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Ill Advice: A Case Study in Facebook’s Failure to Tackle COVID-19 Disinformation

Aoife Gallagher, Macckenzie Hart, Ciarán O'Connor

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) (2021), 34 pp.

"Despite detailed policies on mis- and disinformation and promises to enforce them, social media platforms are failing to tackle prominent groups and individuals who spread false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines online. Using the World Doctors Alliance1 as a case study, a group that has spread var ... ious problematic, false and conspiratorial claims about COVID-19 and vaccines, ISD found that 78% of the group’s 1.2 million online followers are found on mainstream platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok) who claim to prohibit this kind of content. The Facebook pages of World Doctors Alliance members have a following of over 550,000 users, which increased by 13,215% between January 2020 and July 2021. Videos posted by these Facebook pages have been viewed more than 21.1 million times. These pages have accumulated a total of 5.77 million interactions since January 2020, with interaction rates increasing by 85% in the first six months of 2021 compared to the previous six months. Facebook posts mentioning the World Doctors Alliance or its members have attracted more than three million engagements on Facebook and are present in at least 46 different languages on the platform. ISD found that large proportions—often the majority—of the most engaged with content on Facebook mentioning the World Doctors Alliance or its members in English, Spanish, German and Arabic contained false, misleading or conspiratorial claims related to COVID-19 and vaccines. Organisations that are part of Facebook’s fact-checking program have debunked false claims made by the World Doctors Alliance 189 times since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite this extensive fact-checking effort, Facebook is failing to take decisive action on the group or its members. Facebook’s fact-checking program incorporates organisations from 115 countries, but there appear to be major gaps in fact-checking in non-English languages. ISD found minimal application of fact-checking labels across the four languages analysed, with lower application rates on posts in German, Spanish and Arabic than in English. Content that does contain fact-checking labels is still accumulating tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of engagements." (Key findings) more

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Overlooking the Political Economy in the Research on Propaganda

Aman Abishek

Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, volume 2, issue special issue (2021), 14 pp.

"A thematic meta-analysis – of recent literature on online propaganda in the context of the Global South, and 20 Facebook-funded research projects in 2018 – shows that research is overwhelmingly focused on the psychological and behavioral impacts of propaganda. This research advocates for promot ... more

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Solidarity in the Media and Public Contention Over Refugees in Europe

Manlio Cinalli, Hans-Jörg Trenz, Verena K. Brändle, Olga Eisele, Christian Lahusen

Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge (2021), xi, 207 pp.

"Focusing on the public sphere, the book follows the assumption that solidarity is a social value, political concept and legal principle that is discursively constructed in public contentions. The analysis refers systematically and comparatively to eight European countries, namely, Denmark, France, ... more

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Digital Caudillos: The Use of Social Media in Guatemalan Presidential Campaigns

Kevin Pallister

Journal of Politics in Latin America (JPLA), volume 13, issue 2 (2021), pp. 269-283

"This article contributes to the scholarship on Latin American campaigning by presenting data on the use of social media by presidential candidates in Guatemala’s 2019 election, including a content analysis of more than 2,000 Facebook posts along fifteen variables. The data show that Facebook use ... more

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Digital Hate: The Global Conjuncture of Extreme Speech

Sahana Udupa, Iginio Gagliardone, Peter Hervik (eds.)

Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press (2021), 266 pp.

"The euphoria that has accompanied the birth and expansion of the internet as a "liberation technology" is increasingly eclipsed by an explosion of vitriolic language on a global scale. Digital Hate: The Global Conjuncture of Extreme Speech provides the first distinctly global and interdisciplinary ... more

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Courage Against Hate

Facebook (2021), 128 pp.

"The Courage Against Hate initiative has been brought together by Facebook for the purpose of sparking cross-sector, pan-European dialogue and action to combat hate speech and extremism. This collection of articles unites European academic analysis with practitioners who are actively working on coun ... more

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Social Media and Everyday Life in South Africa

Tanja E. Bosch

London; New York: Routledge (2021), x, 157 pp.

"This volume explores how, over the past decade, social media platforms have deeply penetrated the fabric of everyday life. The author considers South Africans’ use of wearable tech and use of online health and sports tracking systems via mobile phones within the broader context of the digital dat ... more

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Between Advocacy and Outrage: A Study on Treatment of Gender Issues in Social Media in Iraq

Berlin: Media in Cooperation and Transition (MiCT) (2021), 29 pp.

"This study was launched with the aim to deepen our understanding of how women related topics are debated in social media in Iraq. It is based on a social media monitoring exercise conducted between April 2019 and November 2020 across two topics of interest: the kidnapping of women rights’ activis ... more

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Social Media Usage by Digital Finance Consumers: Analysis of Consumer Complaints in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. July 2019 - July 2020

Innovations for Poverty Action (ipa) (2021), 36 pp.

"Digital feedback has large potential for consumer protection. The customer experiences shared in the different social media channels have proven to be a rich source of information with the potential of answering a large number of questions. Who will make use of this data and methods going forward, ... more

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Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change

Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Tanner Mirrlees (eds.)

Lanham et al.: Rowman & Littlefield (2020), v, 338 pp.

"Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change advances applied theoretical research on 21st century media imperialism. The volume includes established and emerging researchers in international communications who examine the geopolitical, economic, technological and cultural dimensions of 21st century me ... more

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Searching for a New Kenya: Politics and Social Media on the Streets of Mombasa

Stephanie Diepeveen

Cambridge: University of Cambridge (2020), xi, 270 pp.

"Searching for a New Kenya analyses public discussion in urban Kenya, focusing on the gatherings of citizens, both in-person and online, where people discuss issues of common concern to shed light on the role public discussion plays in politics and how social media affects political movements. Throu ... more

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Google Scholar (9)

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Social Media and Elections in Africa. Vol. 1: Theoretical Perspectives and Election Campaigns

Martin N. Ndlela, Winston Mano (eds.)

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (2020), xv, 237 pp.

"This book brings together fresh evidence and new theoretical frameworks in a unique analysis of the increasing role of social media in political campaigns and electoral processes across Africa. Supported by contemporary and historical cases studies, it engages with the main drives behind the variou ... more

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The Role of Social Media in Fomenting Violence: Myanmar

Victoire Rio

Tokyo: Toda Peace Institute (2020), 20 pp.

"Myanmar was originally portrayed as an internet success story. Connected in a matter of months after five decades of military dictatorship, Myanmar people were supposed to be able to communicate freely, access unimpeded information online, experience the benefits of a range of compelling and empowe ... more

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Between ‘filter bubbles’ and community leaders: An exploratory study of Facebook groups for Russophones/Russians in the Netherlands

Rashid Gabdulhakov, Daniel Trottier

Journal of Global Diaspora & Media, volume 1, issue 1 (2020), pp. 89-105

"Through an exploration of Facebook groups designed for Russophones and Russians in the Netherlands, this study considers online community belonging negotiations. In doing so, the article aims to address the role of online administrators (admins) in online community construction, seeking to enrich t ... more

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Information Ecosystem Assessment: Migrants in Thailand During COVID-19

Pamela A. Mallinga et al.

Internews (2020), 29 pp.

"This Information Ecosystem Assessment includes the thoughts and opinions of 48 migrant community leaders and migrant workers in Thailand. The information was collected through a series of qualitative and quantitative techniques, using remote data collection methodologies to ensure the safety of par ... more

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Retweeting Through the Great Firewall: A Persistent and Undeterred Threat Actor

Jacob Wallis, Tom Uren, Elise Thomas, Albert Zhang, Samantha Hoffman, Lin Li, Alex Pascoe, Danielle Cave

Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), International Cyber Policy Centre (2020), 56 pp.

"This report analyses a persistent, large-scale influence campaign linked to Chinese state actors on Twitter and Facebook. This activity largely targeted Chinese-speaking audiences outside of the Chinese mainland (where Twitter is blocked) with the intention of influencing perceptions on key issues, ... more

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WorldCat (4)

Farmers' Protest: Digital Activism on Facebook

Beulah Rachel Rajarathnamani

Jeevadhara: A Journal for Socio-religious Research, volume 50, issue 295 (2020), pp. 47-54

"This study analyses the content of the messages on the Facebook Page 'Support for Farmers' from the premise of Habermas's 'Public Sphere'. The results show that the discussions in support of the farmers' protest on Facebook galvanized the public interest on the problematic issues faced by farmers a ... more

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‘Let Us Breathe!' Censorship and Criminalization of Online Expression in Viet Nam

London: Amnesty International (2020), 77 pp.

"On 21 April 2020, Facebook announced a major shift in its content moderation policy in Viet Nam. Under this policy, it has increasingly complied with the Vietnamese authorities’ repressive censorship of online expression deemed critical of the state.3 Facebook has disclosed that it agreed to “s ... more

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Expressões de fé: A construção de sentido nos comentários de transmissões religiosas no Facebook

Gilliard Zuque da Fonscea

Vitória: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Centro de Artes, Master Thesis (2020), 185 pp.

"Investiga os efeitos de sentido, como são construídos e que valores são colocados em circulação no espaço destinado aos comentários nas transmissões ao vivo das missas pelo Facebook. Busca entender como, ao longo da transmissão, acontecem as interações entre público, padre e plataforma ... more

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Report on the Facebook Third-Party Fact-Checking Programme

London: Full Fact (2020), 33 pp.

"Full Fact first started working with Facebook on the Third-Party Fact-Checking programme in January 2019. When we joined the programme we committed to reporting regularly on its operation. Our first report, published in July 2019, covered January to June 2019.1 This second report details our experi ... more