Designing ways to fight back against falsehoods that can trigger tensions, violence, or even death, the UN has been monitoring how mis- and disinformation and hate speech can attack health, security, stability as well as progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
UN News
The classic vision of therapy revolved around a person on a couch, supine, tapping into their deepest and darkest hopes and fears. A modern-day remix might look like this: a person still on a couch, but at home, scrolling through a constantly refreshing selection of mental-health content on social-media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
TIME
Erica is on YouTube, detailing how much it costs to hire a divorce attorney in the state of Massachusetts. Dr. Dass is selling private medical insurance in the UK. But Jason has been on Facebook spreading disinformation about France’s relationship with its former colony, Mali. And Gary has been caught impersonating a CEO as part of an elaborate crypto scam.
Wired
YouTube is set to begin cracking down on cancer treatment misinformation Tuesday, the video streaming platform's latest in its efforts against medical misinformation.
USA Today
A new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University suggests that the battle against online disinformation cannot be won by content moderation or banning those who spread fake news. Instead, the key lies in early and continuous education that teaches individuals to critically evaluate information and remain open to changing their minds.
PsyPost
USA TODAY parent company Gannett, The Associated Press and eight other media organizations on Wednesday called on policymakers to regulate artificial intelligence models, arguing that failure to act could hurt the industry and further erode the public’s trust in the media.
USA Today
Conspiracy theory beliefs and (more generally) misinformation may be groundless, but they can have a range of harmful real-world consequences, including spreading lies, undermining trust in media and government institutions and inciting violent or even extremist behaviours.
The Conversation
It's getting harder to tell when photos are manipulated by artificial intelligence (AI), but help is on the way. MIT CSAIL researchers recently developed "PhotoGuard," a new AI tool designed to counter unauthorized image manipulation by models such as DALL-E and Midjourney. Experts say such methods are increasingly necessary.
Lifewire
About 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created every day, according to IBM. Scientist David Helfand says that is equal to 5 trillion books, enough to stretch around the equator on a bookshelf over 1,600 feet high. In other words, the internet is constantly updated with new articles, videos, photos, posts — and even websites — every day. In the age of so much information, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish between good and bad sources. So, if you want to evaluate a site’s reliability, how should you do it?
Poynter
Photographs of demonic statues perched on store shelves flash through the TikTok video as eerie music plays in the background. “Apparently Hobby Lobby has a crap-ton of Baphomet [satanic] and demon-like statues just on the shelves right now, which is really confusing because Hobby Lobby is a super Christian-based company,” the unnamed narrator of the video says.
NewsGuard
With elections in the United States, United Kingdom, India, Taiwan, the European parliament and more than a dozen other European, Asian and African democracies all taking place in 2024, a huge percentage of the global population will be casting ballots next year.
The Hill
A viral TikTok claimed Disney World sought to lower the drinking age to 18. President Biden made outsized claims about job creation. A Twitter user impersonated a pharmaceutical giant announcing insulin is free. Russian agents leaked hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Wisconsin Watch
Before making the arduous journey from their home countries toward the U.S. in search of a better life, migrants usually resort to the internet, social media and applications like WhatsApp to inform themselves on how to reach their final destination.
Poynter
The proliferation of fake news stories and conspiracy theories on social media, as well as rising concerns that these platforms are hurting kids’ mental health, have put digital literacy and citizenship in the spotlight.
EducationWeek
Efforts to deceive the public about voting and elections remain a top concern for state election officials as they dig into preparations for the 2024 election.
PBS News Hour/The Associated Press
The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI, the artificial intelligence start-up that makes ChatGPT, over whether the chatbot has harmed consumers through its collection of data and its publication of false information on individuals.
The New York Times
How much misinformation is on Facebook? Several studies have found that the amount of misinformation on Facebook is low or that the problem has declined over time. This previous work, though, missed most of the story.
The Conversation
Countries must address the “grave global harm” caused by the proliferation of hate and lies online, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on [June 12], launching a key report designed to shore up information integrity on digital platforms.
UN News
A federal judge in Louisiana ruled last week that a wide range of Biden administration officials could not communicate with social media companies about content moderation issues, and in a lengthy opinion described the White House’s outreach to platforms as “almost dystopian” and reminiscent of “an Orwellian ministry of truth”.
The Guardian
Many Americans believe that they are regularly being exposed to misinformation online, and most are confident in their ability to distinguish real news from fake news. However, Americans' confidence in their ability to spot fake news isn't always grounded in reality.
YouGov
