USAToday

Your trust in news shared over social media may depend more on the person who shared the news than the news source itself, new research suggests. The results suggest opportunities for news organizations in building strong online followings -- and challenges for social media in countering fake news. An online sample of 1,489 US adults participated in the experiment, conducted by The Media Insight Project, a collaboration of the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Those who got the news from a person they trusted were more likely to say the story was well-reported, correct and contained diverse points of view. For instance, 51% of those who got news from a trusted sharer said the information was well-reported and trustworthy, while only 34% said so if they got the news from a non-trusted sharer. Trusted sharers influenced outcomes in other ways, too. When the story is passed on by a trusted figure and the article was attributed to The AP, 52% of respondents said the article got the facts right. When the article was attributed to The AP, but the person passing it on is less trusted, only 32% say the facts were right.

With growing criticism over misinformation in search results, Google is taking a harder look at potentially "upsetting" or "offensive" content, tapping humans to aid its computer algorithms to deliver more factually accurate and less inflammatory results. The humans are Google's 10,000 independent contractors who work as what Google calls quality raters. They are given searches based on real queries to score the results, and they operate based on guidelines provided by Google.

On March 14 they were handed a new one: to hunt for "Upsetting-Offensive" content such as hate or violence against a group of people, racial slurs or offensive terminology, graphic violence including animal cruelty or child abuse or explicit information about harmful activities such as human trafficking, according to guidelines posted by Google. The goal: to steer people with queries such as "did the Holocaust happen" to trustworthy websites and not to websites that engage in falsehoods or hate speech.

Here's some of what the Federal Communications Commission has done under President Donald Trump:

1. Set aside a key Internet privacy rule. The FCC voted 2-to-1 to temporarily stay a data security regulation within a set of new privacy rules, passed in October 2016. That provision would have subjected Internet service providers (ISPs) to different privacy standards than web sites, apps and other Net players.
2. Ended Zero-Rating Investigation. An FCC report issued before Chairman Tom Wheeler left office in January found that free data plans such as AT&T and Verizon may violate the agency's Net Neutrality rules, officially called the Open Internet rules, passed in 2015. Last month, Pai ended the investigation, saying that the practices enhanced competition and were popular with consumers. But critics called the move an initial offensive on the Net neutrality rules as a whole.
3. Blocked approval of nine companies from Lifeline. Chairman Pai revoked the designation of nine companies as providers to the Lifeline plan, which subsidizes broadband service for low-income Americans. Like the Zero-Rating report, the Lifeline approval was a last-minute action by the Wheeler commission, Pai said at the time, and "should not bind us going forward."
4. Approved broadband and wireless access. The commission over the last month approved $2 billion to improve rural broadband access and $453 million to improve wireless connectivity in rural America and in tribal lands.
5. Made public items on its monthly agenda. Chairman Pai has begun posting the text of items to be considered by the commission on the agency's blog. In the past, Pai and fellow Republican commissioner Michael O'Rielly criticized Wheeler for not making agenda items public.
6. Removed the set-top box rule from consideration. Before the first meeting he chaired, Pai removed from the agenda an order that would require pay-TV providers make free apps so subscribers could watch programming without a set-top box.

Facebook has begun flagging fake news. Or as Facebook calls it: "disputed" news. A warning label is being slapped on articles that clearly have no basis in fact or reality — at least some of them. The giant social network first promised to roll out a "disputed" tag in December. Among the disputed offenders that people spotted on Facebook: A fictionalized story "Trump's Android Device Believed To Be Source of Recent White House Leaks" from a fictional publication "The Seattle Tribune." The story carried a disputed label with links to fact-checking services that explained why it was not true. The website has a disclaimer that it is a "news and entertainment satire web publication." But the story fooled people anyway.

The "disputed" tag is part of Facebook's grand plan to crack down on fake news as the company tries to tamp down the controversy over its role in the spread of misinformation that sharpened political divisions and inflamed discourse during and after the presidential election.

[Commentary] If network neutrality goes away, you’ll almost certainly start paying more for all the many Internet-based services you depend on in your small business – VoIP (voice over Internet service), international calls, document storage, online payroll, e-mail newsletter service, your website hosting and credit-card processing. The reality is the Internet is now a critical backbone of our economy. It’s likely as critical to your business as electricity. For many companies, the Internet is now even more important than telephone services. It is appropriate to require Internet service providers, like electric companies, treat all customers equally in terms of quality of service.

So use your small business voice and let Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC, and your senators and representatives know that you want – you need – to keep net neutrality for your small business.

[Rhonda Abrams is the author of “Entrepreneurship: A Real-World Approach,”]

Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will move beyond connecting family and friends to building "social infrastructure" critical to bringing people together in a "global community." In a nearly 5,800-word letter to Facebook users published on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg laid out his vision of what kind of world he believes Facebook can help create as it pushes back against a growing tide of anti-globalization sentiment. The letter comes as Facebook is besieged by criticism that it drove people apart by helping spread hyperpartisan misinformation and creating filter bubbles for people who share the same beliefs during the bitterly divisive presidential election. The tone is a significant departure from Zuckerberg's initial rejection of the idea that misleading or fabricated news articles on Facebook influenced the outcome of the election. Though the letter is long on utopian ideals, it's short on actual details. Zuckerberg broadly says Facebook will heal growing division by focusing on key areas such as tools to build more inclusive online communities and tools that help encourage more civic engagement and push people to become more informed consumers of news.

An unlimited plan on AT&T is no longer tethered to a TV subscription. The nation's second largest carrier announced that it would begin re-offering unlimited data to customers without requiring them to have AT&T's DirecTV or U-verse television service. As part of its own new plans, which go live on Feb 17, AT&T will be matching Verizon's latest plan, offering four lines for $180 with no television subscription service required. A single line is pricier than Verizon at $100, with each additional line running $40 (AT&T does not charge for the fourth line which is how four lines can be offered for $180). As with Verizon, AT&T will be slowing down users when they are in busy or "congested" areas if they've already consumed more than 22GB in a month. The new unlimited offer will include HD video, but unlike the other carriers the company will not be allowing users to use their phones as a mobile hotspot. Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint's latest deals all include 10GB of mobile hotspot data.

The White House has posted inaccurate texts of President Trump's own executive orders on the White House website, raising further questions about how thorough the Trump administration has been in drafting some of his most controversial actions. A review of presidential documents found at least five cases where the version posted on the White House website doesn't match the official version sent to the Federal Register. The differences include minor grammatical changes, missing words and paragraph renumbering — but also two cases where the original text referred to inaccurate or non-existent provisions of law. By law, the Federal Register version is the legally controlling language. But it can often take several days for the order to be published, meaning that the public must often rely on what the White House puts out — and that's sometimes inaccurate.

President Trump has called network neutrality a "top down power grab' by then-President Obama. And new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai cast one of the two votes against the measure. Chairman Pai delivered a fresh sign recently that his take on net neutrality differs from that of his predecessor. On Feb 3, he announced the FCC was closing an investigation into wireless services offering content that doesn't count against data caps — a practice that, depending on your point of view, could be considered a net neutrality violation or a smart business tactic.

To unravel the net neutrality rules further, the FCC could begin drafting new ones or selectively enforce -- or not enforce -- rules on the book. Congress could act, too. What could this mean for consumers? More data-free offerings; Some content flows faster; Some content flows ... not so fast; Competition -- but more or less?

Is the White House purposefully keeping its officials from appearing on CNN? Neither President Trump's special consultant Kellyanne Conway nor Press Secretary Sean Spicer have hit CNN's Sunday morning news talk shows such as State of the Union in the past two weeks. Meanwhile, both of them, as well as Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus have appeared on other major networks' shows during that time. Spicer denied that CNN is being frozen out, when asked about it recently.