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Facebook logos pictured on the screens of a smartphone and a laptop computer. (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

By Ese Olumhense

A careful approach to fake news

As part of its ongoing effort to curb the spread of misleading or completely fabricated news articles on its platform, Facebook launched a tool Friday to flag links shared from fake news sites, cautioning readers that the material shared has been disputed by non-partisan fact-checking sites.

Though the feature isnt yet available to everyone, according to the social media giants Help page, its the latest step in their war on fake news.

Facebook incurred the wrath of users frustrated by the many hoax news stories surrounding the 2016 election. Bending to pressure, the site announced in late 2016 a series of initiatives that it would take to deal with its fake news problem.

We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so were approaching this problem carefully, said VP of Product for News Feed at Facebook, Adam Mosseri, in a December blog post.

As part of this careful approach, Facebook says that it will work with independent fact-checkers to identify fake news stories, which would then be flagged. These flagged posts would be deprioritized in news feeds, and if a user tries to share a flagged story, theyll see a warning cautioning that the story had been disputed. Flagged stories cannot be promoted or turned into advertisements.

Its unclear whether the mechanism outlined in December is the one in place now, or if other features have been included.

How lies and exaggerations spread on Facebook

Though it isnt a news site, 66 percent of Facebooks users rely on the platform to access news, a 2016 study found. This is up from 47 percent in 2013.

Considering the massive reliance on the social network for news, it became a lightning rod for 2016 election news.

But it soon emerged that some of the news appearing in Facebook feeds was misleading, or flat-out fake. Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on the interest in the presidential election, predatory publishers drove significant traffic to their sites with fake articles on anything from Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons supposed ill health to rumors that now-President Donald Trumps tax returns had leaked. At times, the misinformation campaigns bordered on dangerous, as fake stories teasing civil war or threatening riots if a particular candidate won or lost became more and more popular.

After the election, some journalists blamed Facebook for Trumps eventual election, claiming that its lucrative advertising prospects helped malicious actors sway popular opinion, even when those actors lived outside the United States.

Fight over fake news continues

Fake news did not stop after Trumps historic upset. In fact, it became a major talking point for Americans on either side of the political spectrum, weaponized to discredit and delegitimize news pieces that dont adhere to either sides agenda.

While Facebooks latest effort is certainly appreciated by some news consumers, others are skeptical, believing that the companys actions amount to arbitrary and unjustifiable censorship.

Who are these people that will be deciding what is relevant and what is not to the largest social media site in the world? asked Mickey White, conservative commentator and critic in December. The source of information for over half the country. We dont know that [they] have any qualifications outside of their own individual bias.

Facebook has enlisted fact-checking organizations like Politifact and Snopes to help monitor stories flagged as fake. The sites are part of a network of fact-checking organizations coordinated by the Poynter Institute. Members of the group must apply and be vetted by a team at Poynter, and agree to a set of principles including transparency and nonpartisanship.

Read more:
Facebook launches tool to fight fake news but is it censorship? - New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV

Mona Shaikh performing at the Laugh Factory Courtesy of Mona Shaikh

Shaikh was 8 years old when she knew she wanted to become a performer after watching Indian actress Madhuri Dixit.

"You can literally have the world on your finger, spinning, because of so much charisma and charm and funny that you bring to the table, and I just loved her," Shaikh said.

She was 15 when she narrowed her interest to stand-up comedy, the same year she immigrated to the United States from Pakistan with her parents and four older brothers.

Shaikh spent much of her youth in Pakistan alone because her mother was frequently in America to get treatment for two of her brothers who suffered from polio. She credits her early life as having contributed to the foundation she needed to become an artist and to the perspectives she shares through comedy.

"I think it really kicked off my imagination and it just gave me this opportunity to dream and think what would it be like to be a performer. To travel the world, to connect with so many people who don't share the same background as you, but to bring these people together and convey to them artistically?" she said. "I think it really fed the artist that needed to be fed as a kid."

Although Shaikh knew early on what she wanted to do with her life, she didn't share her dreams with her family until she was 18. They didn't support her, Shaikh said, and she was given an ultimatum of either studying physical therapy or being sent back to Pakistan to get married.

She rejected both options, moved to New York, dropped out of college and invested her money into acting classes with no backup plan.

"Here's the thing: if you don't burn your boats, you never know what you're capable of," she said. "With a backup plan, you're not going to give it your all because at the back of your mind, you always think you can always go back to that other life. I didn't want to do that. I burned my boats and it's not easy, but it's working out."

Since then, Shaikh has become the first Pakistani female comedian selected for the Laugh Factory's Funniest Person in the World Competition and to headline Hollywood Improv. In 2015, she launched a diverse comedy show called Minority Reportz, which features a diverse slate of comedians.

Across Los Angeles, she has performed at multiple venues, including The Ice House in Pasadena and Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank.

With the recent presidential election, Shaikh has incorporated current political events into her set and has been vocal about her dislike of President Donald Trump. As a Muslim, she joked that she's OK with the Muslim registry Trump had proposed, but that she would have her rear end photographed for it.

Despite the fact that politics can be a sensitive subject, Shaikh said having lived in Pakistan is why she includes the topic in her routines.

"I grew up in a politically unstable country so politics is weaved into my fabric," she said. "I can't be an artist now and not talk about things that impact people."

But Shaikh isn't always able to include that subject in her shows. During a set in Dubai, she was censored from discussing human rights violations or criticizing the government of Saudi Arabia, which is an ally of the United Arab Emirates, she said. Had she violated that instruction, she was told she would have been banned from going back to the country.

While she wasn't able to make those jokes live, Shaikh has taken to YouTube to poke fun at how women in Saudi Arabia aren't allowed to drive and how some Muslims imams have sanctioned domestic violence. In one clip, she jokes about how Pakistani men are obsessed with virgins because they don't like criticism. Shaikh's material has earned her the nickname

Sometime in 2012 or 2013, Shaikh said she was notified via email by her fans that her website website had been banned in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Last year, she received an email from YouTube saying her channel had been banned in the two countries, she said.

Shaikh said she has even received death threats via email, but said she isn't fazed and hasn't been deterred from continually bringing up those topics.

"They don't like the fact that I talk about these things, but when I see my fellow Pakistani sisters being physically assaulted or murdered by their own family for honor killings and such backward cultural things, how do you as a human being not speak up against that, especially as an artist? Especially if you have a platform?" she said.

"If the Pakistani government doesn't like it, maybe they can start changing their laws and start treating minorities, women, transgender and gay people with some more love and respect," she added.

Shaikh noted that either way, some people will take offense to her content and disagree with it, so she would rather talk about things that matter.

"I've seen when people don't speak up and they don't provide resistance against tyrants or evildoers," she said. "There's a big price to pay for that, and I think artistically and as a human, I try to be on the right side of history. I guess there's a price for that, too."

Through comedy, Shaikh says she hopes to do for audiences what two of her role models, comedians George Carlin and Chris Rock, did for theirs.

"What they did for people is they made them think," she said. "That's my goal."

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Death Threats and Censorship Can't Stop 'Naughty Muslim' Comic Mona Shaikh - NBCNews.com

To the list of what can get you censored on a university campus we can now add talking about censorship.

The University of Lincoln Students Union has suspended its student conservative societys social-media accounts until 1 May over allegations of bring[ing] the University of Lincoln Students Union and the University of Lincoln into disrepute.

According to a statement from the society, this was due to an anonymous complaint over two tweets. The first, in relation to freedom of speech, linking an article from spiked, and the second was in relation to an SU questionnaire that had to be completed before voting in recent SU elections.

After reading spikeds Free Speech University Rankings (FSUR), the society decided to publicise the fact that Lincoln Students Union had received a Red ranking. Screenshots of the offending tweet, seen by spiked, show a picture of Lincolns ranking page, alongside emojis with their mouths zipped shut.

Another student conservative society, the Hull University Conservative Association, flagged up the alleged censorship of the Lincoln society on its Facebook page. At time of publishing, Lincolns SU has not issued a statement, or responded to spikeds requests for comment.

Continued here:
A student society has been censored for talking about censorship - Spiked

Reddit BTC moderator Jratcliff63367 officially resigned from the subreddit due to its dysfunctional operations and limited discussions. In his official statement, Jratcliff stated emphasized the censorship on both the Bitcoin subreddit and BTC subreddit, expressing his concerns over two of the largest bitcoin discussion communities.

For a long period of time, the Bitcoin subreddit operated by main moderator Theymos has been the most successful and popular bitcoin community. It still faciliates some of the most important and collaborative discussions with developers, users, businesses and enthusiasts.

However, as Jratcliff notes, the Bitcoin subreddit began to receive harsh criticisms from non-Bitcoin Core supporters for being censorship-heavy. Theymos along with his other moderators of the Bitcoin subreddit was accused of eliminating any pertinent discussions in regards to Bitcoin Unlimited or alternative solutions other than the technologies being developed by Bitcoin Core.

Logically, the reasoning of Theymos and the rest of the Bitcoin subreddit moderators in censoring non-Bitcoin Core discussions can be justified, as the current Bitcoin network is overseen by the Bitcoin Core development team and with the codes the team has written over the past few years.

However, for bitcoin to evolve, bitcoin investors including Ver believes a group of developers or experts need to receive baton to continue the development of bitcoin, the same way bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto passed on his vision to his successors.

Bitcoin Unlimited supporters, as well as many miners,firmly believe that the censorship of Bitcoin Unlimited and non-Bitcoin Core solutions doesnt necessarily benefit the long-term health and development of bitcoin. In fact, they seem to believe that granting one development team the monopoly over a bitcoin network is stalling the development of bitcoin.

Evidently, if Bitcoin Unlimited developers and supporters want to force a hard fork in order to place Bitcoin Unlimited on top of the bitcoin protocol, they can simply initiate a hard fork. No organization or individual can stop Bitcoin Unlimited supports from executing a hard fork. Currently, they simply dont have the support from miners to do so and that is what the Bitcoin subreddit moderators are emphasizing.

Jratcliff specifically mentioned in his statement that the BTC subreddit, despite what it was structured to be, is no longer a platform wherein users freely discuss various solutions, events and activties within the bitcoin industry. As Coinbase Director of Engineering and Litecoin creator Charlie Lee states:

Sadly, /r/btc is becoming a cesspool. Its basically a Core/Blockstream/SegWit-bashing, BU-praising echo chamber. /r/bitcoin is much better.

Former /r/btc moderator Jratcliff offered a similar insight to Lee, stating Today, I find the /r/btc community to be highly dysfunctional. It is not operating as an open and engaging discussion for all things bitcoin. It has become something else. He adds that users including himself cant share off-chain scaling solutions on /r/btc due to the communitys ignorance to off-chain scaling.

I no longer think that increasing the on-chain blocksize by any amount will accomplish much of anything. I have a lot of views on this topic. And I have tried to share them both here as well as /r/bitcoin and other forums such as Lets Talk Bitcoin. I can no longer share them on /r/btc because any post or comment I make immediately receives dozens of downvotes and is hidden from view. explained Jratcliff.

To summarize, both subreddits are censoring discussions and promoting Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Unlimited respectively. Thus, it is dishonest and unfair for any of the moderators of the two subreddits to claim censorship and attempt to appeal themselves to the community as victims.

Image from Shutterstock.

Read more:
Reddit BTC Mod Resigns, Cites Censorship in Both Subreddits - CryptoCoinsNews

Facebook logos pictured on the screens of a smartphone and a laptop computer. (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

By Ese Olumhense

A careful approach to fake news

As part of its ongoing effort to curb the spread of misleading or completely fabricated news articles on its platform, Facebook launched a tool Friday to flag links shared from fake news sites, cautioning readers that the material shared has been disputed by non-partisan fact-checking sites.

Though the feature isnt yet available to everyone, according to the social media giants Help page, its the latest step in their war on fake news.

Facebook incurred the wrath of users frustrated by the many hoax news stories surrounding the 2016 election. Bending to pressure, the site announced in late 2016 a series of initiatives that it would take to deal with its fake news problem.

We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so were approaching this problem carefully, said VP of Product for News Feed at Facebook, Adam Mosseri, in a December blog post.

As part of this careful approach, Facebook says that it will work with independent fact-checkers to identify fake news stories, which would then be flagged. These flagged posts would be deprioritized in news feeds, and if a user tries to share a flagged story, theyll see a warning cautioning that the story had been disputed. Flagged stories cannot be promoted or turned into advertisements.

Its unclear whether the mechanism outlined in December is the one in place now, or if other features have been included.

How lies and exaggerations spread on Facebook

Though it isnt a news site, 66 percent of Facebooks users rely on the platform to access news, a 2016 study found. This is up from 47 percent in 2013.

Considering the massive reliance on the social network for news, it became a lightning rod for 2016 election news.

But it soon emerged that some of the news appearing in Facebook feeds was misleading, or flat-out fake. Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on the interest in the presidential election, predatory publishers drove significant traffic to their sites with fake articles on anything from Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons supposed ill health to rumors that now-President Donald Trumps tax returns had leaked. At times, the misinformation campaigns bordered on dangerous, as fake stories teasing civil war or threatening riots if a particular candidate won or lost became more and more popular.

After the election, some journalists blamed Facebook for Trumps eventual election, claiming that its lucrative advertising prospects helped malicious actors sway popular opinion, even when those actors lived outside the United States.

Fight over fake news continues

Fake news did not stop after Trumps historic upset. In fact, it became a major talking point for Americans on either side of the political spectrum, weaponized to discredit and delegitimize news pieces that dont adhere to either sides agenda.

While Facebooks latest effort is certainly appreciated by some news consumers, others are skeptical, believing that the companys actions amount to arbitrary and unjustifiable censorship.

Who are these people that will be deciding what is relevant and what is not to the largest social media site in the world? asked Mickey White, conservative commentator and critic in December. The source of information for over half the country. We dont know that [they] have any qualifications outside of their own individual bias.

Facebook has enlisted fact-checking organizations like Politifact and Snopes to help monitor stories flagged as fake. The sites are part of a network of fact-checking organizations coordinated by the Poynter Institute. Members of the group must apply and be vetted by a team at Poynter, and agree to a set of principles including transparency and nonpartisanship.

See more here:
Facebook launches tool to fight fake news but is it censorship? - WGN-TV