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Since late last year, Facebook has been actively shutting down accounts responsible for spreading hoaxes in some countries, especially those holding general elections. In Indonesia, for instance, Facebook has shut down thousands of accounts believed to be disseminating misinformation. Unfortunately, Facebook’s policy on closing accounts is not transparent enough. Questions arose when Facebook recovered an account that belonged to social media activist Permadi Arya, a supporter of the incumbent presidential candidate, Joko “Jokowi” Jokowi. Facebook blocked and then recovered his account after

Since late last year, Facebook has been actively shutting down accounts responsible for spreading hoaxes in some countries, especially those holding general elections. In Indonesia, for instance, Facebook has shut down thousands of accounts believed to be disseminating misinformation. Unfortunately, Facebook’s policy on closing accounts is not transparent enough. Questions arose when Facebook recovered an account that belonged to social media activist Permadi Arya, a supporter of the incumbent presidential candidate, Joko “Jokowi” Jokowi. Facebook blocked and then recovered his account after

We shouldn’t need a Super Bowl commercial costing around $10 million to remind us that information is supposed to matter in a democracy. Yet the Washington Post thought we did, so it told 111 million Americans watching the Super Bowl that “knowing empowers us, knowing helps us decide, knowing keeps us free.” It was another sign that our longstanding faith in the power of information is faltering, undermining democracy. And unless we want this faith to be replaced by authoritarianism, we need to reform our education and political systems to restore our faith in facts. I became interested in

Almost 60 years ago, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of a new force that fed off and profited from Cold War paranoia: the military-industrial complex. Over the past couple of years, with Russia reappearing on the airwaves, a new corporate sector profiting from induced anxiety poses just as big a threat. Let’s call it the political-infotainment-media complex. On March 22, Robert Mueller delivered his sealed report on the narrowly defined charge of “collusion” to Attorney General William Barr. After 22 months of hype – a period in which it was the most covered story in America – “Russiagate”

As shown by the February 2019 attack on a BBC cameraman by a Donald Trump supporter in El Paso, Texas, the January assault of journalists in Rome by far-right activists, the impossibility for journalists to cover events in Kashmir, especially after the recent tensions between Pakistan and India over the region, mainstream media are increasingly victims of populists leaders or their ideology. In the RSF Index 2018 report, the NGO Reporters without Borders highlighted how media were facing a constant “anti-media rhetoric” from politicians that has spread out throughout the world. With such