The Technology 202: Here’s how U.S. foes are bending the truth about vaccines online

Researchers found that 86 percent of the 50 most-retweeted tweets from Russian state media outlets about Pfizer mentioned either bad reactions to the vaccine, including deaths, or negative reports about the company itself. They also found that 92 percent of mentions of Pfizer in Iranian government and state media tweets were negative. 

The countries’ state media outlets also all boosted the theory that “mainstream” or “Western” media outlets provided biased coverage of Russian and Chinese vaccines while ignoring safety concerns of Western vaccines, the report said. 

These governments are using social media and state media websites to boost vaccines developed in their own countries (or in the case of Iran, vaccines approved for use in the country). The broad efforts to control the narrative around vaccines highlight the economic and political influence at stake in the global race to stop the virus. 

“The ability to develop and distribute an effective vaccine is, like mask diplomacy before it, an effective tool for autocrats to blunt domestic and international criticism and to showcase the competency and generosity of their respective governments,” wrote Brett Schaffer, a media and digital disinformation fellow and author of the ASD paper. 

There are broad concerns about how false or misleading online narratives could make more Americans hesitant to get coronavirus vaccines, potentially prolonging efforts to reach herd immunity and stop the spread of the virus. 

Democrats in Congress are increasingly scrutinizing how social media giants, including Facebook, Twitter and Google, are moderating falsehoods related to the coronavirus. The issue probably will come up later this month when the CEOs of those companies are expected to testify before Congress. 

Disinformation and outright lies about the virus has become a public health challenge, often termed an “infodemic.” But Schaffer specifically focused on how U.S. adversaries were bending the truth or leaving out key context to serve their political goals.

For instance, Iran’s Arabic-language Fars News Agency tweeted the Pfizer vaccine “kill[ed] six people in America.” But the outlet did not include the key fact that four of the six people who died during the trial of the vaccine had received the placebo. It also omitted authorities’ statement there was no causal connection between the immunizations and the two deaths. ASD says that Far News Agency never updated or corrected the tweet. 

Schaffer writes these so-called “half-truths” can be “just as damaging as falsehoods, and certainly harder to fact-check and moderate.”

That could create major challenges for social media companies, which increasingly have been more aggressive in taking down outright falsehoods about coronavirus vaccines, but often do not have systems in place to deal with claims that simply mislead. 

“This suggests that more attention should be given to the study and mitigation of mal-information — information that is technically true but that is intentionally presented without context — as the effect of such information is clear, but the remedies are less obvious,” Schaffer wrote. 

The ASD report was based on 455,757 tweets from Russian, Chinese, and Iranian officials and state media outlets.  Of those tweets, 29,601 were related to vaccines or vaccinations, which was a three-fold increase in the amount of vaccine mentions in the months prior to Pfizer’s announcement of its vaccine. 

The findings come as the Wall Street Journal’s Michael R. Gordon and Dustin Volz report the State Department has identified four websites serving as a front for Russian intelligence and questioning the development and safety of Western vaccines. U.S. officials told the Journal they’re concerned that though these websites have small followings, their claims could be bolstered by international media. 

“We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services,” an official with the State Department’s  Global Engagement Center told the Journal. “They’re all foreign-owned, based outside of the United States. They vary a lot in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they’re all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designated its probe into racial bias and hiring at Facebook as “systemic,” allowing it to bring in specialists to analyze the Silicon Valley company’s data, Reuters’s Paresh Dave reports. The designation of the investigation signals that the EEOC could bring a wider case against the company. 

Last year, a recruiter and applicants brought a charge to the EEOC alleging the company was discriminating against Black candidates. The agency brought in the systemic investigators to look at bias at the company in August and has received detailed filings from both sides. The EEOC, which declined to comment, has not filed charges against Facebook.

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters “it is essential to provide all employees with a respectful and safe working environment,” and that “we take any allegations of discrimination seriously and investigate every case.” He declined to comment on the case or specific allegations. 

Ten current and former Google employees say the company’s human resources department told them to seek therapy or take medical leave in the wake of complaints that weren’t directly related to their mental health, NBC News’s April Glaser and Char Adams report. The report comes as Google faces scrutiny over its hiring and firing practices following two high-profile ousters on the company’s ethical AI team and the firing of April Christina Curley, a diversity recruiter who says she was let go after raising concerns about bias in the recruiting process.

“Going on leave is so normalized. I can think of 10 people that I know of in the last year that have gone on mental health leave because of the way they were treated,” said a former Google employee, who is a person of color and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to NBC. 

Google defended its handling of employees who raise concerns about how they’re treated in the workplace. 

“We have a well-defined process for how employees can raise concerns and we work to be extremely transparent about how we handle complaints,” said Jennifer Rodstrom, a Google spokeswoman. “All concerns reported to us are investigated rigorously, and we take firm action against employees who violate our policies.”

Beijing’s priorities, which were featured in the country’s 14th five-year plan, aim to make “science and technology self-reliance and self-improvement a strategic pillar for national development” as it competes with the United States and other countries, CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal reports.

China intends to increase research and development spending by more than 7 percent per year between 2021 and 2025, Premier Li Keqiang said last week. The other areas of focus include quantum information, brain science, genomics, clinical medicine and deep space and Earth research. 

The Biden administration is trying to keep up. Last month it announced an executive order to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry, and a government commission just rolled out a report calling for the U.S. government to invest heavily in artificial intelligence.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s prediction that Apple may release augmented reality contact lenses in the 2030s produced some strong reactions. CNBC technology editor Steve Kovach:

Popular Science technology editor Stan Horaczek:

MacRumors editor Joe Rossignol:

• Dentons’ Greg Walden and Michael Drobac registered to lobby on Section 230 for the App Coalition and Perry Street Software, which makes LGBTQ+ dating apps. Walden was an associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, while Drobac is a former Netflix executive. The pair also registered to lobby for Booking.com, which is a member of the coalition along with Perry Street Software; consulting and IT company Infosys; and Digital Content Next, a group of online publishers that includes The Washington Post.

• The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on President Biden’s nominations of Lisa Monaco and Vanita Gupta to top Department of Justice positions on Tuesday at 9 a.m.
• The Aspen Institute hosts an event on international Internet blackouts on Tuesday at noon.
• A Senate Judiciary Committee panel holds an antitrust hearing on Thursday at 10 a.m.
• The Brookings Institution hosts an event on the government’s role in reducing bias in algorithms on Friday at 9 a.m.
• A House Judiciary committee panel holds a hearing on technology competition and the press on Friday at 10 a.m. Microsoft president Brad Smith is expected to testify.
• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the chairman of a government commission on artificial intelligence, testifies with other commissioners at a joint hearing on Friday at 11 a.m.

Sometimes we just need some Michael Scott quotes on a Monday: