Russia warning
Fear of fake news ahead of UK election
Fake news fears ahead of the UK election: In the run-up to the general election, fake accounts on the online service X have been spreading "disinformation and hate" on a massive scale, according to an NGO.
The posts published by ten suspected bot profiles on the short message service were viewed an estimated 150 million times during the election campaign, as the organization Global Witness announced on Tuesday.
Within six weeks, more than 60,000 messages containing conspiracy theories and Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic and transphobic messages were posted from these accounts. Bots are computer programs that use algorithms to interact with users while pretending to be real people.
According to Global Witness, the posts, which also express support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, could have had an "excessive influence" on the election campaign.
Warning against Russia
British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden had warned on Sunday that actors such as Russia were trying to influence the election by sharing pro-Kremlin content on Facebook.
Global Witness called on X and other online networks to "clean up their platforms and put our democracies before profit". Campaigner Ava Lee warned that democracy was at risk if discussions online were "influenced by someone who has paid for bots to spread division or put a particular party in power".
A new parliament will be elected in the UK on Thursday. According to polls, the opposition Labour Party has a good chance of a clear victory against the Conservatives, who have been in power for 14 years.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,
die Kommentarfunktion steht Ihnen ab 6 Uhr wieder wie gewohnt zur Verfügung.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
das krone.at-Team
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.