Popular blogging forum Tumblr wants its users to beware of fake news online.
The company, owned by WordPress company Automattic, launched a campaign called World Wide What. In the form of a Tumblr blog, the campaign shares articles from The Washington Post about how students believed that the pro-life American College of Pediatricians was a more reliable source than the American Academy of Pediatrics. The Post implied that these students were incorrect in their assumptions.
The campaign has six different efforts. One of them is focused on educating Tumblr users on “Fake News and Skewed Views.” In the blog post, Tumblr’s campaign asserted, “Propaganda isn’t new, but the internet has made it so much easier to spread false information with malicious intent and accidentally.” The video presentation warned that only “[r]eal news by journalists adheres to strict standards ... .” Three tiers of “fake news” were defined: satire, misinterpretation, and misinformation.
Another section, “Authenticity Online,” features pro-abortion actress Jameela Jamil, who according to The Next Web tech blog, will “shed light on the effects of inauthentic social media personalities.” This is the same actress who told the world in December that she was “unashamedly proud” of her abortion.
In the section labeled: “A Safer Internet: Moderation,” Tumblr asked its users to help maintain a platform that was “positive, informative, and safe … .”
The new owner of Tumblr, Automattic, is run by CEO Matt Mullenweg, who was one of the early protesters in Silicon Valley against Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Mullenweg signed a petition that said, “We are choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans, immigrants, and all people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the incoming administration’s proposed data collection policies.”
In a podcast interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Mullenweg admitted to helping then-Senate candidate and Ted Cruz challenger Beto O’Rourke in his Senate campaign.
