Skip to content
  • Computer & Technology
  • SEO
  • Technology
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise Here
    • Disclosure Policy
    • Sitemap
  • Computer & Technology

Obama warns about disinformation at Stanford event.

April 22, 2022
evan
0 Comments



Placeholder while article actions load

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Former president Barack Obama issued a stark call on Thursday for technology companies to “redesign” themselves to protect the public from polarizing falsehoods online.

In a lengthy speech at Stanford University, located in the heart of tech-heavy Silicon Valley, the former president spoke about the ways that tech platforms have helped to divide the public, spread misinformation, and erode trust in democratic institutions, leading to the rise of autocrats such as Russian leader Vladimir Putin and unnecessary deaths from the coronavirus.

“People are dying” because of disinformation on social media services, he said. Companies, he said, are not being transparent with the public about how their algorithms — the software they use to spread content on their services — work.

Related Posts:

  • Palo Alto (PANW) Q3 Earnings and Revenues Beat Estimates

“Algorithms have evolved to the point that no one on the outside of these companies can accurately predict what they’ll do … and sometimes the people who built them aren’t sure … That’s a problem,” he added.

Elon Musk would open up Twitter’s algorithms. Regulators may beat him to it.

In his speech, Obama said that when he was president, he didn’t realize “how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories, despite having spent years being a target of disinformation myself,” saying he still harbors regret to this day. Disinformation refers to a coordinated campaign by political leaders, corporations, or other figures to spread harmful falsehoods and misleading narratives.

Despite keeping a relatively low public profile during his post-presidency, the former president in recent months has started to turn disinformation into a signature issue for his public life after office, embarking on a campaign to warn the public about the harm caused by falsehoods online and the social media algorithms that spread them.

Disinformation emerged as a major issue during the 2016 presidential election. Reports surfaced about Macedonian teenagers pushing out sensational fake news on online services such as Facebook, along with stories that Russia was attempting to tilt the election toward Trump.

It was around this time that Obama pulled Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg aside to issue a private warning about the scourge of disinformation and fake news at a conference in Lima, Peru, The Washington Post reported.

Obama tried to give Zuckerberg a wake-up call over fake news on Facebook

The following year, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter revealed the results of internal investigations showing that Russian operatives circulated misleading and polarizing narratives to millions of Americans in the run-up to the 2016 contest.

Russia never stopped trying to influence the U.S. political landscape, but during the Trump years, Silicon Valley companies got savvier about cutting off disinformation operations on their services, even as a disinformation-for-hire industry proliferated around the world.

Tech companies’ efforts to fight disinformation and other social ills have led to accusations from conservatives, including former president Donald Trump, that they were censoring free speech. The attacks have caused the companies to be more cautious about what they remove, and in the case of Facebook, to allow content from people on the right even when it broke the rules, according to reporting in The Post and other outlets.

How conservatives learned to wield power inside Facebook

During the 2018 midterms, the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 presidential election, domestic sources of online falsehoods — and the role it played in causing societal polarization — became an even bigger threat to democracy than efforts by foreign powers, say researchers and experts.

Anti-vaccine activists and other extremists twisted basic facts about public health during the pandemic. Supporters of Trump, backed by online supporters and powerful influencers, pushed the falsehood that the election was stolen. That campaign helped fuel the Jan. 6 insurrection last year.

But Obama has kept relatively quiet on these issues and others — until now.

Speeches have been relatively rare from Obama, who was lauded for his oratory skills as president, since he left the White House.

During the elections that followed his presidency, he urged voters to participate in the effort to defeat Trump and elect Joe Biden, who had served as his Vice President.

For the most part, Obama has used social media to highlight the issues that he wants citizens in the country he presided over for eight years to focus on most.

Facebook and Twitter missed QAnon warning signs for years

But on Thursday, Obama provided some insight into why he decided to speak out on disinformation now.

“If we do nothing, I am convinced that the trends we are seeing will get worse,” Obama said, describing how new technologies can make disinformation more sophisticated. “Without some standards, the implications of this technology for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order, are frightening and profound.”

In his speech, Obama connected Russia’s war in Ukraine and the rise of autocrats around the world to public skepticism of democratic institutions fueled in part by the splintering of information and audiences online.

He also talked extensively about how the design and features of technology services can be manipulated too easily.

“All we see is a constant feed of content, where useful, factual information and happy diversions flow alongside lies, conspiracy theories, junk science, quackery, racist tracts and misogynist screeds,” he said.

But he offered both hope and solutions, arguing that the United States needs to create regulations for the tech industry and that the companies should be required to be more transparent about their processes for making decisions about what content is surfaced and how they spread it. He said it was possible to do so while protecting free speech, and without causing companies to reveal proprietary information.

He said the current predicament could be changed, but not without strong and immediate action from lawmakers, tech companies and the public.

“Very specific choices” by tech companies, he said, “intentionally or not have made democracies more vulnerable.”



Source link

Biggest Science And Technology Expo Blair Technology Group Ebay Store Blockchain Technology In Nigeria Brockway Career And Technology Center Communication Technology For Ell Construction Management And Technology Articles Cost Of Airline Technology Innovation Curve Of Technology Expectation D S Technology Usa Dc Cbre Technology Elevate Technology Solutions Hampton Epoch Technology Consulting Contract Famous Ted In Technology Hao Huang Illinois Insttitue Technology Happy Diwali Technology Health Information Technology Across Departments Health Information Technology Professional Networking Holo Image Technology Joint Engine Technology Definition Latest End Mill Technology Medical Technology Site:Harvard.Edu Mental Helath Technology Minnesota Technology Innovation Institute Multimedia Technology Aiwa C6 Gps North Carolina Technology Council Performance Technology Trucking Canton Ohio Peripheral Devices Technology In Action Phase Technology Phase Velocity V62 Psprs Az Chief Technology Officer Rna-Seq Technology Steps San Francisco Technology Output Scientific Technology Wireline Secretly Harmful Technology Skylake Z170 Smart Response Technology Technology Addiction Support Group Technology And Healthcare Jobs Technology At Our Fingertips Technology Based On Nature Technology Book Bindings Manuscript Technology Career Fair Los Angeles Technology Data Entry Jobs Technology Impacting Early Literacy Technology In Education Program Technology Is Hurting Education 217 Technology Leakage Problems Technology Logos Man Hair What Is It Technology Solutions What Technology Does Belgium Have What Technology In 10 Years Youth Technology Leaders Of America

« 7 Ways Technology Is Changing the Real Estate Industry
Zuckerberg banned • The Register »
Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Mesh Wi-Fi Systems 101: The Best Tips
  • League City DNA tool helping to solve cold cases
  • ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 Router review – Is a non-mesh router worth $799.00?
  • 6 Tech Stocks for Bargain-Hunting Investors
  • Comparison of database architectures: data warehouse, data lake and data lakehouse
Intellifluence Trusted Blogger

Archives

Categories

May 2022
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Apr    

BL

LP

TL

Visit Now

business degree
pixliv Digitally first class

Theme by The WP Club . Proudly powered by WordPress

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT