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22-559: Alex Stamos founded the Stanford Internet Observatory in 2019, after leaving Facebook the year before over frustrations that he was not allowed to publish the full account of Russia's influence operations on the platform in the 2016 US Presidential elections . According to Lauren Coffey of Inside Higher Ed , by 2024 the Stanford Internet Observatory had "published 15 white paper reports, 10 journal articles and garnered more than 5,000 media mentions". The SIO

44-682: A 2021 report that concluded "The 2020 election demonstrated that actors—both foreign and domestic—remain committed to weaponizing viral false and misleading narratives to undermine confidence in the US electoral system and erode Americans’ faith in our democracy". SIO co-founded the Election Integrity Partnership along with the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public to identify real-time viral falsehoods about election procedures and outcomes. The partnership worked

66-543: A research powerhouse with a focus on social media amid growing misinformation". Joseph Menn of The Washington Post wrote "The Stanford Internet Observatory [...] published some of the most influential analysis of the spread of false information on social media during elections." Disinformation research groups, including the Stanford Internet Observatory, having reported on such topics as the 2020 stolen election claims and COVID-19 vaccine misinformation , had been under attack by GOP resources accusing them of colluding with

88-478: Is an American computer scientist and adjunct professor at Stanford University 's Center for International Security and Cooperation . He is the former chief security officer (CSO) at Facebook . His planned departure from the company, following disagreement with other executives about how to address the Russian government's use of its platform to spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election,

110-782: The New York Times warning about the vulnerabilities in the upcoming US elections without the Election Integrity Partnership and other research by SIO focused on election misinformation and with greatly reduced trust and safety teams at many social media companies. Alex Stamos Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.236 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 967858182 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:41:16 GMT Alex Stamos Alex Stamos (born 1979)

132-661: The CTO of Artemis Internet, an internal startup at NCC Group. Artemis Internet petitioned ICANN to host a '.secure' gTLD on which all services would be required to meet minimum security standards Artemis ultimately acquired the right to operate the '.trust' gTLD from Deutsche Post to launch its services. Stamos filed and received five patents for his work at Artemis Internet. In 2014, Stamos joined Yahoo! as CSO. While at Yahoo!, he testified to Congress on online advertising and its impact on computer security and data privacy. He publicly challenged NSA Director Michael S. Rogers on

154-522: The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Stanford Internet Observatory, and any other groups, communicating with the government with the aim of stemming the spread of falsehoods online. In June 2024, the Stanford Internet Observatory cut several jobs and several news outlets reported on its dismantling. Leadership including Alex Stamos , the main fundraiser, had left in November 2023 citing

176-487: The 2020 and 2022 election cycles and has since concluded their work. The lawsuits, which were eventually dismissed, as well as rhetoric about the research and work, however, resulted in scaled back or shut down research on elections by 2024. Researchers also received threats and online harassment from disinformation about their research. As of 2024, the Center for an Informed Public continued to work on election misinformation at

198-531: The Republican efforts as an attempt to prevent fact-checking of GOP lies. In a statement to Platformer on June 13, Stanford denied that SIO was being dismantled: The important work of SIO continues under new leadership... Stanford remains deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research – both at Stanford and across academia. On June 18,

220-625: The Russian government's use of its platform to spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, he made plans in 2018 to leave the company to take a research professorship at Stanford University . Stamos was interviewed about the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections in the PBS Frontline documentary The Facebook Dilemma . During Stamos's tenure as the Chief Security Officer, Facebook

242-704: The UN. Stamos said, as the CSO during the 2016 election season he "deserve as much blame (or more) as any other exec at the company," for Facebook's failed response to the Russian interference. Although the whitepaper Stamos coauthored only mentioned $ 100,000 ad spend for 3,000 ads connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts, it was later revealed that the Russian influence had reached 126 million Facebook users. While Cambridge Analytica harvested data from 87 million Facebook users before Stamos's tenure, Facebook did not notify its users until 2018, despite knowing about it as early as 2015,

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264-1034: The US Government and social media outlets of censoring conservative voices. The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Stanford University for any records or emails with government officials and social media platforms. In May 2023, America First Legal sued SIO and other researchers in Louisiana, aiming to bring down the "censorship-industrial complex". A Texas lawsuit filed by anti-vaccine advocates alleged their social media posts were flagged or removed in what it called mass censorship. These legal cases have cost Stanford millions of dollars in legal expenses and have distracted researchers from their work. A Stanford spokesperson said: "Stanford remains deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research — both at Stanford and across academia." On June 26, 2024,

286-590: The University of Washington. In 2021, SIO launched the Journal of Online Trust and Safety , an open access peer-reviewed journal covering research on how consumer internet services are abused to cause harm and how to prevent those harms. Praised as "the gold-standard organization for determining the veracity of political information circulating online" by Thom Hartmann of The New Republic . In 2024, Lauren Coffey of Inside Higher Ed wrote that SIO "served as

308-455: The cybersecurity industry. In reviewing the ads buys, we have found approximately $ 100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 — associated with roughly 3,000 ads — that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies. Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia. Following disagreement with other executives about how to address

330-460: The school said it was not shutting down the project but said that its founding grants were running out and they were seeking new funding. Some SIO work has more concrete plans to continue under new leadership at Stanford, including work on child safety, The Journal of Online Trust and Safety and the Trust and Safety Research Conference will continue. On June 25, 2024, Renée DiResta penned an op-ed in

352-559: The subject of encryption backdoors in February 2015 at a cybersecurity conference hosted by New America . In 2015, Stamos joined Facebook as CSO. During his time at Facebook, Stamos co-authored a whitepaper (with Jen Weedon and Will Nuland) on the use of social media to attack elections. He later delivered a keynote address at the Black Hat Briefings in 2017 on the need to broaden the definition of security and diversify

374-541: The toll of the political pressure while Renée DiResta 's contract was not renewed in June 2024. The SIO's closure would mark a significant setback for misinformation researchers. Conservative lawmakers had also threatened to cut federal funding to any universities that study propaganda , while the Washington Post theorized the university also might not want to alienate conservative donors. The New Republic critiqued

396-418: The year Stamos joined the company as the CSO. In July 2019, Facebook agreed to pay $ 100 million to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors for more than two years (2015-2018) about the misuse of its users' data. As of August 2019 , Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation lists Stamos as an adjunct professor , visiting scholar at

418-533: Was involved in numerous safety and security controversies including the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections , failure to remove reported child-abuse images, inaction against disinformation campaigns in Philippines that targeted and harassed journalists, Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal and the Rohingya genocide , for which the company has played a "determining role" according to

440-686: Was reported in March 2018. Born in 1979, Stamos grew up in Fair Oaks, California and graduated from Bella Vista High School in 1997. Stamos attended the University of California, Berkeley , where he graduated in 2001 with a degree in EECS . Stamos began his career at Loudcloud and, later, as a security consultant at @stake . In 2004, Stamos co-founded iSEC Partners, a security consulting firm, with Joel Wallenstrom, Himanshu Dwivedi, Jesse Burns and Scott Stender. During his time at iSEC Partners, Stamos

462-664: Was the first to out Russian support for Trump online in 2016, raised China spying concerns around the Clubhouse app in a 2021 report, partnered with the Wall Street Journal in a 2023 report on Instagram and online child sexual abuse materials , and developed a curriculum for teaching college students how to handle trust and safety issues on social media platforms. The Stanford Internet Observatory participated in pre- 2020 election research focusing on misinformation about election processes and procedures, resulting in

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484-407: Was well known for his research publications on vulnerabilities in forensics software and MacOS , Operation Aurora , and security ethics in the post-Snowden era. Stamos was an expert witness for a number of cases involving digital privacy, encryption, and free speech: iSEC Partners was acquired by NCC Group in 2010. Following the acquisition of iSEC Partners by NCC Group, Stamos became

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