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A12 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 22 december 2020
Report: Social media manipulation affects even U.S. senators

By ERIKA KINETZ pictures of dogs and food,
Associated Press to avoid actual impact
BRUSSELS (AP) — The con- during the U.S. election
versation taking place season.
around two U.S. sena- Ben Scott, executive direc-
tors' verified social media tor of Reset.tech, a London-
accounts remained vul- based initiative that works
nerable to manipulation to combat digital threats to
through artificially inflated democracy, said the inves-
shares and likes from fake tigation showed how easy
users, even amid height- it is to manipulate political
ened scrutiny in the run communication and how
up to the U.S. presiden- little platforms have done
tial election, an investiga- to fix long-standing prob-
tion by the NATO Strategic lems.
Communications Centre of "What's most galling is the
Excellence found. simplicity of manipulation,"
Researchers from the cen- he said. "Basic democratic
ter, a NATO-accredited principles of how societies
research group based in make decisions get cor-
Riga, Latvia, paid three Rus- rupted if you have orga-
sian companies 300 euros nized manipulation that is
($368) to buy 337,768 fake this widespread and this
likes, views and shares of In this Monday, Oct. 12, 2020 file photo, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, uses his smartphone during easy to do."
posts on Facebook, Insta- a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Twitter said it proactively
gram, Twitter, YouTube and Associated Press tackles platform manipula-
TikTok, including content tion and works to mitigate
from verified accounts of forms and more needs to active after four weeks, re- to cause the most harm," it at scale.
Sens. Chuck Grassley and be done to prevent abuse." searchers found, and 97% a Facebook company "This is an evolving chal-
Chris Murphy. In an age when much pub- of the accounts they re- spokesperson said in an lenge and this study re-
Grassley's office confirmed lic debate has moved on- ported for inauthentic ac- email. flects the immense effort
that the Republican from line, widespread social me- tivity were still active five But YouTube and Face- that Twitter has made to
Iowa participated in the dia manipulation not only days later. book-owned Instagram re- improve the health of the
experiment. Murphy, a distorts commercial mar- NATO StratCom did a simi- main vulnerable, research- public conversation," Yoel
Connecticut Democrat, kets, it is also a threat to na- lar exercise in 2019 with ers said, and TikTok ap- Roth, Twitter's head of site
said in a statement that he tional security, NATO Strat- the accounts of European peared "defenseless." integrity, said in an email.
agreed to participate be- Com director Janis Sarts officials. They found that "The level of resources they YouTube said it has put in
cause it's important to un- told The Associated Press. Twitter is now taking down spend matters a lot to how place safeguards to root
derstand how vulnerable "These kinds of inauthentic inauthentic content faster vulnerable they are," said out inauthentic activity
even verified accounts are. accounts are being hired and Facebook has made Sebastian Bay, the lead au- on its site, and noted that
"We've seen how easy it is to trick the algorithm into it harder to create fake ac- thor of the report. "It means more than 2 million videos
for foreign adversaries to thinking this is very popular counts, pushing manipula- you are unequally pro- were removed from the site
use social media as a tool information and thus make tors to use real people in- tected across social me- in the third quarter of 2020
to manipulate election divisive things seem more stead of bots, which is more dia platforms. It makes the for violating its spam poli-
campaigns and stoke po- popular and get them to costly and less scalable. case for regulation stron- cies.
litical unrest," Murphy said. more people. That in turn "We've spent years ger. It's as if you had cars "We'll continue to deal with
"It's clear that social media deepens divisions and thus strengthening our detec- with and without seatbelts." attempts to abuse our sys-
companies are not doing weakens us as a society," tion systems against fake Researchers said that for tems and share relevant
enough to combat misin- he explained. engagement with a focus the purposes of this experi- information with industry
formation and paid manip- More than 98% of the fake on stopping the accounts ment they promoted apo- partners," the company
ulation on their own plat- engagements remained that have the potential litical content, including said in a statement.q

E.U. clears Google's $2.1B takeover of Fitbit, with conditions

LONDON (AP) — The Euro- tracted scrutiny in Australia, open and competitive."
pean Union on Thursday where competition regula- Google said it "worked
approved Google's plan to tors are mulling a similar of- constructively" with EU
buy fitness gadget maker fer from Google. regulators to resolve their
Fitbit for $2.1 billion after The EU was initially worried concerns, including the set
it promised to restrict user the deal would expand of legally binding commit-
data and ensure Android Google's "data advan- ments that the European
phones work with other tage" and raise barriers for Commission accepted.
wearable devices for at rivals in the online ad indus- "These build on assuranc-
least 10 years. try. The EU's competition es we have made since
Human rights and con- commissioner, Margrethe the beginning that we are
sumer groups, which had Vestager, said she cleared committed to protecting
called on authorities to the deal because Google's Fitbit users' privacy and will
block the deal over priva- commitments "will ensure continue to invest in and
In this Aug. 16, 2018, file photo, the Fitbit Charge 3 fitness track- cy and antitrust concerns, that the market for wear- support manufacturers and
ers are displayed in New York. were unhappy with the ables and the nascent digi- developers," the company
Associated Press decision. The deal also at- tal health space will remain said in a statement. q