The Edge | 08/22/18
The Edge is a daily round up of the most important, or at least the most interesting, reads in technology policy.
(dis)info
The accounts were linked to a group known as “Liberty Front Press,” an effort that originated in Iran. Working with cybersecurity firm FireEye, Facebook discovered the group was primarily posting political content focused on the Middle East, as well as the U.K., U.S., and Latin America. Beginning in 2017, its focus on the U.K. and U.S. increased.
Facebook, Twitter remove hundreds of accounts tied to ‘coordinated influence’ campaign
The Cyber
“We ought to think hard about how and when to license hack-back authority so capable, responsible private-sector actors can deter foreign aggression,”
The problem is that such services are widely accessible to almost anyone — including the people building political bots. By providing a toolkit for automating conversation, tech companies are unwittingly teaching propaganda to talk.
Future elections may be swayed by intelligent, weaponized chatbots
Facebook is nixing more than 5,000 ad targeting options to avoid discriminatory ads
China
There are now as many internet users in China as there are people in the United States, Indonesia and Brazil combined.
“Already, the Chinese government has imposed maximum fines on technology giants operating in China for failing to adequately censor banned user content on their websites.”
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