Researchers are working on a lie detector to sniff out false tweets

Sure, some less-than-true statements on Twitter are innocuous, but the social media network’s vast audience means it has huge potential to spread inaccurate, even dangerous, information. Citing examples like the 2011 London riots and accusations of vote-rigging during Kenyan elections, researchers at the University of Sheffield have introduced the concept of a lie detector to analyze information shared on Twitter and other sites.

The EU-funded project, dubbed Pheme, will sort online rumors into four categories: speculation, controversy, misinformation and disinformation. Additionally, Pheme will evaluate sources to determine their authority; tweets from the BBC would hold more weight than an unverified user’s, for example. The system will also search for sources to confirm or deny information in a tweet, following social media conversations about a given topic to eventually determine what’s true and what’s false. Hypothetically, users would be able to view info about a rumor’s accuracy via a virtual dashboard.

To test out of the project, scientists will be running trials with the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation and the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. Clearly, Pheme’s goal is to verify news on a national and even international scale — so your Twitter fibs about amazing weekend plans are safe, for now.

Filed under: Internet

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Via: Sky News

Source: The University of Sheffield

Twitter claims Venezuela is blocking its images to stifle protests

Venezuela’s government has been trying to silence protests over shortages of basic goods, and that crackdown appears to be extending into the digital realm as well. A Twitter spokesperson tells Engadget and Bloomberg that pictures on its social network are “currently blocked” for at least some users. The country hasn’t confirmed anything, but President Nicolas Maduro has already taken a TV station off the air after it showed unflattering protest footage (pictured here); this may be just a continuation of his policy. Whatever is taking place, Twitter is encouraging Venezuelans to sign up for text message updates to keep the news flowing. And locals can take comfort in knowing that government attempts to censor online content aren’t always effective at crushing dissent — if there’s enough demand for political change, it can happen.

[Image credit: Eduardo Massieu / NTN24, Twitter]

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Source: Twitter Spanish (translated), Bloomberg

Twitter hopes to grow by making it easier to follow your friends

You may have noticed that Twitter is very celebrity-focused; at least for awhile, it was more likely to suggest that new users follow a Kardashian than their friends down the street. That’s changing, however. CEO Dick Costolo tells those at a Goldman Sachs conference that he plans to revive the social network’s slowing user growth by encouraging newcomers to get involved. Twitter is reducing the number of steps it takes to sign up, and it’s suggesting people who are more likely to follow back, such as phone contacts. Not that Costolo is betting everything on that one approach, though. The company is also experimenting with more ideas, including additional cards and commerce. It’s too soon to tell whether or not the chief executive has the right idea, but it’s safe to say that he doesn’t want Twitter to stand still.

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Source: ZDNet, Recode

Twitter wants government permission to share specifics about national security requests

Twitter released a new transparency report this morning, and it’s just as much about what the company can’t disclose as what it can. You can check out the full data dump here, but in short Twitter received a total of 1,410 information requests between July 1 and December 31, 2013. That’s a 66 percent bump in requests over the last two years, and it shouldn’t come as a shock to hear that 833 of them came from the U.S. government. Second and third place? Japan and Saudi Arabia, with 213 and 110 submitted requests, respectively.

What you won’t see Twitter talking about are the national security-related requests it’s received from the U.S. government, unlike a handful of tech giants did after they reached an agreement with the Department of Justice. To hear Twitter global policy manager Jeremy Kessel tell it, the nebulous numbers those companies are able to share aren’t specific enough to be meaningful. He may have a point. Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all confirmed that they received somewhere between zero and 999 FISA requests during the first half of 2013. A little openness is better than none at all, but Twitter’s position is that gag orders like this fly in the face of its “First Amendment right to free expression and [an] open discussion of government affairs.” The company is weighing legal options in case the Justice Department doesn’t quite see things its way. We’ll have to wait and see how those plans pan out.

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Source: Twitter

Twitter’s opening up your timeline data… for science!

There’s a veritable wealth of data to be gleaned from the world’s tweets, but apparently it’s not so easy for researchers to get a hold of. To that end, Twitter has announced that it will start granting certain research institutions no-cost access to the globe’s (public) 140-character musings as part of its Data Grants program. If you’re thinking that this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because Foursquare recently did something similar and even used the same company — Gnip — to do the legwork. This could possibly give scientists valuable insights about where diseases originated or even a snapshot of slang patterns and global events, for example. The deadline for the first wave of applicants is this March 15th should you want to be among the first to put Earth’s tweets under the microscope.

Twitter Data Grants: A pilot program to give researchers access to public and historical data. Learn more https://t.co/kj0QqZGqqg

– Twitter Engineering (@TwitterEng) February 5, 2014

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Source: Twitter Engineering

Twitter posts small earnings in first quarter as a public company, but user growth is slowing

Now that Twitter is a publicly traded company, it’s time to add the business to our collection of quarterly earnings reports. So how did it do in the first go-round? Well, there are pros and cons: In what CEO Dick Costolo says was the “strongest financial quarter to date,” the company posted a small earnings of $45 million for the quarter and $75 million for the year, which doesn’t take into account the $511 million loss attributed to stock-related expenses. Still, the earnings of two cents per share beat Wall Street’s estimates, which predicted a loss of three cents. Quarterly revenues were at $242 million, which is a 116 percent jump from this quarter last year.

More interestingly, Twitter’s active user growth appears to be slowing (chart below); the company boasted a total of 241 million active users as of New Year’s Eve, which is only a bump of 9 million from the previous quarter. Compared to previous quarters, this 4 percent growth is a drop from 6 percent in Q3 2013, 7 percent in Q2 and 10 percent in Q1. This growth will need to accelerate if the social network wants to start catching up with Facebook’s 1.2 billion users. Additionally, 184 million people used Twitter on their mobile devices, which the company says is an increase of 37 percent year-over-year.

Twitter also projects an estimated $230-240 million in revenues for the first quarter of 2014, rising to $1.15-1.2 billion for the full year. It also expects adjusted earnings to show up around $10-16 million this quarter, with a range of $150-180 million in 2014.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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