Hillicon Valley — How platforms amplify misinformation 

A new report sheds light on how misinformation spreads online across different platforms, concluding that false narratives have the greatest chance of being amplified on Twitter and TikTok. 

Meanwhile, SpaceX is reportedly threatening to pull its Starlink internet service in Ukraine unless the Pentagon increases the amount it pays for it.  

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Misinformation most amplified on TikTok, Twitter 

Posts spreading misinformation are most amplified on Twitter and TikTok, according to a new report that looked at the spread of false narratives online.  

The Integrity Institute, an advocacy group, found that Twitter and TikTok have the highest “Misinformation Amplification Factor,” a figure the report’s authors used to track the spread of misinformation  

Twitter and TikTok’s high levels of the Misinformation Amplification Factor are based on the mechanisms for “virality” on the platforms, the report found.  

The report analyzed misinformation content from fact-checkers that are part of the International Fact-Checking Network. The amplification factor was weighed as a ratio between how much engagement a misinformation post received and what engagement would be expected based on the historical performance of content from the creator. 

• Twitter’s retweet feature has less friction than other platforms’ sharing options — users can retweet a post with one click, allowing it to spread to a wider audience.  
  
• On TikTok, most content is public and views are generated by recommendations dependent on machine learning models that predict engagement, meaning misinformation can spread “far beyond the followers of the account that created it,” the report stated. 
  
• The report identified the highest number of misinformation posts on Facebook, based on the sample analyzed. But posts with misinformation are amplified to a lesser degree on Facebook than on Twitter and TikTok because Facebook’s sharing option has what the report called a higher level of “friction.” 

Read more here.  

SpaceX threatens to pull Starlink in Ukraine 

SpaceX is calling for the Pentagon to increase the amount it pays for critical internet service in Ukraine provided by the company’s Starlink service or risk losing it, CNN reported on Friday, with CEO Elon Musk suggesting the move is related to the rejection of his proposed peace plan. 

In a letter to the Pentagon last month, Starlink said it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service in Ukraine as it has, citing projected costs of $120 million for the rest of the year and close to $400 million for the next 12 months, according to documents CNN said it obtained.  

• “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in the September letter, according to the report.  
  
• The potential loss of Starlink services in Ukraine is likely to have a detrimental effect on Ukrainian armed forces’ counteroffensive against Russia’s occupation and war in the country, with the Ukrainian military crediting the reliable, lightweight and mobile internet terminals as being critical to military and civilian communication. 

Read more here.  

TWITTER SAYS MUSK UNDER INVESTIGATION BY FEDS 

Twitter wrote in a court filing unsealed on Thursday that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is under federal investigation for his conduct in a takeover bid for Twitter announced earlier this year. 

Musk said in April that he would purchase ownership of Twitter for $44 billion before reversing his decision three months later, prompting a lawsuit from the social media giant to force him to close the deal. 

Attorneys for Twitter wrote that Musk’s lawyers claimed “investigative privilege” to avoid turning over documents related to the lawsuit, according to Reuters. 

“This game of ‘hide the ball’ must end,” the attorneys wrote in the Oct. 6 filing, condemning Musk’s refusal to hand over certain records and calling on Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick to order the CEO to release relevant documents. 

Read more here.  

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: There’s too much fiber in our broadband diet 

Notable links from around the web: 

How TikTok ate the internet (The Washington Post / Drew Harwell) 

How an urban myth about litter boxes in schools became a GOP talking point (NBC News / Tyler Kingkade, Ben Goggin, Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny) 

Dmitri Alperovitch on Taiwan, China and Putin’s probing cyberattacks (CyberScoop / Suzanne Smalley) 

🥤 Lighter click: Where is the lie?

One more thing: Manufacturers among lobby winners

Trade associations representing manufacturers were the most effective at lobbying Congress and the Biden administration this year, according to an APCO Worldwide report released this week. 

The report, which surveyed more than 300 congressional staffers, executive branch officials and business executives, found that manufacturers successfully built strong relationships with top policymakers, while the health care, financial services and tech industries were also big winners. 

That finding comes after manufacturers secured enormous tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act and got senators to exclude a key industry tax deduction from their minimum corporate tax proposal. Manufacturers will also benefit from massive subsidies to build microchips in the U.S. and new infrastructure funding. 

Read more here.  

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you next week.