More than a quarter of the most-viewed coronavirus videos on YouTube contain “misleading or inaccurate information”, a study suggests.

In total, the misleading videos had been viewed more than 62 million times.

Among the false claims was the idea that pharmaceutical companies already have a coronavirus vaccine but are refusing to sell it.

YouTube said it was committed to reducing the spread of harmful misinformation.

The researchers suggested “good quality, accurate information” had been uploaded to YouTube by government bodies and health experts.

But it said the videos were often difficult to understand and lacked the popular appeal of YouTube stars and vloggers.

The study, published online by BMJ Global Health, looked at the most widely viewed coronavirus-related videos in English, as of 21 March.

After excluding duplicate videos, videos longer than an hour and videos that did not include relevant audio or visual material, they were left with 69 to analyse.

The videos were scored on whether they presented exclusively factual information about viral spread, coronavirus symptoms, prevention and potential treatments.

Videos from government agencies scored significantly better than other sources, but were less widely viewed.

Of the 19 videos found to include misinformation:

• about a third came from entertainment news sources
• national news outlets accounted for about a quarter
• internet news sources also account for about a quarter
• 13% had been uploaded by independent video-makers

The report recommends that governments and health authorities should collaborate with entertainment news sources and social media influencers to make appealing, factual content that is more widely viewed.

YouTube said in a statement: “We’re committed to providing timely and helpful information at this critical time, including raising authoritative content, reducing the spread of harmful misinformation and showing information panels, using NHS and World Health Organization (WHO) data, to help combat misinformation.

“We have clear policies that prohibit videos promoting medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment, and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us. Now any content that disputes the existence or transmission of Covid-19, as described by the WHO and the NHS is in violation of YouTube policies. For borderline content that could misinform users in harmful ways, we reduce recommendations.

“We’ll continue to evaluate the impact of these videos on communities around the world.”

Analysis

by Marianna Spring, specialist disinformation and social media reporter

In recent weeks, there has been an increase in highly polished videos promoting conspiracy theories being shared on YouTube – and they prove very popular.

So these findings – although concerning – are not surprising.

The accurate information shared by trusted public health bodies on YouTube tends to be more complex.

It can lack the popular appeal of the conspiracy videos, which give misleading explanations to worried people who are looking for quick answers, or someone to blame.

That includes videos such as Plandemic, which was widely shared online last week.

High-quality production values and interviews with supposed experts can make these videos very convincing. Often facts will be presented out of context and used to draw false conclusions.

And tackling this kind of content is a game of cat-and-mouse for social media sites.

Once videos gain traction, even if they are removed, they continue to be uploaded repeatedly by other users.

It is not just alternative outlets uploading misinformation either. Whether for views or clicks, the study suggests some mainstream media outlets are also guilty of spreading misleading information.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52662348

By Matthew Holroyd

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) has launched an investigation into the popular social media platform, TikTok over privacy concerns.

The probe will examine whether TikTok adequately protects the privacy of children under Dutch law and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

“We will investigate whether the app has a privacy-friendly design,” said Monique Verdier, deputy chair of the Dutch DPA.

“We’ll also check whether the information TikTok provides when children install and use the app is easy to understand and adequately explains how their personal data is collected, processed, and used.”

Authorities are also examining whether the app requires parental consent for TikTok to collect and use data on its young users.

TikTok’s popularity has spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, and market intelligence provider Sensor Tower estimates that the app was the second-most installed application in April worldwide, with more than 107 million downloads.

The Chinese-owned social media app has previously come under scrutiny from both the United Kingdom and the United States over its data privacy regulations.

In February 2019, the company agreed to pay $5.7 million (around €5.25 million) as part of a settlement over allegations it “illegally collected images, voice recordings, and geolocation” of children, some younger than 13.

Last month, TikTok outlined some data security measures it was implementing, including new policies on global data residency, data movement, and data storage access protections worldwide.

The company says they are “committed to protecting the privacy of children” and only collect limited information from younger users, such as username, password, and birthday.

“TikTok’s top priority is protecting our users’ privacy and safety, especially our younger users,” the company said in a further statement to Euronews.

“We are aware of the investigation by the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (Dutch Data Protection Authority) and are fully cooperating with them.”

The Dutch Data Protection Authority is expected to publish its initial findings later in 2020.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/05/12/tiktok-subject-of-dutch-data-protection-probe

TAMPA (CNN NEWSOURCE/WFLA) – Twitter says it will let some of its staff continue working from home “forever” if they want as long as their role and situation enables them to work from home.

The decision reflects how some measures implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a new normal for corporate America even after the immediate health crisis passes.

Twitter said the experience of working from home for the past few months has shown it can work at scale.

The social media company does not expect to open most of its offices, or support business travel, before September.

Most recently, Facebook and Google had announced its employees will be working from home for the rest of the year amid the pandemic.

https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/twitter-to-allow-some-employees-to-work-from-home-forever/

By Jem Aswad

The Prince Estate, in partnership with YouTube, will host a three-day streaming event of “Prince and the Revolution: Live,” the legendary concert filmed toward the end of the “Purple Rain” tour in Syracuse, NY on March 30, 1985.

The show will be available on Prince’s official YouTube Channel for three days only, beginning on Friday, May 14 and continuing through 11:59pm on Sunday, May 17. In collaboration with YouTube and Google, the streaming event will run in support of the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization (powered by UN Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation). Any viewer donations will include a matching component from Google (Google.org will match $2 for every $1 up to $5M). Full details here.

The concert, which was originally released as a VHS video and was long out of print before being reissued as part of the “Purple Rain” deluxe edition in 2017, is loaded with hits like “Let’s Go Crazy,” “When Doves Cry,” “I Would Die 4 U,” “Purple Rain,” “1999” and “Little Red Corvette” as well as rarities like “Possessed” and “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore.” (Full tracklist below.)

To celebrate the streaming release of Prince and the Revolution: Live, The Prince Estate and YouTube will host a watch party on Thursday, May 14, at 8 p.m. ET. An hour before the watch party, at 7 p.m. ET, fans will have the opportunity to participate in a special pre-stream Q&A with Revolution drummer Bobby Z., moderated by Andrea Swensson of Minnesota Public Radio’s 89.3 The Current.

WATCH THE PRE-SHOW HERE from 7 p.m. ET, May 14, 2020

WATCH THE CONCERT HERE from 8 p.m. ET, May 14, 2020

An audio album from the concert will also be released to streaming services Friday, May 15.

Full Tracklist

1.     Let’s Go Crazy (6:03)
2.     Delirious (2:51)
3.    1999 (5:51)
4.    Little Red Corvette (3:39)
5.    Take Me With U (4:57)
6.    Yankee Doodle Dandy (3:53)
7.    Do Me Baby (4:51)
8.    Irresistible Bitch (1:56)
9.    Possessed (4:25)
10.  How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore (7:19)
11.  Let’s Pretend We’re Married (2:11)
12.  International Lover (2:01)
13.  God (7:46)
14.  Computer Blue (4:15)
15.  Darling Nikki (3:30)
16.  The Beautiful Ones (6:50)
17.  When Doves Cry (9:29)
18.  I Would Die 4 U (3:27)
19.  Baby I’m A Star (10:57)
20.  Purple Rain (19:26)

By SAM DEAN

Earlier this week, a Southern California filmmaker posted his newest production on Facebook and YouTube and let the social media platforms do what they’ve been built for: make his video go viral.

Within days, the 26-minute video had spread like wildfire, racking up millions of views and attracting legions of new fans. The video, called “Plandemic,” looks like a serious documentary, with well-shot interviews intercut with news footage and ominous music. But it propagates coronavirus conspiracy theories, which could encourage viewers to ignore public health recommendations or attempt ineffective or dangerous treatments for the viral infection.

By Thursday, the social media companies where the video proliferated pledged to stop the video’s spread. They’re now struggling to stop new copies from emerging. As of the time of this article’s publication, links to or versions of the video were still available on both Facebook and YouTube.

Medical misinformation has proliferated on the major social media platforms for years, especially around the topic of vaccine safety. The platforms have pledged to more strongly enforce misinformation policies, but the task has proven difficult for companies whose services are designed to allow users to reach large audiences with little oversight. But the coronavirus crisis has been especially fertile ground for conspiracy theorizing, inspiring viral videos spinning tales of international intrigue and profiteering cabals since nearly its inception.

The “Plandemic” video centers on interviews with a researcher named Judy Milkovits, whose false claims include the allegation that wealthy people are intentionally spreading the novel coronavirus to increase vaccination rates in the population at large and that wearing a mask can actually worsen viral symptoms.

In a statement, a Facebook representative said that the company was removing the video from Facebook and Instagram and rejecting ads that include the video, as part of their policy to take down COVID-19 related misinformation that could lead to imminent harm. The company wrote in a blog post in mid-April that it had directed over 2 billion people to fact-checking information from the World Health Organization to try and combat misinformation about the pandemic.

“Suggesting that wearing a mask can make you sick could lead to imminent harm,” a Facebook representative said when asked about the “Plandemic” video response, “so we’ve removed the video.”

YouTube has posted notices on the uploads of the video that read: “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” The video platform Vimeo has also said that it is working to remove the video, and Twitter has been blocking hashtags and search related to the video.

Mikki Willis, the filmmaker behind the video, is listed as founder and chief executive on the website of Elevate, an Ojai-based production company. Willis has a large following on Facebook. In recent weeks, he asked his followers to vote on a name for his newest video (other candidates included “The Oath” and “The Invisible Enemy”), and published long posts claiming to connect the WHO with conspiracy theories surrounding the Council on Foreign Relations and the recent death of Jeffrey Epstein.

The video’s virality was boosted by online anti-vaccine conspiracy theory activists, according to coverage in the MIT Technology Review. When YouTube began removing copies of the video on Thursday, supporters took to Twitter with their outrage, making the video’s title a trending topic, fueling further attention and media coverage.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-05-08/youtube-facebook-coronavirus-plandemic

The Fly

thefly.com provides the latest financial news as it breaks. Known as a leader in market intelligence, The Fly’s real-time, streaming news feed keeps individual investors, professional money managers, active traders, and corporate executives informed on what’s moving stocks. Sign up for a free trial at thefly.com to see what Wall Street is buzzing about.

https://www.techinvestornews.com/Amazon/Latest-Amazon-News/amazons-twitch-to-fund-slate-of-unscripted-series-this-year-bloomberg-says

Daniyal Malik

We know for some of you the “Threaded Reply Format” isn’t a piece of breaking news. Twitter has been working on testing the feature for quite a few months now and from the initial response, it seems like users are loving the ease it has brought them – in case of reading more of opinions expressed by others on the platform through tweets.

However, the new part is that the company has decided to made subtle changes in the threaded tweet replies layout for more of iOS and web users. Hence, now the same feature will also include a line linking of all the replies a tweet has received.

Carrying on with the announcements that Twitter made back in February, they tweeted about the further additions in the following ways.

For more clarification on the newer version, we are going to look at the app researcher Jane Manchun Wong’s tweet that already had screenshots of the newer version. While the glimpses shared by her are from last month, one can see that when you tap on a reply tweet, a new thread of responses opens up that is attached to that particular comment.

The new tweak also shows replies to the best comments further.

One thing to note here is that these tweets don’t have Like, Retweet or reply icons and according to Twitter the reason behind this move is to hide the engagement tools so that users can easily focus more on the replies.

Looking at the tweaks alone, for sure they don’t appear as very significant ones but there are some definite chances that it would have been very difficult for engineers to pull them off and the impact of it would be seen in later days when people would love to engage into conversations upon reading the associated comments.

As usual, the update will first go through the experimental phase in the Twttr App where a group of selected users will beta test it. Usually, not a lot of features in the testing phase make it to the real Twitter but still, it is encouraging to see Twitter making the effort to push forward the threaded replies.

Besides that to fulfill the major innovation craving of users, Twitter has been working on “Fleets” – the platform’s own Stories format for quite some time now. Although we don’t have many insights to share about that as of now, but looking at all the changes, we can most definitely say the executives of the company are on a swing to make Twitter best from being great soon!

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/05/twitter-introduces-more-important-tweaks-in-the-threaded-tweet-replies-feature.html#

BY : EMILY BROWN

An Instagram model believes she loses out on over $1 million per year as she claims her account is the ‘most impersonated’ on the social media site. 

Allison Parker used to work as a waitress, but set up her Instagram account in 2015 and now reportedly rakes in a seven-figure salary by posting pictures to her followers.

The 28-year-old regularly shares snaps showing off her figure, but dozens of other accounts also post similar pictures, with users claiming to be Allison in order to attract victims as part of catfishing schemes, where internet users pose as someone else.

When she first came across a fake account, Allison admitted she was ‘a little flattered’, but the sheer number of fake profiles now ‘drives [her] crazy’.

The model explained:

If you search Allison Parker on Instagram or other social media platforms I’m almost 100% positive that I’m the most impersonated model on it.

They usually just post the same content I post with the same exact captions. Some are catfishing. A lot are selling my content for their own gain.

There is currently no law in the UK prohibiting catfishing, but many campaigners are pushing to make it illegal as people can fall victim to scams involving abuse, fraud or romance.

Allison doesn’t interact with the fake accounts, though she believes her attempts to get rid of them are futile as ‘the reporting mechanism is absolutely no good’.

The fake profiles have left Allison’s fans confused as to which account is real, and as a result the model believes she gets reported ‘more than most of the fakes’.

Allison wants Instagram to verify her account so followers will know which is real, as at the moment she believes the impersonators are benefiting from her content.

She explained:

They have nothing better to do than live a fake life pretending to be me and ripping innocent people off.

I bet if you add up every dollar someone has earned re-selling my content acting as me or catfishing people, I’d have to guess it’s over $1m a year in lost income.

Allison has received comments from people who believe she took their money through catfishing, and she admitted that it can be tough to reassure the people who have fallen for the lies.

While some victims believe her, others ‘swear up and down’ she is responsible.

Though fake accounts make her job more difficult, Allison still has plenty of admirers, some of which have proposed marriage to her and others who claim she is already their wife.

The model has received a few strange requests from fans, one of which involved someone asking: ‘May I purchase a Tupperware of one of your large bowel movements?’

Unsurprisingly, Allison wasn’t so keen on that idea, as she explained:

[I] wasn’t sure if I was supposed to freeze my poop or what but I guess he probably had the info.

I don’t want to be known as the girl who sold out for taking a turd for someone’s obsessive pleasure.

Strange requests aside, Allison said the job allows her to live a ‘laid back lifestyle’, and while she does ‘buy [herself] some nice things’ she tries to save when she can.

She also enjoys ‘interacting with [her] fans and other models’ and ‘working [her] own hours from home and having a lot of freedom’.

For any keen fans who might be looking to romance her, rather than one of the impersonators, Allison advised showing appreciation for her work. Hopefully any interested parties will be able to find the real her!

https://www.unilad.co.uk/life/instagram-model-estimates-shes-lost-over-1-million-per-year-as-most-impersonated-account/

Written By Danish Ansari

Instagram not showing all posts – Instagram users have been reporting an issue where they aren’t able to view more than 18 posts on any profile. Get details.

Instagram is one of the most popular social networking platforms used by millions around the world, but on the rare occasions that the service doesn’t work it can be quite a frustrating experience. Their servers are generally reliable; however, there are unfortunate occurrences where it is plagued with certain bugs or errors affecting certain features on the platform.

Also Read | What Are Impressions On Instagram & How Can You Access It? Read Details Here

Instagram not showing all posts

In case you have been wondering why your Instagram feed isn’t able to load beyond 18 posts on your personal or any other profile, it’s because the app was recently faced with a bug. Several users also took to micro-blogging site Twitter to raise their concerns. Here’s a quick glance at some of the reports:

Why is Instagram showing only few posts?

This is one of the recent issues that is affecting several users; however, the platform was also plagued with a bug where it wasn’t loading any photos and videos on the newsfeed and stories for a number of profiles. And while it may have something to do with your internet connection, the issue was actually reported by a number of users, suggesting it was some kind of a bug.

Update the Instagram app

Instagram hasn’t officially addressed the issues; however, the problem has seemingly resolved after a new update from Instagram recently went live. Certain users also confirmed that the update has fixed the bug and Instagram appears to be back up and running.

So, the best fix available at the moment is to head over to the respective application store and get your Instagram app updated. Meanwhile, if you are still facing any issue or any other problem with the app, do leave a comment below.

https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/apps/instagram-not-showing-all-posts.html

By TooFab Staff|

“I don’t care if he’s an adult and he carries a gun and a badge. At the end of the day. He’s still my boy.”

Erika Jayne says she’s “super proud” of her police officer son, Tommy Zizzo.

Speaking on Andy Cohen’s Sirius XM show, “Radio Andy” Wednesday, the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star, 48, opened up about her decision to share a rare photo of her 26-year-old son on Instagram, revealing that his pic is her “best performing post.”

“I don’t know. Maybe [I’m] quarantine crazy,” Erika said as to why she posted the pic of Tommy in his police officer uniform. “But I am a proud mom, you know, of my essential worker son. He’s out there working like every other man and woman.”

When asked by Andy if she feels “extra protective” of her son during the coronavirus pandemic, Erika replied, “I think we all are. Listen, this is a crazy time. We’re all concerned for all of our families.”

The reality star, who has two million Instagram followers, said the photo of her son received more likes than any of her other posts.

“It’s so crazy,” she told Andy. “I put him on Instagram. He’s my best performing post!”

Andy then brought up how he had stopped sharing photos of his 14-month-old son, Benjamin, at the request of his family, who said his son didn’t “choose” to be in the spotlight. However, the “WWHL” said he changed his mind after reuniting with his son following his stint with the coronavirus.

“I was like, ‘I’m here. I’m, this is the reality of my life. It’s just he and I,” Andy told Erika. “And so I guess, you say maybe it’s the quarantine, but I think all of us are a little…I think we’re just chipping away at what our real life is and who we really are. And you know, this person is such a huge part of your life that it also makes sense why you would now be saying, look here. Here he is.”

“I appreciate you saying this before, you know, he didn’t choose this life. I chose this life and we try to protect them,” Erika replied in agreement. “I don’t care if he’s an adult and he carries a gun and a badge. At the end of the day. He’s still my boy.”

“The Pretty Mess” author said she doesn’t regret sharing the photo of Tommy, but admitted she didn’t give him a heads up before posting it.

“I posted it and I’m glad I did,” Erika explained. “He’s a very fine young man and I’m super proud.”

“Hopefully, it doesn’t even come across his whole situation,” she quipped. “Who knows!”

On Tuesday, Erika shared the rare photo of Tommy on her Instagram, however, she had the comments section deactivated.

“People say we look alike,” she wrote in the caption. “No, you can’t comment. ?

Though Erika has often spoken about her son from her first marriage on “RHOBH,” he’s never made an appearance on the show.

https://toofab.com/2020/05/06/erika-jayne-opens-up-about-sharing-photo-of-her-son-on-instagram/