Knight

The James S. and James L. Knight Foundation is offering $175K to bankroll research projects to figure out how to “mitigate the impacts of disinformation and targeted online manipulation of communities of color.”

The Foundation believes the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice movement and the 2020 election campaign “provided fodder for bad actors to target persons of color with disinformation that exploits racial tensions and deep-seated socioeconomic anxieties in ways that are harmful to health, corrosive to communities and our democracy,” according to its RFP.

It is especially concerned with disinformation in communities of color designed to discourage people from voting. A US Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Black Americans were targeted more than any other group in the 2016 election.

The Foundation will fund projects that yield “actionable insights” to mitigate the effects of targeted disinformation in CoC populations.

It is accepting proposals until Sept. 15. Decisions will be made in December and grants will go out in early 2022.

Let’s hope the results are used in the 2024 presidential campaign.

Mark Zuckerberg just does not get it. Boasting to CBS’ Gayle King that FB has removed more than 18M posts containing misinformation, CEO Zuckerberg went on to say the posts questioning the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine are fair game on the platform.

He said posts questioning whether vaccines are safe belong to the “vaccine hesitancy” category, not misinformation.

Zuckerberg is playing a dangerous game of semantics. FB is planting a seed of doubt about the vaccines, which encourages people to avoid the shot. Hesitancy may result in deaths.

A July study by researchers at Harvard, Northeastern, Rutgers and Northwestern found that people who rely on FB for COVID-19 news have a 10 percent lower vaccination rate than those who do not rely on FB.

Zuckerberg has some explaining to do.

Suffering for the sins of the son. Support for almost four-year-old petition on Change.org to re-name the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge to its original Tappan Zee moniker has gained momentum due to the impending resignation of New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

Launched Nov. 1, 2017, more than 240K people have signed the petition, which has targeted 300K signatures.

State senator Mike Martucci has sponsored legislation to remove the Cuomo name from the span.

Calling the governor “an abuser and bully,” Martucci claims Cuomo blackmailed legislators into changing the name of the Gov. Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge to honor his father.

To Martucci, the renaming was due to Cuomo’s arrogance and vanity.

“Now that the Governor is finally on his way out the door and his horrible legacy has been laid bare for all to see, it is long past time to remove his stained family name from its most visible spot-the Tappan Zee Bridge,” posted Martucci Aug. 19 on Change.org.

Note to Martucci: it is the Mario M., not Andrew M., Cuomo Bridge.

How about working to change the name of the Donald J. Trump State Park, which is in Westchester and Putnam.

The disgraced president got to slap his name on the 436-acre park after he donated the land to the state in 2006 after the tough regulatory restrictions killed his plan to build a golf course there.

Trump got a nice tax write-off in the deal.