
<p><strong>TOPLINE</strong> Tech CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey will soon have to answer to lawmakers about the rise of misinformation on their platforms and how they plan to address it, as the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced Thursday a hearing with the Facebook, Google and Twitter leaders will take place on March 25.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



<p>Zuckerberg, Pichai and Dorsey—who lead Facebook, Google and Twitter, respectively—will testify at a remote hearing on “misinformation and disinformation plaguing online platforms,” the House committee announced.</p>



<p>The hearing will further the committee’s work of “holding online platforms accountable” for the issues on their platforms, committee chair Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and subcommittee chairs Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said in a statement.</p>



<p>The lawmakers singled out misinformation on election fraud and the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine as particular matters of concern.</p>



<p>The tech leaders have previously&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/17/facebook-twitter-ceos-senate-judiciary-committee-prepared-testimony.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">testified</a>&nbsp;before lawmakers in recent months, including an October&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/facebook-google-and-twitter-ceos-testify-in-congress-over-section-230-live-updates.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hearing</a>&nbsp;with all three CEOs before the Senate Commerce Committee on Section 230, which shields tech companies from legal liability for the content their users post.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h3>



<p>“For far too long, big tech has failed to acknowledge the role they’ve played in fomenting and elevating blatantly false information to its online audiences. Industry self-regulation has failed,” Pallone, Doyle and Schakowsky said in a statement. “We must begin the work of changing incentives driving social media companies to allow and even promote misinformation and disinformation.”</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h3>



<p>93%. That’s the percentage of Americans who say they are either very or somewhat about the spread of misinformation on the internet, according to a Gallup/Knight Foundation&nbsp;<a href="https://knightfoundation.org/articles/most-americans-would-believe-social-media-misinformation-warnings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;conducted in September.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h3>



<p>The House Judiciary Committee also separately announced plans to investigate big tech Thursday, unveiling a series of antitrust hearings aimed at curbing tech giants’ market dominance as it develops antitrust legislation. The renewed investigation will continue the antitrust subcommittee’s ongoing work probing the tech giants and their monopolistic power, which included a July&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/07/29/republicans-use-tech-antitrust-hearing-to-rail-against-anti-conservative-bias/?sh=6f7e186855aa">hearing</a>&nbsp;with Dorsey, Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h3>



<p>Online misinformation and its spread on major social networks has come under significant scrutiny in recent months, particularly amid the Covid-19 pandemic and around the November election. Social media companies have taken significant&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/01/31/heres-how-facebook-twitter-and-tiktok-are-battling-coronavirus-misinformation/?sh=2dfca99c6651">steps</a>&nbsp;to curb the spread of false information, such as Twitter&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/10/09/twitter-new-rules-try-to-prevent-election-and-trump-related-chaos-misinformation/?sh=262d250f6840">adding safeguards</a>&nbsp;to limit sharing posts that have been flagged for misinformation and Facebook&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/02/18/facebook-continues-fight-against-misinformation-plans-to-debunk-climate-change-myths/?sh=7cac8aee4804">announcing</a>&nbsp;Thursday new efforts to combat misinformation around climate change. Despite their efforts, however, misinformation still continues to persist: an October study by the German Marshall Fund of the United States&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/10/12/facebook-users-interacting-with-misinformation-way-more-now-than-in-2016-study-finds/?sh=403d34415973">found</a>&nbsp;that engagement with false content producers on Facebook had gone up by 102% since 2016, for instance, while a September&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news/releases/covid-related-misinformation-videos-spread-primarily-through-facebook-as-its-fact-checkers-fail-to-spot-false-information-finds-new-oxford-study/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a>&nbsp;from the University of Oxford found Facebook’s third-party fact checkers had only caught less than one percent of Covid-19 misinformation videos on the platform.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h3>



<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/18/house-antitrust-amazon-apple-facebook-google/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">House to grill Facebook, Google, Twitter CEOs as Washington seeks to crack down on disinformation, antitrust</a>&nbsp;(Washington Post)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/02/18/facebook-continues-fight-against-misinformation-plans-to-debunk-climate-change-myths/?sh=7cac8aee4804">Facebook Continues Fight Against Misinformation, Plans To Debunk Climate Change Myths</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/01/31/heres-how-facebook-twitter-and-tiktok-are-battling-coronavirus-misinformation/?sh=2dfca99c6651">Here’s How Facebook, Twitter And TikTok Are Battling Coronavirus Misinformation</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/10/12/facebook-users-interacting-with-misinformation-way-more-now-than-in-2016-study-finds/?sh=403d34415973">Facebook Users Interacting With Misinformation Way More Now Than In 2016, Study Finds</a> (Forbes)</p>



<p><em>By Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff</em></p>


US-politics-computers-internet

Facebook, Google, Twitter CEOs Set To Testify About Misinformation


<p><strong>TOPLINE</strong>   Twitter announced Wednesday that it will test a new feature that will prompt users to open up a link to an article before sharing it, which appears to be a move to further combat the spread of misinformation on the platform.</p>



<p><strong>KEY FACTS</strong></p>



<ul><li>Some Twitter uses may be subject to a prompt to click on a link if they try to retweet without reading the article first, billed by Twitter as a feature “designed to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270821434462539783?s=20" target="_blank">empower</a> healthy and informed public conversation.”</li></ul>



<ul><li>English speakers on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270783537667551233?s=20" target="_blank">Android devices</a> will be the first to see the tests.Users will still have the ability to retweet a message without clicking the link first if they chose to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270783537667551233?s=20" target="_blank">tap through</a> the prompt.</li></ul>



<ul><li>According to Twitter Support, an official company account, the platform will only check if a user has clicked the article link recently <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270804405886091266?s=20" target="_blank">through Twitter</a>, not elsewhere on the internet.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Twitter denied some skeptical users’ accusations that the platform is testing the feature to establish a revenue stream via click-through to outside websites, saying the platform is not <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270821781843124227?s=20" target="_blank">testing ad products</a> with the prompts.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Twitter Support told one user it would watch to see if reminding users to read an article before they share it leads to more <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1270809139917225985?s=20" target="_blank">informed discussion</a>.</li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it.<br><br>To help promote informed discussion, we&#39;re testing a new prompt on Android –– when you Retweet an article that you haven&#39;t opened on Twitter, we may ask if you&#39;d like to open it first.</p>&mdash; Support (@Support) <a href="https://twitter.com/Support/status/1270783537667551233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<p><strong>CRUCIAL QUOTE</strong></p>



<p>“It&#8217;s easy for links [and] articles to go viral on Twitter. This can be powerful but sometimes dangerous, especially if people haven&#8217;t read the content they&#8217;re spreading. This feature (on Android for now) encourages people to read a linked article prior to retweeting it,” Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/kayvz/status/1270788548002631681?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">commented</a>&nbsp;upon the announcement of the feature testing.</p>



<p><strong>KEY BACKGROUND</strong></p>



<p>The new prompt tests are the latest Twitter effort to curb the spread of misinformation on the platform. Twitter last month displayed <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2020/05/29/twitter-flags-trump-tweet-threatening-violence-against-minneapolis-protesters/#5684bf57bc33">fact-check tags</a> on two of President Donald Trump’s tweets that featured misleading information regarding mail-in ballots and voter fraud. Twitter also rolled out testing for a new feature to allow users to <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.theverge.com/21286855/twitter-articles-prompt-unread-feature-conversations" target="_blank">limit</a> who can reply to their tweets. The platform has faced <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/05/27/heres-why-twitter-is-facing-attacks-from-both-trump-and-democrats/#3a95dad95df0">criticism</a> from both sides of the aisle in recent weeks, from conservatives over accusations of censorship and from the left for not doing enough to stifle misinformation.</p>



<p><em>&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/">Carlie Porterfield</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a></em></p>


gettyimages-1196063843-594×594

Twitter Begins Asking Users To Actually Read Articles Before Sharing Them


<p>By: Toby Shapshak, Forbes.com Contributor</p>



<p>As Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey demonstrated with his <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2019/11/30/twitter-ceo-wants-to-move-to-africa-which-will-define-the-future/">month-long trip</a> in November, the importance of Africa for global companies keeps growing.</p>



<p>The increasingly frequent visits by high-level CEOs shows the importance of the continent, says&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Cvllr" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Max Cuvellier</a>, head of programmes at the GSM Association (GSMA) Mobile for Development (M4D).</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Why Elon Musk And Jack Dorsey Have Big Plans For Africa" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UoOc8FnS7qE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div><figcaption> Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, Inc, raised some eyebrows in Silicon Valley when he announced he was moving to Africa in 2020. Africa is poised to take off as the next big tech market, and both America and China have taken notice. <br> </figcaption></figure>



<p>Since 2015, the heads of the world&#8217;s biggest tech businesses have visited Africa. It started with Airbnb&#8217;s Brian Chesky and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2019/05/13/microsoft-launches-100m-development-centres-in-nairobi-and-lagos/">Microsoft&#8217;s</a>&nbsp;Satya Nadella in 2015, with Facebook&#8217;s Mark&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2016/08/31/avoiding-whatsapp-privacy-concerns-zuckerberg-in-nigeria-praises-african-entrepreneurs/">Zuckerberg</a>&nbsp;visiting&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2016/09/01/africa-will-build-the-future-says-zuckerberg-visits-kenya-on-first-african-trip/">Kenya</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2016/08/30/facebooks-zuckerberg-visits-nigeria-on-first-sub-saharan-africa-trip/">Nigeria</a>&nbsp;in 2016. Google&#8217;s CEO Sundar Pichai came in 2017, while then Alphabet&#8217;s Sergey Brin visited the following year. Alibaba co-founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2018/08/08/to-create-jobs-in-africa-encourage-young-people-and-give-startups-tax-breaks-alibabas-jack-ma/">Jack Ma</a>&nbsp;has come to Africa in 2017, twice in 2018 and again this year.</p>



<p>&#8220;What I like the most when I look at tech giant CEO visits is that they seem to recognise the potential of the continent not only as a market, but as a source of innovation and talent,&#8221;&nbsp;Cuvellier told me. &#8220;They dedicate more and more time on these trips to meeting local entrepreneurs, discussing emerging technologies with local experts and going to universities to interact with local students. Some might too quickly dismiss this as anecdotal, but when Jack Ma awards you with a prize&nbsp;(<a href="https://twitter.com/temite/status/1196065258449854464?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Temie Giwa-Tubosun of LifeBank</a>&nbsp;in Nigeria last week) – or Jack Dorsey endorses you on social media as ‘the most incredible soul in all the world’ (<a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199797123715346433?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Betelhem Dessie of iCog Labs</a>&nbsp;in Ethiopia), I like to believe these things reflect positively not only on the individuals, but on the whole community.&#8221;</p>



<p>Cuvellier has created a map of these CEO visits which demonstrate &#8220;things are getting serious&#8221;.</p>



<p>Although it might be easy to dismiss the importance of these trips, especially as many people only see a few quotes or a handful of selfies with locals. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.biznews.com/innovation/2015/07/28/airbnb-ceo-brian-chesky-jets-in-and-out-of-sa-loses-a-former-fan" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">most popular article</a>&nbsp;on Brian Chesky’s visit to South Africa in 2015 – the first visit recorded on the map &#8211; focuses on how short his visit was, says&nbsp;Cuvellier.&nbsp;</p>



<p>&#8220;But I do believe that the trips in themselves are an indication of growing interest in the continent from ‘tech giants’. Jack Ma is on his third visit to the continent since July 2017 and has now visited seven countries, Jack Dorsey just spent a full month in Africa.&#8221;</p>



<p>By comparison, in the same period the Chinese president only made one visit to Africa (visiting four countries in July 2018) and none by the American president.&nbsp;</p>



<p>&#8220;Most importantly, and beyond the visits, actual commitments are made: Google’s first AI lab in Africa (in Accra, Ghana) was announced by Sundar Pichai in June 2018 and was opened earlier this year; while Ethiopia and the Alibaba Group just inaugurated a global trade platform on Monday. I am hopeful the deals and the partnerships, not just the trips, will keep coming.&#8221;</p>



<p>He highlights that much of Africa&#8217;s innovation successes are based on the widespread adoption of mobile phones.&nbsp;</p>



<p>&#8220;These tech giants wouldn’t be looking at Africa if it weren’t for mobile technology,&#8221; says&nbsp;Cuvellier.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As of July 2019, the GSMA estimated there were 456-million unique mobile subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and it remains the fastest growing region globally (4.6% year-on-year). Some 52% of these mobile subscribers (239 million) use mobile internet on a regular basis.</p>



<p>Connectivity is also getting much better:&nbsp;&nbsp;in 2019, 3G has overtaken 2G to become the leading mobile technology in the region.&nbsp;</p>



<p>&#8220;Mobile money – with 396-million registered mobile money accounts – provides access to financial services to many. Last but not least, the demographic bulge will result in large numbers of young consumers becoming adults and owning a mobile phone for the first time. They will account for the majority of new mobile subscribers and, as ‘digital natives’, will significantly influence mobile usage patterns in the future, not to mention they often are a key target of ‘tech giants’.&#8221;</p>



<p>The full list, according to&nbsp;Cuvellier, of tech CEO visits:</p>



<ul><li>Brian Chesky, Airbnb (2015)</li><li>Satya Nadella, Microsoft (2015)</li><li>Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook (2016)</li><li>Sundar Pichai, Google (2017)</li><li>Jack Ma, Alibaba Group (2017, 2018*2, 2019)</li><li>Sergey Brin, Alphabet (2018)</li><li>Jack Dorsey, Twitter (2019).</li></ul>


Tag: Jack Dorsey

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

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