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A2 UP FRONT
Tuesday 29 OcTOber 2019
Continued from Front the census on voice-assist-
"If you want to disrupt a de- ed devices such as Ama-
mocracy, you can certain- zon's Alexa and Apple's Siri,
ly go about it by disrupting Schwartz said. Bureau of-
a census." ficials have consulted with
Already, false and inac- Google to identify terms
curate social media posts that will help guide internet
about the census have searchers to official census
begun to appear online, sites.
where they have been There are precedents for
viewed thousands of times. such partnerships. Many
Foremost on everyone's Silicon Valley companies
mind are the misinforma- have worked with govern-
tion wars waged during the ments to manage emer-
last presidential election to gency preparedness, anti-
confuse U.S. voters. vaccine misinformation
Fake posts about the cen- and protect voter registra-
sus began popping up tion rights.
days after the U.S. Supreme At the same time, a team of
Court ruled in June that more than a dozen census
the Trump administration In this April 23, 2019, file photo, immigration activists rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices employees are monitoring
could not ask about citi- hear arguments over the Trump administration's plan to ask about citizenship on the 2020 Census, social media, scanning for
zenship status on the 2020 in Washington. bad tweets and Facebook
census: Conservative blog- Associated Press posts. The bureau will pub-
gers, Twitter users and pun- lish its own fact checks on a
dits falsely blamed former ming their way into people's in the census, either for po- rectly with all major plat- dedicated "rumors" page .
President Barack Obama homes by asking to check litical reasons or to game forms — Facebook, Twitter Still, challenges remain.
for scrubbing the question residents' identification for the allocation of resources. and Google — to help in- Debunking misinformation
from the form in 2010. In the upcoming census. The Their main targets? Major form people about the me- is harder when it's spread
fact, the main census form online hoax left Census Bu- U.S. internet platforms such chanics of the census and through closed sites, such
hasn't included a citizen- reau officials scrambling to as Google, Twitter and to stamp out inaccurate as private Facebook
ship question since 1950, get the post removed from Facebook, according to information that's swirling groups.
and the bureau's own Facebook, concerned that Dipayan Ghosh, the co-di- around. Such was the case with the
analysis found it would dis- census workers who were rector of Harvard Kennedy "We can communicate warnings of robbers posing
courage people from par- knocking doors to verify ad- School's digital platforms with them quickly and as census officials, which
ticipating, possibly skewing dresses could face trouble. and democracy project. try to resolve, whether spread widely on Face-
results. Cyber and census experts "In terms of the bad actors it's on public forums or in book and Nextdoor, a so-
And last month, sham posts worry that trolls and foreign that are pushing this type closed groups," said Zack cial networking site where
popped up warning online governments will sow more of content — absolutely, Schwartz, the deputy divi- residents can share mes-
neighborhood chat groups confusion to discourage foreign parties, particu- sion chief for the Census sages with neighbors pri-
that robbers were scam- people from participating larly Russia and China, are Bureau's Center for New vately.
concerns in the case of the Media & Promotion. "Send this on your neigh-
census, as well as domestic Both Facebook and borhood group chat,"
operators," Ghosh added. Google have told The Asso- claimed the posts, which
Government officials ciated Press they will set up the Census Bureau believes
spend years preparing for teams dedicated to stop- are fabricated. "They are
each census, but the ex- ping misinformation about everywhere and they look
tent of Russia's misinforma- the census. presentable. Please alert
tion campaign during the Facebook will use a mix of your family and friends."
last presidential elections — people and artificial intelli- In Missouri, people contin-
inaccurate and divisive im- gence to spot, review and ued to share the post even
ages, posts and stories on remove troublesome posts. after a local police depart-
social media sites such as CEO Mark Zuckerberg told ment declared on Face-
Facebook and Twitter that Congress on Wednesday book and Nextdoor that
often went viral — wasn't that the company would no such crimes had been
really understood until 2017. soon release a new cen- reported.
That's when Census Bureau sus policy similar to its elec- Stopping people from shar-
leaders began to wonder if tion rules, which prohibit ing fake information on
the 2020 census could be false content about voting social media sites even af-
the next target, Thompson hours, location and regis- ter it's been debunked is a
said. tration on its site. never-ending battle, said
"We were aware of the po- "We recognize this is impor- Clifford Lampe, a professor
tential by the time I left," tant and this rises above in the School of Information
said Thompson, who re- normal hoaxes or misinfor- at the University of Michi-
signed from his post in June mation," Zuckerberg said. gan.
2017. "We hadn't gotten Similarly, Twitter will use Just as tech companies
much further than that." artificial intelligence and and government agencies
As a first line of defense, employees to spot and find new ways of fighting
census officials have spent remove misleading posts misinformation, trolls find
months forging relation- about the census. It will also new ways of spreading it,
ships with dozens of tech- rely on users to report cen- he said. "There's no process
nology companies that sus misinformation. by which we can wage
keep close guard on their The bureau is also working a sustained campaign
massive datasets and pro- with technology compa- around fighting disinforma-
prietary information. nies to create automated tion," he said, "because it
The bureau now works di- answers to questions about keeps changing."q