Media and Democracy FINAL

Defamation and Internet

Internet has expanded the possibilities for libeling someone but not to get repair in court. important US and EU distinction: EU: defamation on internet may be sued in any country it was read US: law only allows one claim where the primary publication took place creator of content is resonsible not the operator unless person posting comment indicates his or her email address or other contact details on web, often difficult to determine identity. may be possible to obtain order from court requesting it. ultimatel the operaetor of website may also be liable. provided the web host has been notified that the site contains defamatory material,

how persuasive are fake news/alternative facts?

study in 2017 alt facts highly persuasive. voters exposed to populist rhetoric move their policy conclusions and voting intentions towards populist parties. even if fact checking improves factual knowledge it doesn't affect voting. fact checking doesn't undo effects being exposed to MLP rhetoric increases voting intentions for MLP irrespective of fact checking. ex: trump supporters didn't change voting behavior after seeing corrective info. main effect of fact checking is to show the candidate is lying but this knowledge doesn't translate to voting. emotional impression is what mostly drives voting decisions. being exposed only to official facts also backfires on voting intentions towards populist vote, but to smaller extent then being exposed to alternative facts bc it alerts the voters on the importance of immigration issue, makes them worried about it and makes them shift to the candidate whose campaign is centered around the issue.

decline in media freedom in democracies

surveillance laws and anti terrorism laws: more court warrants for force journalists to give sources media bashing: hostility towards media encouraged by political leaders in US and European threats from outside actors concentration of ownership in fewer hands and risks of conflict of interest obstacles in field: reporters taken in to police custory while reporting threat from ideologies that are hostile to media freedom "insulting the president" "blasphemy" charges coordinated online attacks by government "trolls" or bots against journalists who have challenged authorities violence against journalists growing self-censorship every continent has seen its score decline Europe has freest media but concern in Central and E Europe

2016 election and fake news

-no regulation, monitoring -fixed costs are low, easy to set up and to monetize through ads -tech allows for reputation to not matter -format makes it hard to know if its authentic or not -consumers are likely to read news from their own biased perspective there is a private incentive to get unbiased news but psychological utility in confirming your own beliefs. people are less likely to get truth about the world, and if 62% get news from social media this is worrying

Freedom on the Net

1. blocking or removal by authorities of web content dealing with political, religious or social issued deemed offensive by authorities (cyber police in China) 2. govs occupy the web with propaganda material to control interests and put on rest of world 3. cracking down on privacy tools 4. acquisition by the gov of small stakes in tech companies to have a direct role in their governance 5. escalation of arrests and intimidation of bloggers for sharing info concerning politics, religion or society through digital networks

fake news motivation

1. ideological: mislead the voter, manipulate public opinion on certain issues for or against a candidate 2. pecuniary: if you go viral you can gain substantial revenue from ads

2007 US draft bill on protection of sources

2007: a federal bill intended to grant jounralists the right to protect idnetity of sources when questioned in court passed US House of Reps, but not yet passed the Senate. bc 1. is such law needed? 2. will is harm gov ability to fight terrorism? federal shield law would make it more difficult to prosecute cases involving leaks of classified info? 3. can journalists be the judges of what can and cannot be published in the domain of classified info/national security? 4. who should benefit from it? who is a 'legitimate' member of the pres? -bloggers? online journalists? main points of draft for federal shield law: reporters could still be forced to disclose source if court decides that the info is -needed to prevent terrorism -conditions present threat to national security -case of possible bodily harm -for protection of certain types of trade secrets it's a judge who will weight the balance between interest of public to be informed and interest of prosecutor

Does competition favor the emergence of truth?

4 aspects: statistical argument advocacy argument independence argument investment argument

how does ownership affect media

4 main conclusions: 1. parallel between level of state ownership and level of independence of a media: the higher degree of state ownership, less independence 2. lesser level of independence translates into less investigative journalism. media doens't act as a watchdog. this translates to more corruption and less economic governance. 3. private ownership can also reduce media freedom: constraints of market. interest of advertisers over public interest for profitability, market privleges groups more likely to respond to advertising and makes programs esp responsive to those groups. choice of entertainment over programs of public interest. 4. who owns media in terms of priate ownership (corporations, family business) matters for content -commercial and political interests of owner. in UK Murdoch used his media to promote his political and economic interests, to build alliances with politicns who would serve his business interests Corruption negatively correlated with press freedom corruption positively correlated with political longevity press freedom negatively correlated with political longevity

independence argument

Abu Ghraib Pentagon papers besley-coate: N firms, each of whcih possesses the same damaging story. consumeres value the story and business produces revenue R to be evenly split among all firms that print the story. gov can make a take it or leave it offer to each firm in exchange for suppressing the story. then firms decide simultaneously whether to accept the gov's offer or not assumption: if at least one firm prints the story then all consumers learn it claim: if N sufficiently large, then the less likely it is that the story will be suppressed proof: if a firm unilaterally deviates, then it gets the entire revenue R. to prevent deviation, gov must pay B at least equal to R to that firm let V denote govs value from successful suppression. then we must have V>NR thus the higher the N, the less likely the story is to be suppressed the way competition operates here is different from before. before key effect of competition was to increase diversity of incentives in the market. here all firms have a stake in revealing the truth because it increases their revenues. the key here is the strategic interaction among firms increasing the number of firms makes it more difficult to suppress information for the same reason it makes it more likely that collusion will break down the more firms there are in a cartel -more firms complicates coordination and increases the likelihood of free riding among firms

Media and public good provision

Besley and Burgess think of world where voters are imperfectly informed about gov behavior then media acts as info provider and govs become more response to voters needs to get reelected. 2 periods: today and tomorrow 2 citizens: the vulnerable and non vulnerable among the vulnerable: some are 'needy' today and some are not needy today the needy will find out first hand whether they botain relief or not, the other citizens will find out only through the media. thus greater media activity will icnrease the probability that other citizens will find out the non-vulnerable don't care about this info since they never need relief. but the vulnerable that aren't needy today do care: if they learn that the vulenrable-needy didn't get relief from the gov today, they fear they are facing a selfish gov and they won't vote for this admin tomorrow government as being: altruistic: always provides relief selfish: never provides relief opportunistic: provides relief only to increase reelection chances seeing (or learning) that no relief was provided to the needy today, will make the vulnerable more suspicious about the government being selfish (Bayesian updating) then more media activity will encourage an opportunistic gov to provide relief today in order to increase prob of reelection tomorrow proposition: effort by opportunistic incumbent politician is higher if: voters have greater media access higher turnout in elections larger vulnerable population intuitively: greater media activity raises the marginal value of effort bc it is more likely that the reports of such effort will find their way to voters Besley and Burgess test this model by looking at determinants of the public distribution of food and state government expenditures on calamity relief public food distribution: large scale government involvement in procurement, storage, transportation, distribution of food grains calamity relief: expenditures by state governments: direct relief measures including drinking water supply, medicine and health, clothing and food, vet care using panel data from 1958-1992 Besley and Burgess provide a robust test of whether mass media and political insitutions play a role in ensuring state governments responsiveness to social protection needs need for gov intervention: measured by food grain production per capita in a state and real per capita flood damage to crops media development: measured by newspaper circulation

Media, Elections, Conclusions

Conclusions underlying assumptions about news' consumers for competition to favor the emergence of truth, consumers must value truthful reporting, information from one source must reach (some) consumers from another source Role for media regulation: why the need for competition in news doesn't justify complete laissez-faire. why competition in news is different from competition in product markets, NYT and Pentagon Papers Why should media influence policy? media influence electoral competition because it is the channels for conveying campaign promises to forward looking electorate, media informs backward looking voters about actions taken by politicians, media may influence policy by influencing the weight voters put on different issues in their voting choice empirical findings: media can influence independent voters and mobilize those already convinced and push out the vote

Trump and the media

During campaign: Trump all over media, good business for media. 91% was negative coverage, the first peak of media attention drove his poll numbers way up 2 phases of MSM: first phase: MSM didn't take him seriously, didn't take the measure of his followers and didn't connect with his electorate, didn't contradict him enough on his incoherencies Second phase: much more fact checking and questioning, MSM were facing a new problem, fact checking didn't affect the supporters, MSM has less power to make politicians accountable. coordinated institutional power from the right attacked the 'liberal media' bias, problem for journalists online media helped Trump 1. energized and validated their readers 2. developed an insulated media system showing hyper partisan view: Breitbart, Fox news, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, Infowars 3. network of mutually reinforcing hyper partisan sites. repetition and circulation gives legitimacy 4. shielded from journalism that challenged it 5. more partison pro Clinton sites like HP, MSNBC or Daily Beast more interwoven with traditional media 6. right wing media ecosystem young.

FB reaction to Russia

FB doesn't want to play judge in what's true and not true employed 10,000 people to work on security issues, change of algorithm to push down fake news, automated programs to find and remove fake accounts, cooperation with MSM, purge fake accounts, more transparency about sources of political adds,

Russia and 2016 US election

FBI and NSA investigations on foreign gov in US elections: Russian gov responsible for hacking Dem targets and leaking mails to hurt Clinton campaign Russian 'trolls' and bots had posted anti-Clinton messages and conspiracy theories Russia had spent money to influence the elections through the purchase of political ads on FB which is prohibited under federal law for foreign government, companies or citizens Mechanisms 1. hundreds of troll twitter accounts with made up American names purhcased on black market 2. hundreds of bots (automated Twitter accounts) to retweet their own messages 3. fake accounts and pages on FB created by Russian intelligence service trolls, pretending to be Americans and posting anti-Clinton or divisive messages 4. Russian media: RT and sputnik, also active on social platforms 5. use of genuine American YT and FB videos which reposted on their FB network 6. Russian hackers and leaks FB from 2015-2017 Russian IRA fake FB pages created 80,000+ posts that received by 29 mil Americans directly and reached much bigger audience. Americans saw over 11 trillion posts on FB. 3,000 Russian ads purchased Instagram accounts posted 120,000 pieces of Russian linked contents Russia's influence: messages focused less on direct support but more on creating polarization around divisive topics such as migration, gay rights, gun control and racism, often taking both sides. use of anger, passion, misinformation. target vulnerable adueicnes on far left and right, confuse them with contradictory messages, playing communities against each other engage with activists and move from online to real world importance of narratives: erosion of moral values, insecurity, terrorism, migration, weakness of US system. more activityi n swing states. Why did Russia care so much? believed Trump would have better relations with Russia Russia under western sanctions: fake news one weapon to replicate with in order to divide and weaken the US democratic system duplicate anti-Russian western propaganda Impact: Russians were paid to act as trolls, bought ads on FB (tiny fraction of all ads purchased), used bots to spread divisive messages, hacked into DNC's computer, Russian gov established cable TV for propaganda for foreign audiences, Did the Russians want to influence outcome and image of elections YES but still difficult to assess the impact US actors like Breitbart far more efficient and important in misinformation campaigns James Comey hasn't found any concrete effect, or Trump team coordination other factors: Electoral college system allows candidate to win without popular vote, US Senate which ahs given disproportionate representation to states with relatively small populations, existing polarization in American politics: people most likely to consume fake news already hyperpartisan and close followers of politics. voters seek out stories taht reflect their already formed partisan views Hillary Clinton incarnated for many the rich establishment and fmaily politics while inequality gps have widened, Clinton's poor strategy at end of campaign. Red States: campaign on identity of the white man AND ALSO: gerrymandering, voter suppression, heavier turnout of white voters, age groups of voters

Snowden 2013

NSA employee provided evidence of a warrantless global surveillance program (collection of telephone records of tens of millions of americans, leaked to selected reporters revelations violated US laws and Snowden's oath: espionage act and theft of gov property Espionage act doesn't admit a public interest defense: accused leak or didn't leak documentstouch on many programs that target foreign countries and on't involve thep rivacy of Americans, it reveals to terrorists how to evade NSA surveillance by changing encryption snowden should have raised the issue throgh the internal chain of command some say SNowden's argument: going through regular channels may be a dead end, documents reeal that hte gov has broken the law, he had to commit the crime: leak documents to journalists to report a greater crime: warrantless ruveillance. snowden admitted he had broken the law, because of an overriding public interest: people ahd the right to know about warrantless surveillance on them

how do reporters cover issues on national security?

difficult to obtain classified/secret information, disclose classified information all the time, in general courts in US and EU have decided that disclosing classified info is not a crime unless: journalists have sought to harm the country, or have advanced the interests of a foreign nation, or have knowingly engaged in criminal activity limits: media doesn't want to put lives in jeopardy nor military operations where lives are at risk this doesn't include diplomatic embarassment, relations or other negotiations, doesn't include illegal oeprations

media and education provision

Reinikke and Svensson newspaper campaign in Uganda aimed at reducing capture of public funds by providing parents and public schools with info to monitor local officials handling of al arge education grant program a public expenditure tracking survey was unertaken to measure the extent to whih public resources actually filtered down to the schools 1990s avg school only got 20% fo central gov spending, bulk of grants captured by local gov officials in charge of disbursing the grant to schools gov initiated a newspaper campaign in response: why? traditionally anticorruption programs rely primarily on legal and financial institions. judiciary, police, financial auditors in charge of enforcing accountability in the public sector. this is a top down approach where some gov agencies are assigned to monitor and control others the problem is that in many poor countries the legal and financial institutions are weak and corrupt, so the gov in Uganda decided bottom up approach of citizen enforcement and began to publish data on monthly transfers of grants to districts in national newspapers using data from repeated expenditures tracking survey, R and S evaluate the effects of the newspaper campain on funds capture and quality of schooling. main objective of it launched in 1997: provide info on when funds being transferred so as to enable head teachers and parents to monitor local admin how can communities sanction public officials? verbal complaints electoral sanctions career concerns another expenditure tracking survey carried out in 2002 to assess the effects of improved access to information, the second one replicated the methodolgy and found that grants and test scores were sig higher after media campaign in places close to media outlets

fake news readership and production

US: 93% gets some news online, 62% from social media. approx 30% exposed to fake news with 50% saying they can tell if it's fake or not (but this is dependent on educational background and # of sources) EU: 64-40% online news Produced by: politicians, online news media: radial right and left, social media: 30% of all fake news originates from FB. how do they spread: for the Charlottesville protest a tweet was picked up by MSM which transformed to conspiracy theories made to mainstream alt-right news site (Infowars) and then to partisan broadcast (Fox news) -robots

US Protection of Sources

US: protection of sources protection of sources has been recognized in the InterAmerican Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression 40/50 states and district of Columbia have shield laws. others have rulings that establish something akin. laws and level of protection vary from state to state. no federal shield law in the US, journalists can be fined or even jailed for not revealing their source standards were set in 1972 by Branzburg v Hayes: reporter lost the case but Supreme Court set ou the principles for the protection of journalistic sources: the government would have to prove all 3 conditions to oblige reporters to divulge their sources: 1. reporter has info that is clearly relevant to a specific crime 2. the info cannot be obtained alternatively 3. state has a compelling and overriding interest in the info Bush administration: Judith Miller case 2005 Journalistic POV: leaks to journalists as as trategy by high officials to manipulate journalists and info, bad and god leaks: necessity for journalist to check info with several sources. codes of conduct for leaks is confusing: off the record, deep background, background problem of journalists granting too much anonymity to sources from a legal pov: in certain circumstances, a journalist can be jailed for refusing to give his/her source when asked to testify before grand jury, the judge may reject the contention that the journalist is shielded by the first amendment, need for a federal shiedl law. as a result, new bill for protection of sources drafted in 07 in the past 30 years, 2 dozen journalists have been jailed for refusing to give sources. 2011-15 dozen of cases of gov officials or employees who had given unauthorized leaks to reporters in relation to national security became criminal cases Obama admin: 2013: monitoring during 2 months of some 100 tel logs of journalists at AP, mandated by the Justice Department to identify the source of a leak on a 2012 CIA operation 2006-14: James Risen (NYT) case: 1st amendment doesn't protect reporter who receives unauthorized leaks from being forced to testify against his/her suspected sources

defamation laws

a "false or unjustified injury to someone's good reputation" 4 key issues: 1. are laws on libel routinely used to shield officials conduct from public scrutiny? defamation vs political criticism International principles: publications regarding matters of public interest and which are reasonable and written in good faith shouldn't be considered defamatory: right ot amke mistakes in good faith in matters of public interest. a fact is different than an opinion. opinions aren't typically actionable as defamation. Defamation of a private person: balance between concerns of private citizens and press censorship in order to constitute libel, a statement must not only be false but must harm a person's or a company's reputation the false statement of fact causing harm must be made wihtout adequate due diligence or research into the truthfulness of the statement european courts grant more protection to priate persons than US courts public interest criteria may also apply on whom relies the burden of proof? =on plaintiff not on the journalist France: media needs to prove 'good faith' criteria implying a legitimate need to inform, existence of a real investigation, reasonable speech, no personal animosity UK case: plaintiff carries burden of proof in democracies, both criminal and civil codes may be applied but no jail sentences.

Fake news and Democracy

adding fake news producers to market has social costs how can we make an enlightened choice if our vote is based on fake news we believe are true? consumers have less-accurate beliefs and that undermines the ability of the democratic process to select the right candidates. voters may move away fromp olitics association between fake news and attitudes of alienation and cynicism toward political candidates delegitimization of traditional news sources: 1) fake news creates mistrust towards investigative journalism 2.) social media and online extreme partisan publications help amplify criticism of MSM especially when political leaders accuse MSM to propagate fake news--> erosion of public confidence in democratic institutions at time when populism and authoritarianism returning 3. research shows that more audiences are more likely to blame media publishers for spinning and twisting facts than tech companies 4. these effects reinforced by supply side responses: a reduced demand for high precision reduce the incentives to invest in accurate reporting 5. challenge for media companies to navigate in a polarized political climate: journalists faced with choice of sticking to facts or taking sides. who is responsible for the content? authoritarian, populist leaders use 'fake news' on social media as a tool of censorship: 1. create barrage of fake facts on sensitive topics or create 'positive' fake news to inspire nationalism. 2. fake news as new tools of censorship: oppositional speech drowned by floods of pro-gov fake news (China, Russia) 3. use of fake news for attacking their critics or invoke 'fake news' as justification for beating back media scrutiny 4. draconian laws introduced with unclear definitions of fake news 5. economic challenge: FB's decision to focus less on news; this has also an impact on investigative journalism in countries where independent media is in difficulty Social media is a mechanism for capturing and manipulating attention which gives them an immense political power.

protection of journalists sources

ethics: duty of journalist to protect sources law: protection of sources if right under laws in domestic and international laws. cannot compel a journalist to reveal sources without this right many people would be deterred from coing forward and sharing info of public interest. --> corruption, crime, illegal behavior going undetected. protection of sources ensures the free flow of information in the public interest EU law: strong legal protection; confidentiality of sources is seen as crucial to the watchdog role of the press Article 10 of EU Convention on Human Rights: recognizes the right of journalists not to disclose sources unless an overriding countervailing public interest outweighs the need to protect sources Principle in Europe is to protect, but there are exceptions: -imminent public interest in disclosure which outweighs the harm done to freedom of expression by this disclosure, prevention of a crime. in the interest of justice: to know the source is important and necessary for the good conduct of a trial (defence of an accused) in cases of national security, act of treason, spying, when journalists have sought to harm the country, have advanced the interests of a foreign nation or engaged in criminal activity disclosure only if: info can't be obtained elsewhere the measure is necessary; risk of imminent and serious harm to a legitimate public interest, must be ordered by a court, not endanger the right to freedom of expression itself in France: "fundamental interest of the nation" vague notion up to judge interpretation 2011 court case: illegal funding of Sarkozy's presidential campaign. in 2010 French intelligence without a court warrant required from Orange the telephone logs of the source of a journalist from Le Monde. after a complaint by Le Monde the court decided the request was illegal --> new french law on protection of sources adopted Oct 2016 an improvement. journalists have the right to refuse all pressure to give their source. more restrictive circumstances justifying an attempt to obtain a journalistic source: only for exceptional reasons which are listed and with the authorization of the court, prevention or repression of a crime punishable of at least 7 years in jail, certain other crimes of the criminal code such as treason, attack or conspiracy punishable of at least 7 years in jail. more beneficiaries of the law: all editorial staff including the managing director covered by law, before it was only journalists. possible criminal immunity for journalists even when guilty of certain offenses when publication of the info serves a legitimate goal in a democratic society. , tougher sanctions for non respect of the law UK: Contempt of Court Act no court may require a journalist to disclose the source, presumes favor of the journalists. exceptions: interest of justice, prevention of crime and disorder, the court will rule in favor of journalists except when vital public interest in the disclosure of the source, national security: court will rule for the necessity of disclosure almost automatically

anti-terrorism laws: a new balance between civil liberties and nat security?

european govsa nd US have passed expanded new anti terrorism las giving legal mandate for intelligence services to collect large quantities of data, possibly a journalists data or a source's data more pressure on journalists to reveal their sources in nat security/ terrorist cases France: new anti terrorism law, 2015 new law allows intelligence services to carry bulk collection of metadata from all communication material. data will be destroyed as soon as they appear to have no connection but passers by totally foreign to nat security concerns will have been under surveillance. weak control: an request to begin surveillance needs to go through a commission if the commission recommends against it , can be overriden by the PM important to push governments around the world to exercise surveillance in a way that protects their citizens' safety and security while respecting their rights and freedoms

media ownership

extreme concentration of media landscape: does it lessen the degree of diversity of opinions? concern over quality of news: large quantity but not many different voices. availability of accurate, up to date and transparent data on media ownership is esential in a democratic system through a public body or directly to the public. complex chains of formal media owners make it difficult for the public to know the influences to which media outlets are subjected to and which my affect their editorial line France: 9 major media groups. you can't own pulbications that cover more than 30% of national print overage US: no regulation limiting cross ownership in same marketes; communication firms have strong lobbies today 6 major media conglomerates many companies owning media have become big holding where media part is just one part of the business. news produced by companies outside of journalism.

Internet in Malaysia

flawed democracy: mix of democratic and autocratic features, regular elections held but the Barisan Nasional (BN) party has retained power from 1969-2008 without interruption, thanks to grasp on media BN so confident in political domination that it launched an ambitious program to develop internet access in Malaysia from 1996, penetration rate was 60% in 2008 also in order to attract FDI it committed to not censoring the internet. and this was instrument to end BN's absolute political domination in 2008 mass media can induce gov to act more quickly and more efficiencly in case of natural disaster. the meergence of fxo News at the end of the 1990s had a significant effect on the 2000 US presidential elections however no evidence has yet been provided regarding the effects of internet media on election outcomes: this is the aim of this paper in Malaysia, before, trad media controlled by BN only operate with a permit, gov censors material internet rapidly became a platform for the political opposition and alternative opinions. indeed internet is very costly to control: censorship can deter foreigners from investing, physically more difficult to regulate ISP: Internet Service Provider Backbone: trunk lines, nodes, routers that form the core of ISP's network, but they are only part of the network after gathering political data (on candidates, age, etc) and geographical and demographic data and who had internet access predictions: increase in internet access leads to a decrease in incumbent party's vote share in presence of media capture internet growth leads to lower victory margins in districts successfully defended by the incumbent. in other districts, effect is unclear. growth in internet access leads to higher turnover in districts where access is above the 50% threshold but has no effect in distrcits where acess to internet is low limitation: a correlation is estimated but not necessarily a causal effect. key role of internet growth on election outcomes IP addresses doubled per voter when BN vote share dropped from 65% to 52% between 2004-2008 internet growth can account for 1/3 of the vote swing

national security: tensions between several rights and responsibilities (protection of sources)

in all western countries, one of the limits to freedom of expression is when national security is threatened or defense issues at stake. restrictions can often be excessively broad 1. gov: tension between democratic need of gov transparency/ right of citizen to know/ public interest and the gov's need to protect itself from disclosure that could hurt the security of nation. problem when gov has an inflated conception of nat interest: inflation of classified documents, lack of laws on transparency and too much gov secrecy 2. citizens: concenrs of nat security /right to be protected vs the right to privacy, the right to know if authorities infringe on privacy and general right to info 3. media: new laws on nat security don't always provide a ufficient protection of journalists sources or practice how broad is definition of terrorism? in some countries nat secutiry laws allow cnesoring of political dissent. right to publish/ duty to inform/ watchdog role: journalists cannot protect an inflated conception of nat interest; still they shouldn't endanger citizens lives where do you draw line for journalism? right of the public to know media doesn't want to be seen as 'unpatriotic' esp in times of war/ self censorship

investment argument

incentive to beat competitors to a story has driven investments in news gathering since earliest days investments in horse relays, courrier pigeons, balloons... papers reported to have hijacked competitor's trains why does competition lead news firms to invest so much in getting stories first? escape competition effect promptness, quality, parallel with literature on relative performance and tournaments

Internet giants and dictatorships

internet cos operating in authoritarian regimes if they want to do business must abide by local laws, which can include restrictions on speech. double standards when it comes to choosing between free speech and profits Google, FB. Twitter publish annual transparency reports showing number and type of content takedown or user info request but this can be difficult to get where countries wehre the reported censorship is taking place Google and China: 2006 Google accepted political limitations on search engine to get into the market Gmail and Google search are still blocked in china after Google moved its servers to HK in 2010 and directed Chinese traffic through uncensored HK version because of Chinese gov spying FB and China: China has blocked FB and Twitter since mid 2009 after outbreak of ethnic rioting in western part of country. large and positive association between media freedom and political knowledge. freedom of the media and political participation: where media is less free, citizens are less politically active. media freedom and voter turnout: voter turnout is associated with political knowledge

Apple case 2015

mass shooting in San Bernardino, California and Applie case apple fought with federal court order requiring provide acess to FBI to encryption system of phone belonging to terrorist. applei said forcing it to write new software violates first amendment right: courts have ruled that writing a code is a form of speech privacy advocates worries that getting access to Apple's encryption would create easy access for gov in future investigations say yes to US could make it harder for Apple to later say no to China where officials are pushing for more control over encryption: would lead to domino effect danger that the court's order could be applied against media organiaitons as gov authorities seek to acquire access to confidential info stored on mobile ddevices used by journalists

fake news and laws

more wish for gov intervention to stop fake news in Europe (60%) Asia (63%) wand in US (41%) where users believe publishers and platforms have biggest responsibility to fix problems of fake and unreliable news. French law for fake news during campaigns: judge can decide on removal of fake news, website, close accounts. Limits of law: 1881 law on press, the 2004 law on hate speech and discrimination and defamation law already deal with fake news. how will the judge define fake news and prove the info is false, danger of silencing an opponent during a campaign, how to implement French law on foreign websites? Will FB And Twitter follow decision of a French judge?

criteria defining degree of freedom of press

political pressure on media legal pressure economic and financial pressure

advocacy argument

prior to 20th century, vast majority of newspapers in US had an affiliation with a political party... bias issue! when bias is important, Mill and others have argued that more truth will be obtained if there are vested interests on all sides of the issue opposite lawyers argue a single side in the case. a reader who picks up both opinions is in a good position to learn the truth. competition makes it untenable to suppress information forever. for this advocacy mechanism to work info from one new producers spills over to at least some consumers from other news producer, news producers are harmed when false claims are exposed

fake news partisanship

pro-trump shared 5x as much as pro-Clinton. because decline in trust of MSM by Republicans lead to rise of fake news right-sided. Pro-Trump storylines more compelling. overall still more trust in MSM.

James Risen case: 2006-2014

published a book "The State of War" reveals CIA operation of 2002. Justice Department tries to force Risen to reveal his source claiming First Amendment doesn't protect a reporter who receives unauthrozied leaks from being forced to testify against the people suspected to leak them. Risen refused to reveal. 2014: Supreme Court turn down appeal of journalist and will side with government. prosecution claimed that revealing the source was imperative to secure evidence in a national security prosection that Sterling's disclosures had jeopardized the life of a spy. 2014: unde pressure from journalists groups, Justice attorney finally gave up on Risen. as a result of Risen and AP cases new guidelines in 2015 adopted by Justice department: admin describes leaks on NS as dangerous but troubled by fact that lack of protection of sources may chill investigative journalist from holding gov accountable: -prevent FBI of portraying a reporter as a co-conspirator in a criminal leak case as a way og getting around a legal bar on accessing reporting material. narrow circumstances under which prosecutors can obtain a journalists records from tel companies without advance notice to media organization which could then contest the request in court revival of debate eon federal shield law: press organizations spend money and time on court proceedings trying to squash subpoenas

security vs privacy

recent terrorist attacks have pushed many govs to favor greater powers for law enforcement over privacy internet companies say requests for user info is rising and growing pressues on internet cos to be more cooperative on encryption issue opponenets say such measures shouldn't undermine tough data protection rules request for data increased by nearly 10% globally second half of 2016 internet cos say they respond to protection of privacy with increased encryption to prevent back doors to citizens information that can be misused by law enforcement officials. about half of the data requests received in first 8 months of 2016 by FB from law enforcement in the US contained a non disclosure order, gag orders ,that prohibited notifying the user, sometimes for unlimited or indefinite durations Justice Departments says gag orders are necessary to avoid tipping off potential targets. tech cos say its the ight of the customer to know if the gov searches or seizes their propery and the right of the company to speak to its customers

statistical argument

sampling effect: if a true and a false statement are both made, and a large number of pieces of evidence are presented, the reader will eventually come to believe the true statement and not believe the false one if: she doesn't assign 0 probability to the truth. -the evidence is informative about the question and stake the different pieces of evidence are statistically independent aggregating information from many independent sources is more informative than information possessed by anyone statistical argument, little to do with competition per se

empirical evidence of fake news

surveys conducted that found that 15% of people recalled fake news during election, 8% said they saw it and believed it general conclusion of Hunt Allcot and Genzkow's research: clarifies the level of exposure to fake news, the avg US adult read and remember the order of one or several fake news articles during the election with higher exposure to pro Trump articles; how much it affects the election results depends on their effectiveness in changing the way people vote. a study shows that exposing voters to one additional TV ad changes votes shares by 0.02% points. if fake news has same persuasiveness, the fake news in the database would have changed the vote shares on order of 100s of % points. smaller than Trump's margin victory in pivotal states. is this analysis accurate? estimates could overstate true exposure: large share of pro trump fake news seen by voters who are already predisposed to vote for Frump-the larger this selective exposure the smaller the impact of fake news on vote shares. the estimates could also understate true exposure. the paper only measures the number of stories read and remembered, and excludes stories read but not rememberedl this could have a large impact

state subsidies

to the media issues underlining debate on state subsidies for media: 1. subsidies lead to a more gov propagandistic media? not necessarily: in the US, PSB were much more critical of the war in Iraq in 2002 than others economic incentives to increase diversity and pluralism of the media. subsidies based on technical criteria not on content: Sweden and Norway who rank top on journalism sbsidies also rank 1 and 2 in the Economist's annual Democracy Index Distribution of subsidies in france, subsidies go mostly to big groups/ undermines competition with smaller press. should subsidies be provided only in relation to circulation, turnover? Sweden: subsidies go mainly to 2 major newspapers to preserve media ompetition with at least 2 important newspapers problem is quality of public discourse, do state subsidies compensate for the market deficiencies? do subsidies improve the quality of reporting?

FB and Cambridge Analytica

tools that could identify personalities of US voters and influence their behavior. REad news articles

Exposing Corrupt Politicians The effect of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes

voters typically don't observe politician's actions or characteristics. effects of media (transparency) on political accountability hard to measure because lack of objective corruption measures, identification problems associated with non random nature of info disclosure (more corrupt officials may disguise behavior to decrease likelihood of detection) anti-corruption program launched 2003 which randomly audited municipalities: how the probability of reelection of incumbent mayor depends upon whether audit took place or not in the municipality, extent of corruption, media exposure of the municipality looked at :fraud in procurements, diversion of public funds, over-invoicing media exposure measured by number of AM radio stations in the muni, radio most mportant source of info for local politics and local programming mostly on AM stations auditing per se did not have a sig effect on election outcome. corruption measure interacts with auditign: probability of reelection falls mor ewith corruption measure in audited muni sig effect of media exposure: it is in muni with radio exposure taht reports of corruption significantly that affect reelection outcome main findings: dissemination of info on corruption through media has a detrimental impact on incumben'ts electoral performance, effect much more pronounced in areas where local radio is, politicans that were revealed to be extremely corrupt were punished while non corrupt politicans were rewarded