Zombie content that survives even if deleted, loophole in measures against fake news

Since the beginning of the pandemic with the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19), the Technology and Social Change Research Project at the Harvard Kennedy School Scholenstein Center, where I am the director, is a hoax about the new coronavirus infection. I've been investigating how fraud and conspiracy are circulating online. If scammers are using the virus to deceive good individuals, we wanted to focus on research to help them understand how to counter these scammers. What we have discovered is that the explosive proliferation of "zombie content" is causing confusion.

In April 2020, a website revealing a plot that China is hiding important information about the new coronavirus infection was noted by Amelia Acker, an assistant professor of information research at the University of Texas at Austin. rice field.

Originally, it was posted on a website called "News NT", which stated that 21 million people died from the new coronavirus infection in China, but the truth of the story is immediate. Was revealed to me. According to Facebook's social monitoring tool, CloudTangle, the original post was unpopular, with 520 Facebook interactions (views and reactions) and only 100 shares. Facebook has labeled this content with a fact check label. This limits the news and search rankings by the algorithm. However, there was another problem with the information distribution system.

The original page couldn't spread the fake news, but the pages stored on the Internet archive, the Wayback Machine, were widely viewed on Facebook. Wayback Machine's Link gained 649,000 interactions and 118,000 shares, far greater than the legitimate press. Facebook then also labeled the links on the Wayback Machine with fact-check labels, already after the page had been viewed many times.

There are several explanations for this hidden vitality. Some people use Internet archives like the Wayback Machine to circumvent domain blocking in their country, but not just to escape censorship. Some are trying to avoid content fact checking and algorithmic restrictions.

Most of the fake news links posted on Wayback Machine were shared on Facebook by the right-wing group in the United States and its related web pages, as well as groups and related web pages critical of China in Pakistan and Southeast Asia. It was a thing. The most common news NT link exchange on the Wayback Machine involved a public Facebook group managed by Brian Corfage called Trump for President 2020. Was there. Corfage is renowned for being behind the controversial nonprofit "We Build the Wall." The "Let's Build a Wall" page used a technique called "Keyword Squats" to attract members interested in President Trump. Currently, it has nearly 240,000 members, and after changing the group name from the original "PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [OFFICIAL])" to "President Donald Trump ✅ [OFFICIAL]", it changed its name to "The Deplorable's ✅". Finally, it has been changed to "Trump For President 2020". Claiming to be President Trump's "official" page and using fake checkmarks has earned the trust of already polarized citizens.

To find more evidence about hidden vitality, we searched "web.archive.org" on various platforms. Unsurprisingly, the post on Medium, which was withdrawn for disseminating false health information, survived through the Wayback Machine link. The article "The new coronavirus infection was laughed at and deceived everyone, but may have finally discovered the secret," which was deleted in violation of medium rules as misleading health information, is on Facebook. With 6000 reactions and 1200 shares. But archives are even more popular, with 1.6 million interactions and 310,000 shares. The numbers are still increasing. This zombie content is referenced more than most mainstream news articles, but only exists as an archived record.

Perhaps the most important thing for researchers like me to note is that these harmful hoaxes permeate private pages and groups on Facebook. This means that less than 2% of the data people exchange is accessible to researchers, and journalists, independent researchers, and public health professionals point out false statements or claim facts and correct them. It means that incorrect health information will be distributed without being able to do so. The point is that without these records in the Internet Archive, you can't investigate deleted content in the first place, while archiving systems also have to deal with hoaxes in their services.

Hidden vitality is increasing in areas where Whatsapp is widespread. Transferring hoaxes over an encrypted channel makes it easy for operators to avoid content verification. It's also especially confusing when there is a hidden vitality on Facebook about incorrect health information. More than 50% of Americans rely on Facebook news, but after years of concern and dissatisfaction, researchers still have very limited access to their data. This means that it is almost impossible to ethically investigate how false health information is shared on private pages and groups.

All of this can be a public health threat, beyond just political and fake news. People act quickly with false medical advice.

I've been studying political science on platforms for the last decade, and I've never seen the damage to society caused by uncontrolled harmful content across the Web and social media. If you want to be careful about staying healthy, you need to immediately encourage social media companies to take responsibility for information. Social media companies, on the other hand, should define successful recommendations and sound news feeds as maximizing respect, dignity, and productive social value, and create a means to strategically amplify them. Reliable content needs to be identified by independent researchers and bibliographic experts, especially if it is life-threatening.

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joan.donovan [Joan Donovan] US version

Currently being edited.