Why online abuse of women goes unreported and cyber troops influencing Indonesian politics
We hope you had a great week! In this issue we have an update on the lawsuit filed by Rohingya refugees in California seeking over $150 billion from Facebook holding it responsible for failing to prevent hate speech targeting the vulnerable Rohingya minority in Myanmar.
In another update, an Amnesty International survey finds that women who face abuse on Twitter do not report it as they think it's a futile exercise. We also bring you Global Voices' interview of Wijayanto, an activist and professor who specializes in identifying digital news manipulation, about how 'cyber troops' of governments and corporations influence Indonesian politics and media.
We also bring you an insightful interview with Soma Basu, India Editor with AFP Fact Check about the agency's experience in fact-checking in India and running a WhatsApp tipline in the country.
That's it for your weekly roundup of misinformation news, updates and threats. Please share your feedback and invite your friends to sign up here.
The latest top stories
Lawyers behind Rohingya Facebook lawsuit call it a reckoning for regulating social media (Rest of World)
Lawyers representing Rohingya refugees brought a class-action lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta this week, seeking more than $150 billion in damages from the company by claiming that it bears responsibility for the violent and racist messaging on its platform that U.N. investigators have said contributed to a potential genocide in Myanmar. Tech companies in the U.S. have long been using Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to argue they are not responsible for content published on their platforms.
"At the core of this complaint is the realization that Facebook was willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in Southeast Asia" -- Lawsuit filed by law firms Edelson PC and Fields PLLC in California
Analysis of Twitter Takedowns Linked to Venezuela, Mexico, Tanzania, and China (Stanford Internet Observatory)
On September 11, 2021, Twitter shared with the Stanford Internet Observatory accounts and tweets associated with eight distinct takedowns. In this post and in the attached reports, Stanford Internet Observatory investigates four newly suspended Twitter operations linked to Venezuela, Mexico, Tanzania and China.
"Twitter announced that it had suspended a network of accounts that engaged in a political spam operation in support of the Venezuelan government. According to Twitter’s attribution language, real people were encouraged to engage in spammy behaviors to show their support for Nicolás Maduro and his political party. According to Twitter, financial compensation may have been offered to accounts for sufficient engagement in bolstering Maduro’s messaging." -- Stanford Internet Observatory
Women Don’t Flag Twitter Abuse Because 100% Say It’s Not Worth the Effort (Bloomberg)
As Twitter rolls out a new process for reporting abuse on its site, an Amnesty International survey details just how futile it feels to flag bad behavior on the social-media platform. A full 100% of those who experienced online abuse or harassment but did not report it said, why bother.
"“I don’t report anything anymore. Twitter seems to consider blatant threats just a ‘difference of opinion,’ and doesn’t take action. When I did use to report things, it would take Twitter months to respond, and they would almost always say that what I reported was not a violation of their terms of service." -- Renee Bracey Sherman, reproductive rights activist
How ‘cyber troops’ influence Indonesia's politics, policies, and media landscape (Global Voices)
Cyber troops are teams dedicated to swaying and manipulating public opinion through coordinated internet and social media campaigns organized by governments, powerful parties, or corporations. Here is an interview of Wijayanto, an Indonesian activist and professor, who recently wrote about the rise of cyber troops in Indonesia and how they have influenced issues ranging from elections to the nation’s COVID-19 policy.
"With cyber troops, the government can talk with a megaphone. The number of tweets is massive. What we find next is that the critical voices are ignored. And what becomes a trending topic is the voice of the cyber troops. And they're not just flooding the internet with support for the government's policy, but also more than that. They also attack those who are critical with doxing, trolling, cyberbullying. They also spread hoaxes and fake news." -- Wijayanto, Indonesian activist and professor
What’s new at Meedan
Fact-checking in India: the AFP strategy
Agence France-Presse (AFP) Fact Check has partnered with Meedan on the end-to-end fact-checking pilot project since 2019. In this interview we speak to Soma Basu, India Editor with AFP Fact Check about the agency’s experience of fact-checking in India, their use of Check in running the tipline and new initiatives that they have launched in the country.