Tag: fake news

Posted on

12: Scope and scale of Fake News and GDPR

Fake News

September was PR Measurement Month, and October is conference season. Not just in UK politics, but also for a number of trade bodies in communications, PR and media monitoring.

From AMEC and the PRCA, to FIBEP, ICCO, PRSA – there are plenty of awards and some reflections on where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we are likely to be going.

Fake news remains the centre of attention.

Tuesday’s New York Times ran the story How Russia Harvested American Rage to Reshape US Politics.  As an issue that affects the democratic process in Western societies, this continues to have the mainstream media in its thrall. It has, as Sam puts it, “upset the liberal apple cart.”

Continue reading “12: Scope and scale of Fake News and GDPR”

Posted on

11: Winning with data, the fallacy of rational decision-making, and the future of fake facts

For the 11th time, the SmallDataForum convened – this time to explore questions related to the opportunities and challenges of data in business, the rational and emotional side of decision-making, and the continuing erosion of trust and confidence in the truthfulness of information.

Stephen Fry’s fabulous narration of the complete works of Sherlock Holmes formed the backdrop to musings about data sleuthing and the skill sets required for successful forensic analytics.


Continue reading “11: Winning with data, the fallacy of rational decision-making, and the future of fake facts”

Posted on

08: The Facebook files, machine learning and fake news continue

Such is the nature of our continuously evolving subject matter, when we have completed a podcast, we often find that on key discussion points, there is already more, and breaking news.

Just days after recording our latest musings last week on the challenges and opportunities surrounding big-small data, with multiple references to Facebook and their attempts to counter fake news, the Guardian broke the story of the Facebook Files, based on more than 100 internal training manuals, spreadsheets and flowcharts outlining the rules and guidelines for what its two billion users can and can’t post on the site.

This will add to the global debate about the role and ethics of Facebook and other social media platforms in public discourse. And without a doubt it will be a key topic of future SDF podcasts.


Continue reading “08: The Facebook files, machine learning and fake news continue”

Posted on

07: How does Big Data convert into Business Value?

A topic that’s dominated our conversation in recent episodes of The Small Data Forum podcast is fake news and related issues.

In episode 7, hosted by Thomas Stoeckle in conversation with regulars Neville Hobson and Sam Knowles, we consider world wide web inventor Tim Berner-Lee’s call to action on what he sees as three big challenges for the web:

1. Loss of control of personal data;
2. Spread of misinformation; and
3. Questionable political advertising.


Continue reading “07: How does Big Data convert into Business Value?”

Posted on

06: Narrative versus fact – ‘asymmetric information warfare’

Episode 6 of the Small Data Forum podcast continues the discussion from our 2016 year-end edition, which focused on fake news, post-truth, and what John Naughton in the Observer called the ‘poisoning of our public sphere’.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, fake news was a main discussion point, with the Forum’s Global Future Council on Human Rights addressing governance issues around what is seen as an urgent matter of human rights.

In the UK, a parliamentary inquiry into fake news is under way, led by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The BBC has set up its own unit to check facts and debunk fake news, technology companies such as Facebook and Google are driving initiatives to combat fake news in Europe, and Apple CEO Tim Cook recently stated that false information is “killing people’s minds“.


Continue reading “06: Narrative versus fact – ‘asymmetric information warfare’”