Disinformation

• CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD) today announced its lineup of guest speakers, keynotes and sessions for the CrowdStrike Gov Threat Summit on March 19, 2024 in Washington D.C. at the Ronald Reagan Building.
• Leaders from across the public sector will join CrowdStrike to discuss the future of cybersecurity and its impact on national security and upcoming elections.
• Cybersecurity Platform Consolidation in Digital Transformation: CrowdStrike Chief Technology Officer, Elia Zaitsev will give a behind-the-scenes look at the security capabilities of the AI-native CrowdStrike Falcon® XDR platform that are powering and protecting the public sector today.
• The CrowdStrike Gov Threat Summit will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building on Tuesday, March 19.

• BROOKVILLE, N.Y., Jan. 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Long Island University today announced it will mark the 75th anniversary of its George Polk Awards in journalism by honoring 16 individuals whose careers reflect the awards' commitment to outstanding investigative reporting as the first-ever Polk Laureates.
• The event, to be held at Cipriani 42nd Street will be hosted by CNN anchor and CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper.
• The Polk Awards were established in 1949 by Long Island University to commemorate George Polk, a CBS correspondent murdered in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war.
• "Long Island University has long recognized the importance of investigative journalism through the George Polk Awards and our George Polk School of Communications which is helping prepare an international class of the journalists of tomorrow," noted Dr. Kimberly Cline, President of Long Island University.

• "This study equips news organizations with actionable insights to fortify their credibility and empower the public to distinguish fact from falsehood."
• The in-person eye-tracking experiment, led by DMAC Lab Director Bart Wojdynski and Senior Research Associate Charlotte Varnum, was designed to better understand how people interact with the Trust Project's Trust Indicators® in online news articles.
• In a landscape where much of the existing research serves only to highlight the loss of trust in news media, this study revealed tangible, research-backed solutions.
• Design Matters: The way transparency elements and labels are designed - especially their prominence on the page - played a crucial role.

• It’s a tricky problem and hard to police because of the sheer amount of misinformation online.
• The COVID-19 pandemic taught us not to be complacent, as fake news about COVID treatments led to deadly consequences.
• It offers more stick (hefty penalties) and less carrot (voluntary participation) than the current approach to managing online content.

Following an EU model

According to the draft, disinformation is spread intentionally, while misinformation is not. But both can cause serious harms including hate speech, financial harm and disruption of public order, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). To date, research shows countries tend to approach this problem in three distinct ways:
The Albanese government’s draft bill will bring us closer to the European Union-style model of mandatory co-regulation.

Platforms remain responsible, not government

• To be clear, under the proposed Australian bill, platforms continue to be responsible for the content on their services – not governments.
• Content of private messages, authorised electoral communications, parody and satire, and news media all remain outside the scope of the proposed changes.
• This followed government recommendations arising out of a lengthy Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) inquiry into digital platforms.
• The obvious being that not all platforms decide to participate, and some cherry-pick the areas of the code they will respond to.

The proposed changes

• Under the proposed changes, ACMA will be given new information gathering powers and capacity to formally request an industry association (such as DIGI) vary or replace codes that aren’t up to scratch.
• Platform participation with registered codes will be compulsory and attract warnings, fines and, if unresolved, hefty court-approved penalties for noncompliance.

Questions remain

But the draft bill raises important questions to address before it’s legislated as planned for later this year. Among them are:
While aiming to mitigate harmful mis- and disinformation is noble, how it will work in practice remains to be seen. An important guard against unintended consequences is to ensure ACMA’s powers are carefully defined along with terms and likely circumstances requiring action, with mechanisms for appeal. Public submissions close August 6.