Taiwan ’s government says China is redoubling efforts to undermine confidence in the self-governing island’s democracy and close ties with the United States through the spread of disinformation, especially online.
The Associated Press
When does a public relations campaign become something more insidious? When and how does PR slide into propaganda and disinformation?
Psychology Today
When Elon Musk asked his 211 million followers on X to vote on whether ‘America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government,’ it seemed as if the post could only be tongue-in-cheek.
The New York Times
If the Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary and Dave Weldon as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it would elevate two prominent vaccine critics to the highest levels of U.S. health policymaking.
The Washington Post
The United States has imposed sanctions on two groups linked to Iranian and Russian efforts to target American voters with disinformation ahead of this year’s election.
The Associated Press
Overseeing a social media platform that has grown from 5 million users to more than 25 million in 10 months is about as far as you can get from Aaron Rodericks' former career as a federal public servant.
CBC News
A leading United States government agency that tracks foreign disinformation has terminated its operations, the State Department has said, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Republican criticism.
Aljazeera / Agence France-Presse
Chris Morris, who left the BBC to lead fact-checking nonprofit, Full Fact, tells Josiah Mortimer that critical thinking skills are crucial amid a surge in false narratives and risky AI tools.
Byline Supplement
Days after New Hampshire voters received a robocall with an artificially generated voice that resembled President Joe Biden’s, the Federal Communications Commission banned using AI-generated voices in robocalls.
Poynter Institute
The Russian disinformation network Matryoshka has launched a new campaign on the Bluesky social network. Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, has been one of the first researchers to detect its activity. So far, four Russian-made fake videos have been identified on the platform.
The Insider
While separated by the Atlantic Ocean, the use of modern media, in addition to economic pressure and geopolitical relationships, has narrowed the distance between Latin America and the Caribbean and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Center for Strategic and International Studies
President-elect Donald Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk played a key role this week in killing a bipartisan funding proposal that would have prevented a government shutdown, railing against the plan in a torrent of more than 100 X posts that included multiple false claims.
Associated Press
Experts on cybersecurity and online foreign influence campaigns are urging social media company Bluesky, whose app has exploded in popularity in recent weeks, to step up moderation to counter potential state-sponsored influence efforts.
Voice of America
The spread of fake news online has been called one of the greatest threats to democracy, with fabricated stories regularly racking up hundreds of thousands of views on social media. Some say that the onslaught of misinformation is fueling political polarization and dysfunction, since these materials are often designed to inflame partisan passions.
Columbia Magazine
Absent definitive answers from the government about mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey and elsewhere in the Northeast, many social media users really want to believe aliens are to blame.
PolitiFact
As soon as President-elect Donald J. Trump won the presidential race, influencers on Rumble, the right-wing alternative to YouTube, flooded the platform with a simple catchphrase: ‘We are the media now.’
The New York Times
For 12 years Sophie had been experiencing painful periods, weight gain, depression and fatigue. She had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal condition that affects about one in 10 women, but she struggled to get medical help.
BBC
Texas is one of only four states in the U.S. that mandate a media literacy curriculum in all public schools beginning in kindergarten. Fourteen other states offer some form of media literacy education or online resources to public school students.
CBS News