News and Political Communication at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia in 2023. Before this she was an associate researcher at Bard College and taught in the School of Communication at American University. Briant became an honorary associate in Cambridge University Center for Financial Reporting & Accountability, headed by Alan Jagolinzer, and joined Central European University, as a Fellow in the Center for Media, Data and Society in 2022.
In 2021, an internal document leak from the company then known as Facebook showed it was aware of harmful societal effects from its platforms, yet persisted in prioritizing profit over addressing these harms. The leak, released by whistleblower Frances Haugen, resulted in reporting from The Wall Street Journal in September, as The Facebook Files series, as well as the Facebook Papers, by a consortium of news outlets the next month.
Truth Social is an alt-tech social media platform created by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), an American media and technology company founded in October 2021 by former US president Donald Trump. It has been called a "Twitter clone" that competes with Parler, Gab, and Mastodon in trying to provide an alternative to Twitter and Facebook.
The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.
Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei is a human rights lawyer and member of Meta's Oversight Board. She works as program manager for the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). Her areas of expertise include human rights, women's rights, criminal justice, access to information and media freedom issues on the African continent. She is a citizen of both Ghana and South Africa.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "While Facebook works to create an oversight board, industry experts formed their own". NBC News. September 25, 2020.
- 1 2 3 Newton, Casey (Oct 23, 2020). "Facebook's new Oversight Board is a wild new experiment in platform governance". The Verge.
- ↑ "'The Real Facebook Oversight Board' launches to counter Facebook's 'Oversight Board'". TechCrunch.
- ↑ "Facebook critics launch 'Real Facebook Oversight Board'". ComputerWeekly.com.
- 1 2 3 "The Citizens". The Citizens. September 16, 2020.
- 1 2 "Meta courting an election disaster; here's what needs to change", The Muncie Star Press (November 6, 2022), p. D1, D2.
- ↑ Barbara Ortutay and Jill Colvin, "Donald Trump to be allowed back on Facebook after 2-year ban", The Marshall Times (February 3, 2023), p. 38.
- ↑ Kate Klonick, "The Facebook Oversight Board: Creating an Independent Institution to Adjudicate Online Free Expression", Yale Law Journal , Vol. 129, No. 2418 (July 20, 2020).
- ↑ Douek, Evelyn (January 28, 2021). "The Facebook Oversight Board's First Decisions: Ambitious, and Perhaps Impractical". Lawfare.
- 1 2 DeBré, Elena (January 28, 2021). "The Independent Facebook Oversight Board Has Made Its First Rulings". Slate.
- ↑ Klar, Rebecca (April 16, 2021). "Facebook Oversight Board to rule on Trump ban in 'coming weeks'". The Hill.
- ↑ "Big Tech accused of failing to tackle U.S. midterm 'lies'". October 6, 2022 – via www.reuters.com.
- ↑ Dave, Paresh (December 20, 2022). "Facebook held back on naming Cambridge Analytica in 2017 -deposition". Reuters.
- ↑ Lock, Samantha (January 26, 2023). "'Reckless': Fury among rights groups as Facebook lifts Trump ban". The Guardian .