, a Future Tense column about the internet’s information ecosystem.
In February, Molly White, age 27, received yet another creepy message: “We have three people who are going to be taking a tour [of your apartment] and looking at it, but you will not know who they are because we wont disclose that ahead of time, just know that when they do they will be wearing a hidden camera and we will be sharing the deets.” For White, the threat was one more example of the harassment she has received because she is one of Wikipedia’s most prolific female contributors.
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Twitter s new pilot program Birdwatch aims to enlist the social network s users to fact check each other s tweets. // Twitter/Screenshot by NPR
Twitter users aren t known for staying quiet when they see something that s flat out wrong, or with which they disagree. So why not harness that energy to solve one of the most vexing problems on social media: misinformation?
With a new pilot program called Birdwatch, Twitter is hoping to crowdsource the fact-checking process, eventually expanding it to all 192 million daily users. I think ultimately over time, [misleading information] is a problem best solved by the people using Twitter itself, CEO Jack Dorsey said on a quarterly investor call on Tuesday.
3 Jan 2021
Last week the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, responded to a defamation complaint submitted by conservative documentary filmmaker Lauren Southern. Her complaint noted numerous misrepresentations, omissions, and falsehoods, on the site’s page about her. In its response, the Foundation legal team stated that it was investigating her complaints and would conclude that investigation in early January.
Editors on Wikipedia have responded to the allegations in the complaint by making some changes to partly address concerns, though other issues remain and some editors have sought to further smear Southern in response. Attempts to mention Breitbart News’ coverage of the complaint have been suppressed.
Lauren Southern Sends Defamation Complaint to Wikipedia over Long-Running Smear Campaign
21 Dec 2020
Documentary filmmaker Lauren Southern has submitted a defamation complaint to Wikipedia in response to a long-running smear campaign against her on the online encyclopedia by the site’s left-wing editors. Southern’s past activities have been misrepresented or taken out of context, such as details regarding her ban from entering the U.K. over prior political speech and her speaking events in Australia and New Zealand, which were subject to repeated cancellations following activist pressure campaigns. As Southern explains, “I don’t even recognize the individual they call ‘Lauren Southern’ on Wikipedia.”