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Israeli company Corsight, based in Tel-Aviv, has developed a facial recognition tool in the Gaza Strip for the purpose of identifying Hamas members. However, the tool has not only been found inaccurate in its function, but also scans Palestinians and creates their database with neither their knowledge nor consent.

 

Israel first developed its facial recognition program after the October 7 attacks, with the help of technology from Google Photos and Corsight’s custom tool. Following the attacks on October 7, Israeli officers from the IDF’s main intelligence unit attempted to identify potential Hamas members from security camera footage and photos and videos uploaded on social media by Hamas. They also forced Palestinian prisoners into identifying people from their communities that were associated with Hamas. 

Israel’s Facial Recognition Program in Gaza is Mistaking Palestinian Civilians for Hamas Members



Ahead of the 2024 elections across Europe, TikTok has announced the addition of a local language Election Centre in its app that is dedicated to providing people with factual local voting information for all 27 individual EU Member States.



The social media company has taken into consideration the substantial number of people across Europe that visit its platform - more than 134m of them, many of whom are also going to be casting their votes in the upcoming European elections. Owning responsibility as a popular social media platform, TikTok will be working with local electoral commissions and civil society organizations to set up in-app Election Centers where its community can find “trusted and authoritative information.”

TikTok is Playing its Part in Combating Voting Misinformation and Deceptive Acts ahead of Election Day



Meta is making an important change to Instagram and Threads’ policy – limiting recommendation of content related to politics and social issues from accounts that a user does not follow, across the platforms. Meta plans to bring this update to Facebook some time later, too.

 

The changes will be implemented only in places where recommendations are displayed to users, like Explore, Reels, in-feed recommendations, and suggested users. No changes will be made to the way content is displayed from accounts that a user follows. This means that accounts that aren’t eligible to be recommended could still post political content that their followers will be able to view in feed and Stories.

 

While users will be seeing less of political content by default, they would still be allowed to opt into seeing more of such content if they wish to. The option will be available in account settings, specifying content that is “likely to mention governments, elections, or social topics that affect a group of people and/or society at large.”

Meta Announces Changes to Content Recommendation on Instagram and Threads, Related to Politics and Social Issues

Attitude of Countries towards Russia

Although most of Europe and North America condemns Russia because of its war in Ukraine, as far as politics goes, it is not a worldwide stance. Current analysis by the Economist Intelligence Unit has revealed that there is a slow growth in Russia’s support base in a few parts of the world. The number of countries leaning towards Russia has increased from 29 in 2022 to 35 in 2023. On the contrary, the number of countries either actively condemning Russia or West-leaning is still so far, the bigger group, but its figures have dropped from 131 to 122. The EIU says this fall is partly driven by the shift of a number of emerging economies into a more neutral position.

Attitude of Countries towards Russia #Infographic



The US government has attempted to ban TikTok in the country several times after perceiving the app as a threat to national security due to speculations that the Chinese government may be using it to spy on US citizens.

 

Recently, the US House of Representatives has declared that TikTok will be deleted from any House-issued devices and will be banned from being downloaded on the devices as well.

TikTok Banned on Devices of US House of Representatives



The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has recently issued a ban on some of China’s leading surveillance and telecom services, including Huawei, ZTE Corp, Dahua, Hytera, and Hikvision among others, that can no longer sell their telecom and video surveillance equipment the US.

 

While many are deeming the FCC’s decision as controversial, the agency has claimed that the attempts are in the country’s best interests in terms of national security.

FCC Announces Ban on Several Top Chinese Telecom Services in US



Meta and TikTok are under scrutiny for approving ads that contain political misinformation, ahead of the US midterm elections. Global Witness, a human rights organization, along with the Cybersecurity for Democracy team at NYU has found the social media platforms to have gone against their own ad policies.

 

The investigation report stated that the misinformation was mostly related to voting procedures, that could potentially convince people to refrain from casting their votes. The report further mentioned the number of ads that were found to be misleading; with Facebook approving two of the ads in English and five in Spanish, and TikTok approving nearly all of the ads. YouTube however was found to be complying with its ad policies, since the company had blocked all of the misinformative ads from running, while also banning the originating accounts involved in the submission of the ads.


Global Witness further revealed that it had carried out a similar experiment in Brazil, where it found 100% of the election disinformation ads being approved by Facebook. On top of that, after Meta was made aware of the situation, it still proceeded to review 20-50% of the ads. YouTube too, contrary to its performance in the US, was found to be approving 100% of the disinformation ads in Brazil.

Meta, YouTube, and TikTok Inspected for Approving Ads Containing Political Misinformation



It is not uncommon for political conflicts and misinformation to spread across social media platforms around the time of important political events. To reduce political discussions across its platform, especially with regard to the upcoming midterm elections, TikTok has introduced a new policy around what politically-affiliated accounts on the app are allowed to do. More specifically, the company has announced a new verification policy and the removal of donation and ad tools for political groups.

 

Highlighting the importance of verification of groups affiliated with governments and political parties on its app, TikTok says, “Verification lets our community know an account is authentic and belongs to the user it represents, which is a way to build trust between high-profile creators and their community.”

TikTok Introduces New Policies for Politically-Affiliated Accounts

 


LinkedIn is bringing an important update for users that enables them to choose not seeing political content in their feed. The option is currently available to some users in the US only.

 


Using data such as keywords and signals from users and input from its editorial team, LinkedIn will identify political posts and then remove them from your feed if you wish to not see them.

 

While the change will be significant in terms of boosting engagement, considering that political content doesn’t have much to do with LinkedIn anyway, it could still impact users with political or advocacy roles on LinkedIn. This could result in the platform reach and performance being affected for some users and brands.

LinkedIn Allows Users to Turn Off Political Posts in Feed

Snapchat’s new program will support young users to enter politics

As we know, since the past couple of years Snapchat has been making efforts to help all the young users on the platform to engage in political activities. The examples include the platform’s feature of voter registration, voter awareness, polling location tracking, and a lot more.

And now, the tech giant is ready to make another leap by supporting its young user base to become a politician. The ultimate goal will be to let the users become a politician and influence political shifts directly via the app.



There will be a “Run for Office” tab, offering users a wide range of important insights into the steps to be taken to get themselves nominated for relevant positions and ballets. In addition, these insights will also reveal the available local political positions.

Snapchat’s new program will support young users to enter politics

 


Facebook plans to launch a new test where it will take the focus away from political posts and updates about current events in Feeds and limit the amount of political content that people see in their News Feeds.

 

It has been reported that the Facebook will also de-emphasize certain engagement signals, such as the probability of a user sharing or commenting on a post, in its ranking algorithm. The company will instead place more emphasis on other types of user feedback, like responses to surveys about the content that they wish to see or not see in their Feeds.

 

The social media company’s plan is an extension of its previous experiment, with which it reduced the amount of political content in some user News Feeds. The experiment was done after receiving feedback from users which suggested concerns about the impacts of divisive political debates on the platform.

 

After collecting sufficient data, Facebook is now ready to work on putting up less political content in users’ News Feed. It is expanding the test to users in Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain and Ireland.

Facebook to Lessen Political Content in News Feed Through a New Experiment

 


The Milk Tea Alliance is an online global pro-democracy movement, for which Twitter has recently released an emoji. The Milk Tea Alliance has worked in unison with anti-Beijing campaigners in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Protesters of the movement are from Thailand, Myanmar and beyond.

 

The newly released emoji is represented by a white cup set in front of a three-color background. The three different colors represent the different shades of milk tea in Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

 

The Alliance came into existence after Chinese nationalists accused a young Thai actor and his girlfriend of supporting democracy in Hong Kong and Taiwanese independence. This was followed by arguments blowing up on Twitter, after which, the hashtag #MilkTeaAlliance surfaced on the platform.

 

The hashtag peaked yet again in February after the military coup was activated in Myanmar and the protesters in the region who used the hashtag rallied regional support.

Twitter Introduces the Milk Tea Alliance Emoji in Support of the Movement

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