DisinfoDocket 5 July

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Highlights:

1. China accuses UK of harbouring Hong Kong ‘fugitives’ (The Times, 4 July)
2. Cracking Down on Dissent, Russia Seeds a Surveillance Supply Chain (The New York Times, 3 July)
3. Meta to launch its Twitter clone Thursday as Elon Musk’s platform drives away users with new limits and tech issues (Fortune, 4 July)
4. Truth Social SPAC agrees to SEC settlement as Trump’s past comments on indictment resurface (The Independent, 5 July)
5. Judge blocks U.S. officials from tech contacts in First Amendment case (The Washington Post, 4 July)
6. Chechnya Milashina attack: Armed thugs beat up Russian journalist and lawyer (BBC, 4 July)
7. The misinformation trap: the business of misleading migrants (Politifact, 3 July)

🇺🇸 This #IndependenceDay, we celebrate the power of ideas, the spark of innovation, and the strength of collaboration that have shaped our nation and inspired our vision of a more prosperous world.

Happy #July4th! 🎆 pic.twitter.com/Y082S9TpQY

— Atlantic Council (@AtlanticCouncil) July 4, 2023

1. Academia & Research

1. Chinese Threat Actors Targeting Europe in SmugX Campaign (Check Point, 3 July)
2. Why do rational people believe lies online? Research explains how misinformation spreads (Phys.org, 3 July)
3. The Mainstream Publishers, Distributors and Bookshops Selling Satanist Neo-Nazi Books (Bellingcat, 30 June)
4. What policy makers need to know about artificial intelligence (Atlantic Council, 29 June)

2. Platforms & Technology

1. Chinese tech entrepreneur says large language models should be ‘kept in a cage’ during initial adoption (South China Morning Post, 3 July)
2. Uncensored Chatbots Provoke a Fracas Over Free Speech (The New York Times, 2 July)
3. Panic about overhyped AI risk could lead to the wrong kind of regulation (Vox, 3 July)

LISTEN - Your Guides Through the Hellscape of AI Hype (Tech Policy Press, 2 July)

Twitter

1. Karnataka High Court's Twitter verdict sparks debate on free speech (BBC, 3 July)
2. A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along (The Washington Post, 4 July)
3. Twitter’s ‘new’ Tweetdeck lives behind a verified paywall (The Verge, 3 July)

Meta

1. Why Meta Is Launching Twitter Rival Threads (Bloomberg, 4 July)

#ECJ: A national #competition authority examining an abuse of a dominant position may also find that the #GDPR has been infringed @meta👉https://t.co/ATb3CgbPxg

— EU Court of Justice (@EUCourtPress) July 4, 2023

Far from Meta’s biggest fan, but “It being a Meta app, Threads will also hoover up data on your phone, including location data, purchases and browsing history” is incredibly lazy writing, unusually snarky from the BBC tech desk, and misrepresents reality https://t.co/4dHYodcDpz

— Chris Stokel-Walker (@stokel) July 4, 2023

TikTok

1. Fact check: Do I suffer from ADHD? What are ADHD symptoms? Why TikTok trends and influencers are cashing in on misinformation (The Scotsman, 4 July)
2. TikTok Media Are Gaining Subscribers From French Riots (Bloomberg, 3 July)
3. TikTok ‘failing to act’ as Andrew Tate videos still seen by children as young as 13 (The Independent, 2 July)