Separating politics from journalism and tracing anti-vaccination pages
This week, we have a roundup of stories for you on social media regulation in Mexico, reflections on the connection between technology and democracy, vaccine misinformation on Arabic-language anti-vaccination pages on Facebook, as well as Twitter's role in Saudi Arabia's crackdown on dissent.
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Mexico: Online Free Speech at Risk (Human Rights Watch)
Mexican Senate Majority Leader Ricardo Monreal’s proposed bill to regulate social media networks could severely restrict free speech in Mexico, Human Rights Watch said today. The bill would require companies to censor broadly defined categories of online content in violation of international norms currently in force. Senator Monreal should withdraw his proposal.
“This bill would place the harshest restrictions on free speech that Mexico has seen in decades, opening the door to bans on social media networks and enabling the government to censor speech it disagrees with,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Senator Monreal claims he wants to protect free speech in Mexico, but this bill would do exactly the opposite.”
I Thought My Job Was To Report On Technology In India. Instead, I Got A Front-Row Seat To The Decline Of My Democracy (Buzzfeed)
Buzzfeed News' Technology Reporter Pranav Dixit writes on the impossibility of separating politics from journalism, and the toll it has taken on his mental health.
"I love tech. But watching it intersect with a Hindu nationalist government trying to crush dissent, choke a free press, and destroy a nation’s secular ethos doesn’t feel like something I bought a ticket to. Writing about technology from India now feels like having a front-row seat to the country’s rapid slide into authoritarianism. “It’s like watching a train wreck while you’re inside the train,” I Slacked my boss in November."
MENA Monitor: Arabic COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation Online - ISD (Institute for Strategic Dialogue)
By tracing a handful of Arabic-language anti-vaccination pages on Facebook, researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found an elaborate network of non-existent think tanks, vaccination watchdogs, and antisemitic, conspiracy-laden YouTube channels with hundreds of thousands of followers.
"Researchers from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) responsible for monitoring, tracking and analyzing COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook found connections to dominant COVID-19 vaccine misinformation narratives and influencers
in the West, as well as region-specific tropes that are tied to the Middle East and North Africa’s geo-politics, and, in some instances, religious discourse on the apocalypse."
Twitter Is Enabling Saudi Arabia’s Brutal Crackdown on Dissent (New Republic)
Saudi dissidents have accused Twitter of being complicit in the regime-sponsored crackdown on vocal activists, journalists, and individuals both in Saudi Arabia and abroad.
"Put another way, a murderous autocratic government abused its close relationship with Twitter to cultivate spies who provided information that then got innocent people thrown in jail. That government remains one of Twitter’s largest outside shareholders and continues to harass and monitor its citizens via the micro-blogging service."
Meedan Updates
Ekta's Aims, Aspirations And Roadmap For 2021
The fight against misinformation in India is a challenging one. The size of the country (1.3 billion), the number of people accessing online information (over 600 million internet users), the diversity of languages and issues and the growing political and religious polarization are some of the factors that make the task of addressing misinformation an uphill one. Independent fact-checkers in India have been diligently addressing this challenge despite having small teams and limited resources. Ekta, a consortium of six Indian fact-checking groups, hopes to collectively address misinformation.