Some Facebook groups created to protest lockdowns are now hotbeds for misinformation

[swag]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/20/tech/facebook-reopen-groups/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1OGs9SGUAsBTixq5EMtjtmhEB15u3NbyhoR_Tf85XoXOiZeJvVdw6oNTY

By Brian Fung, CNN Business
Updated 0057 GMT (0857 HKT) June 21, 2020

"But even after all 50 states have moved to reopen their economies in recent weeks, engagement within these Facebook groups remains high. Now, instead of focusing on calls to end the lockdowns, many of these groups are increasingly becoming hotbeds of conspiracy theories and misinformation for other issues, according to researchers who track their activities.

What we see is that in many groups there's been increasing discussion of conspiracies," said Karen Kornbluh, who leads the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a policy think-tank. Kornbluh's team has been tracking more than 35 public and private Facebook groups originally dedicated to the reopening.

Much of the recent activity, researchers say, has focused on the nationwide protests against police brutality in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. "George Floyd is NOT DEAD afterall?!" one video falsely claimed in a Facebook group researchers said was dedicated to reopening Washington state. Last week, a Texas-based group discussed claims the FBI had "hunted down" and arrested members of the loosely organized anti-fascist protest movement Antifa, the same researchers said. Only a handful of them have alleged ties to any extremist group, including Antifa, CNN has reported.

"There's been a lot of Antifa terrorist rumor mongering," said Alyssa Kann, a research assistant at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies misinformation. Kann estimates there are hundreds of groups on Facebook dedicated to reopening or opposing Covid-19 lockdowns, and says many of them traffic in the same conspiratorial content."

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[soothsayer]

1. If you want misinformation, just tune into trump

It’s easier.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Not surprising the far right is filled with magical thinkers, the ignorant and the stupid.

[tazkcmo]

3. Not laughing at you

But lol, Dramabook itself is a hotbed of disinformation.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. I think basically a lot of online groups seems to be this way, like NextDoor, the neighborhood app

that popped up in our neighborhood roughly last year.

The concept seemed nice, neighbors all working supposedly on common issues, but it turned out to be more or less a place where a few loudmouths mouthed off their differences and overwhelmed the normal day to day conversations that neighbors have. And I was really looking looking forward to it it (Nextdoor), I ended up getting out within a week or so, I was getting bombarded w/ unrelevent emails and worthless alerts, etc.