Business
Misinformation Defense Worked in 2020, Up to a Point, Study Finds
Not lengthy after misinformation plagued the 2016 election, journalists and content material moderators scrambled to show Individuals away from untrustworthy web sites earlier than the 2020 vote.
A brand new research means that, to some extent, their efforts succeeded.
When Individuals went to the polls in 2020, a much smaller portion had visited web sites containing false and deceptive narratives in contrast with 4 years earlier, in keeping with researchers at Stanford. Though the variety of such websites ballooned, the typical visits amongst these folks dropped, together with the time spent on every web site.
Efforts to teach folks concerning the threat of misinformation after 2016, together with content material labels and media literacy coaching, more than likely contributed to the decline, the researchers discovered. Their research was revealed on Thursday within the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
“I’m optimistic that almost all of the inhabitants is more and more resilient to misinformation on the internet,” mentioned Jeff Hancock, the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and the lead creator of the report. “We’re getting higher and higher at distinguishing actually problematic, dangerous, dangerous info from what’s dependable or leisure.”
Nonetheless, almost 68 million folks in the US checked out web sites that weren’t credible, visiting 1.5 billion occasions in a month in 2020, the researchers estimated. That included domains that at the moment are defunct, comparable to theantimedia.com and obamawatcher.com. Some folks within the research visited a few of these websites a whole bunch of occasions.
Because the 2024 election approaches, the researchers fear that misinformation is evolving and splintering. Past net browsers, many individuals are uncovered to conspiracy theories and extremism just by scrolling by cellular apps comparable to TikTok. Extra harmful content material has shifted onto encrypted messaging apps with difficult-to-trace personal channels, comparable to Telegram or WhatsApp.
The Unfold of Misinformation and Falsehoods
- Deepfakes: Meme-makers and misinformation peddlers are embracing synthetic intelligence instruments to create convincing pretend movies on a budget.
- Chopping Again: Job cuts within the social media trade replicate a development that threatens to undo most of the safeguards that platforms have put in place to ban or tamp down on disinformation.
- A Key Case: The result of a federal court docket battle may assist determine whether or not the First Modification is a barrier to just about any authorities efforts to stifle disinformation.
- A High Misinformation Spreader: A big research discovered that Steve Bannon’s “Struggle Room” podcast had extra falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims than different political discuss exhibits.
The increase in generative synthetic intelligence, the know-how behind the favored ChatGPT chatbot, has additionally raised alarms about misleading pictures and mass-produced falsehoods.
The Stanford researchers mentioned that even restricted or concentrated publicity to misinformation may have critical penalties. Baseless claims of election fraud incited a riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Greater than two years later, congressional hearings, legal trials and defamation court docket instances are nonetheless addressing what occurred.
The Stanford researchers monitored the web exercise of 1,151 adults from Oct. 2 by Nov. 9, 2020, and located that 26.2 p.c visited no less than considered one of 1,796 unreliable web sites. They famous that the timeframe didn’t embrace the postelection interval when baseless claims of voter fraud had been particularly pronounced.
That was down from an earlier, separate report that discovered that 44.3 p.c of adults visited no less than considered one of 490 problematic domains in 2016.
The shrinking viewers could have been influenced by makes an attempt, together with by social media firms, to mitigate misinformation, in keeping with the researchers. They famous that 5.6 p.c of the visits to untrustworthy websites in 2020 originated from Fb, down from 15.1 p.c in 2016. E-mail additionally performed a smaller function in sending customers to such websites in 2020.
Different researchers have highlighted extra methods to restrict the lure of misinformation, particularly round elections. The Bipartisan Coverage Heart recommended in a report this week that states undertake direct-to-voter texts and emails that provide vetted info.
Social media firms also needs to do extra to discourage performative outrage and so-called groupthink on their platforms — habits that may fortify excessive subcultures and intensify polarization, mentioned Yini Zhang, an assistant communication professor on the College at Buffalo.
Professor Zhang, who revealed a research this month about QAnon, mentioned tech firms ought to as an alternative encourage extra average engagement, even by renaming “like” buttons to one thing like “respect.”
“For normal social media customers, what we will do is dial again on the tribal instincts, to attempt to be extra introspective and say: ‘I’m not going to take the bait. I’m not going to pile on my opponent,’” she mentioned.
With subsequent yr’s presidential election looming, researchers mentioned they’re involved about populations identified to be weak to misinformation, comparable to older folks, conservatives and individuals who don’t communicate English.
Greater than 37 p.c of individuals older than 65 visited misinformation websites in 2020 — a far larger charge than youthful teams however an enchancment from 56 p.c in 2016, in keeping with the Stanford report. In 2020, 36 p.c of people that supported President Donald J. Trump within the election visited no less than one misinformation web site, in contrast with almost 18 p.c of people that supported Joseph R. Biden Jr. The members additionally accomplished a survey that included questions on their most well-liked candidate.
Mr. Hancock mentioned that misinformation needs to be taken significantly, however that its scale shouldn’t be exaggerated. The Stanford research, he mentioned, confirmed that the information consumed by most Individuals was not misinformation however that sure teams of individuals had been more than likely to be focused. Treating conspiracy theories and false narratives as an ever-present, wide-reaching risk may erode the general public’s belief in legit information sources, he mentioned.
“I nonetheless suppose there’s an issue, however I believe it’s one which we’re coping with and that we’re additionally recognizing doesn’t have an effect on most individuals more often than not,” Mr. Hancock mentioned. “If we’re instructing our residents to be skeptical of all the pieces, then belief is undermined in all of the issues that we care about.”
Business
Dominic Ng: Philanthropist banker, inclusion practitioner
The year 2023 was especially cruel to regional banks in California. Repeated interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve exposed the poor bets and hubris of regional highfliers like Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic. Those banks capsized, which sparked bank runs, which wiped shareholders out.
One regional bank, however, smoothly sailed on: East West Bank, helmed for more than 30 years by Dominic Ng, who champions the durable power of steady growth. “We’re prudent and cautious, but very entrepreneurial,” he said from his office at East West headquarters in Pasadena. “The way you win in banking is not through shortcuts. It’s a long game.”
‘His leadership has transformed the bank, transformed philanthropy and what business leadership looks like in L.A.’
— Elise Buik, United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ chief executive
The result has been accolades: No. 1 best-performing bank in its size category last year from S&P Global Market Intelligence and No. 1 performing bank in 2023 by trade publication Bank Director. The diversity of its board of directors — Latino, Asian, Black, female and LGBTQ+ all represented — has also won acclaim.
Steady profits enabled East West to become one of Los Angeles’ top civic benefactors. Ng has been especially active with the United Way of Greater Los Angeles for more than 25 years and is credited with championing a strategic change in direction to more effectively serve the city’s desperately poor, while persuading more of the city’s richest residents to pitch in.
Discover the changemakers who are shaping every cultural corner of Los Angeles. This week we bring you The Money, a collection of bankers, political bundlers, philanthropists and others whose deep pockets give them their juice. Come back each Sunday for another installment.
“His leadership has transformed the bank, transformed philanthropy and what business leadership looks like in L.A.,” said Elise Buik, the United Way chapter’s chief executive.
Born to Chinese parents in Hong Kong in 1959, the youngest of six children, Ng has been chief executive of East West Bank since 1992 and expanded on the bank’s original mission of financing Chinese immigrants who in the 1970s found it difficult to qualify for loans through the usual channels. It’s now the largest publicly traded independent bank based in Southern California, serving an economically and ethnically diverse clientele. On the world stage, Ng serves as co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council.
Ng, 65, worries about the future of philanthropy in Los Angeles. He longs for the “good old days” when business chiefs didn’t think twice about pitching in to help the city’s less fortunate.
“Today, the pressure is on for [immediate] return to shareholders,” and people running companies have to respond to shareholders who seem to “care less every year” about civic responsibility.
More young, monied tech and finance hotshots would do well to take some cues from business leaders like Ng.
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Business
Mark Suster: The face of L.A. venture capital
Cancer-fighting robots. AI-powered baby monitors. The future of American shipbuilding.
These are the kinds of startup ideas that get Mark Suster out of bed in the morning, into his Tesla, and down to the Santa Monica offices of Upfront, the venture capital firm he joined 16 years ago.
“There’s that old saying — the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed,” Suster said. “My job lets me see where the world’s going five years before the general population.”
Discover the changemakers who are shaping every cultural corner of Los Angeles. This week we bring you The Money, a collection of bankers, political bundlers, philanthropists and others whose deep pockets give them their juice. Come back each Sunday for another installment.
But Suster, 56, didn’t become the face of the L.A. venture capital scene thanks to his day-to-day investing. He got there by throwing a party called the Upfront Summit.
Every year, Suster’s splashy tech conference takes over an iconic L.A. location. One year, it’s at the Rose Bowl. Another year, it’s at a retreat center high in the Santa Monica Mountains. There are zip lines, hot air balloons, and, among the talks with tech founders about software and product development, fireside chats with celebrities, politicians and authors (Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Novak Djokovic graced the stage this year).
The razzle-dazzle is part of the draw, and Suster clearly relishes his role as emcee (“I was a theater kid — I still love going to the theater,” he said.)
‘My job lets me see where the world’s going five years before the general population.’
— Mark Suster
But the real appeal comes down to cash. Suster’s strategic move was to invite not just venture capital investors, but the people who invest in venture capital investors. Called limited partners, these are the managers of pensions, sovereign wealth funds and other giant pools of money that want to tap into the tech market. By making sure they’re on the guest list, Suster has made the summit one of the easiest places in America for fellow venture capitalists to raise a new fund.
The summit loses Upfront money. When Suster started it in 2012, it cost around $300,000. In 2022, costs hit $2.3 million, Suster said, with a handful of sponsors chipping in to cut the losses. But throwing the premiere professional party in California comes with intangible benefits, like bringing in deals that would otherwise leave out Upfront and other L.A. funds and founders.
The 2024 party was a little scaled back, now that higher interest rates have throttled the fire hose of money that went into venture capital during the last decade. But Suster says that he welcomes the less frothy environment. “I’m having a lot more fun now,” he said, investing in founders “looking to build real businesses.”
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Business
Steve Ballmer: NBA owner in search of a miracle
He sits in a conspicuous baseline seat, where he cheers like nobody’s watching.
The large balding man in long sleeves roars with every splashed basket, gestures with every scintillating pass, face reddening, arms flailing, celebrating so hard he once ripped a hole in his dress shirt.
He could be any die-hard Clippers fan, with one exception.
He owns the team.
Steve Ballmer is the perfect symbol of the power of Hollywood hope, the strength of California dreaming and the resilience of those who come here searching for a miracle.
Discover the changemakers who are shaping every cultural corner of Los Angeles. This week we bring you The Money, a collection of bankers, political bundlers, philanthropists and others whose deep pockets give them their juice. Come back each Sunday for another installment.
Ranking eighth on the Forbes 500 list with an estimated net worth north of $120 billion, Ballmer could afford to buy any sports team in any league.
He chose to buy the Clippers, spending $2 billion in 2014 for a perennial loser and one of five teams to never reach the NBA Finals.
“A team comes up for sale in a city I love that’s near me?” said Ballmer, 68, a former Microsoft executive who lives in Washington state. “You say, ‘OK, but it’s the Clippers,’ and my theory is, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.”
As the richest owner in North American professional sports, he had the wealth and influence to move the bedraggled franchise to a city far away from the big brother Lakers, perhaps even into his adopted hometown of Seattle.
‘It was clear to me, we had to have our own home, our own identity.’
— Clippers owner Steve Ballmer
Yet he doubled down and not only kept the Clippers in town but spent another $2 billion to build his own arena: the glitzy Intuit Dome, which is scheduled to open in October in Inglewood.
“It was clear to me, we had to have our own home, our own identity,” Ballmer said.
Cynics would describe his ownership of the Clippers as charity work, but his real philanthropy has had an even larger impact in the region, with his Ballmer Group investing hundreds of millions of dollars in everything from inner-city businesses to the renovation of 500 Clipper Community Courts in diverse pockets of the city.
“Impacting kids is the kind of thing that pulls at my heart,” Ballmer said. “A fan will tell me that he drove past a Clipper court and I’ll think, that’s really, really, really cool.”
Ballmer is accessible, generous and, most of all, the head cheerleader for a drowned-out swath of a Lakers-owned city.
“I love our die-hard fans,” he said. “I love the culture of c’mon, we have a chip on our shoulder, we’ve got something to prove, we’ve never done it before, c’mon!”
It is a Thursday afternoon early in the 2023-24 NBA season and Steve Ballmer is shouting into the phone, because of course he is, the sound of undying faith, the voice of a true believer, c’mon!
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