At his Wednesday 20 November 2019 address to the National Press Club, Attorney-General Christian Porter said the federal government is pursuing “immediate” defamation law reform. The announcement seemed a bit odd, as defamation is a subject for state and territory governments to legislate on. A NSW-led law reform process has been ongoing for years. Read the rest of this entry »
Ireland: The Government’s plans for a digital safety commissioner proceed apace – Eoin O’Dell
23 11 2019
In my earlier post on the demise of the UK’s current age-verification plans for online porn – and what that might mean for Ireland’s proposed Digital Safety Commissioner, I noted that long-standing Irish Government policy is to establish such a Commissioner, and that the current timetable is that it is intended to bring forward the necessary legislation before the end of the year. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Eoin O'Dell
Categories : Internet, Ireland, Social Media
Facebook’s not a threat to the UK election – Anamaria Dutceac Segesten,
22 11 2019
The Cambridge Analytica scandal of March 2018 changed the status of Facebook forever. The revelation that a political consultancy had illicitly gained access to the data of millions of Facebook users forced the company to change its approach to privacy, including its rules and algorithms. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Elections, Facebook, The Conversation
Categories : Government and Policy, Social Media
Analysis shows horrifying extent of abuse sent to women MPs via Twitter – Susan Watson
16 11 2019
The approach of a rare December election in the UK has many campaigners feeling chills. What misery awaits them on the dark, cold streets as they try to convince voters to support their party? My preliminary research reveals that the women who bid for political office over the next six weeks have more to worry about than sore feet and aggressive dogs. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Susan Watson, The Conversation, Trolling, Twitter, Women MPs
Categories : Harassment, Social Media
Twitter’s ban on political ads does change the game in one – Liam Mcloughlin
6 11 2019
Twitter has announced that it is banning paid-for political adverts, just as the UK enters a general election, saying that the reach of political messages “should be earned, not bought”. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Liam Mcloughlin, Political Advertising, The Conversation, Twitter
Categories : Social Media
The fightback against Facebook is getting stronger – Leighton Andrews
12 10 2019
Facebook leader Mark Zuckerberg recently took the unusual step of visiting lawmakers in Washington, including President Donald Trump in the White House. The reason? Congress’s anti-trust sub-committee has started demanding documents from Facebook and other big tech firms. It’s part of the committee’s investigation into whether dominant tech firms are acting anti-competitively. And Zuckerberg’s trip suggests the company is worried. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Facebook, Leighton Andrews, The Conversation
Categories : Media Regulation, Social Media
ECJ confirms territorial limitations of ‘the right to be forgotten’ – Iain Wilson and Elisabeth Mason
3 10 2019
On 24 September 2019, whilst the country was focused on the United Kingdom Supreme Court as it ruled that the prorogation of the UK parliament was unlawful, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or ECJ), handed down judgment in Google LLC, successor in law to Google Inc. v Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), C‑507/17, effectively a sequel to the landmark data protection ‘Google Spain’ decision in May 2014. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Brett Wilson Media Law Blog, Elizabeth Mason, Google, Iain Wilson, Right to be Forgotten
Categories : Data Protection, EU, Social Media
Disinfo Wars: a taxonomy of information warfare – Hossein Derakhshan
29 09 2019
In the Information Disorder report for Council of Europe (2017), Claire Wardle and I identified three types of bad-information (mis-, dis-, and malinformation), three phases (creation, (re)production, distribution), and three elements (agent, message, interpreter) to information disorder. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Fake News, Hossein Derakhshan, LSE. Media Policy Project
Categories : Journalism, Social Media
Regulating Facebook: a process, not an event – Leighton Andrews
28 09 2019
The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, recently flew half-way across the world to meet Mark Zuckerberg. While the Bank of England is being rather coy about what was discussed, a number of recent speeches by the Governor have raised questions about Facebook’s move into crypto-currency with its plans for its Libra system. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Facebook, Leighton Andrews
Categories : Government and Policy, Media Regulation, Social Media
Users (and their bias) are key to fighting fake news on Facebook: AI isn’t smart enough yet – Gianluca Demartini
24 09 2019
The information we encounter online everyday can be misleading, incomplete or fabricated. Being exposed to “fake news” on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can influence our thoughts and decisions. We’ve already seen misinformation interfere with elections in the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Fake News, Gianluca Demartini, The Conversation
Categories : Internet, Journalism, Social Media
