Four major nonprofits that rose to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic by capitalizing on the spread of medical misinformation collectively gained more than $118 million between 2020 and 2022, enabling the organizations to deepen their influence in statehouses, courtrooms and communities across the country, a Washington Post analysis of tax records shows.
The Washington Post
In recent years, disinformation has seemed to be on an inexorable march across the scientific and medical landscape. Prominent politicians, up to and including the former president, have promoted useless drugs as supposed cures for COVID-19. Partisan attacks on the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines have expanded into attacks on all vaccines.
Los Angeles Times
Arizona's Independent Newsmedia recently published what the company is calling a “Civility Checklist” in its Opinion section; an 8-point guide for engaging in honest, respectful and civil discussion on public issues.
Independent Newsmedia
Last week, after our decade-long journey through the court system, a jury in Washington, D.C., found that both writers were liable for defamation. We hope this sends a broader message that defamatory attacks on scientists go beyond the bounds of protected speech and have consequences.
The New York TImes
Conspiracy theories persist across the United States regardless of age, gender or demographics, yet many of us feel we can spot mis- or disinformation when we see it and discern fact from fiction.
YouGov
Using data from a nationally representative survey of 2,036 U.S. adults, we analyze partisan perceptions of the risk disinformation poses to the U.S. government and society, as well as the actors viewed as responsible for and harmed by disinformation.
Misinformation Review
Major technology companies signed a pact Friday to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent artificial intelligence tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world.
The Associated Press
Hong Kong police will release their first children’s book to raise awareness about scams, with most of the initial print run of 20,000 copies to be handed out to the city’s 1,000 kindergartens.
South China Morning Post
Google is preparing to launch an anti-misinformation campaign across five countries in the European Union, the company told Reuters ahead of the bloc's parliamentary elections and tougher new rules tackling online content.
Reuters
Extensive research has consistently shown no link between vaccines and autism. In reality, our current understanding of autism suggests that there is a strong genetic component and that autism may start developing in utero during fetal development.
Unbiased Science
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlawed robocalls that contain voices generated by artificial intelligence, a decision that sends a clear message that exploiting the technology to scam people and mislead voters won’t be tolerated.
The Associated Press
Fika Juliana Putri, a 19-year-old shopkeeper in East Jakarta, plans to vote in Indonesia's presidential election next week for a once-feared former special forces commander. She likes him, she says, because he's cuddly.
Reuters
“Well over 300,000 Americans are in graveyards today because of the misinformation, the doubt, the suspicion, the distrust that caused them to say that vaccine is not safe for me. And it continues,” Dr. Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health said in September 2022, citing a KFF estimate.
Fortune Magazine
Rates of routine childhood vaccination hit a 10-year low in 2023. That, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, puts about 250,000 kindergartners at risk for measles, which often leads to hospitalization and can cause death. In recent weeks, an infant and two young children have been hospitalized amid an ongoing measles outbreak in Philadelphia that spread to a day care center.
KFF Health News
Meta announced earnings on Feb. 1, posting one of the most impressive quarters in business history. In the past year, Meta has added three Netflixes to its market cap. On Friday alone, it added the value of Shell Oil — the biggest one-day increase in market capitalization in history.
No Mercy/No Malice
Arizona legislators are hoping to pave the way for political candidates to take legal action against the rising threat of deepfakes in election campaigns. HB 2394, a measure proposed by state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, is designed to address the rise of digitally manipulated media created with an intent to mislead voters.
Arizona Capitol Times/Cronkite News
“You have blood on your hands.” “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through.” These quotes, the first from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaking to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the second from Zuckerberg to families of victims of online child abuse in the audience, are highlights from an extraordinary day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee about protecting children online.
The Conversation
In 2017, Stuart McCormick survived the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history, while visiting Las Vegas. In the months that followed, his understanding of what happened that October night became twisted and distorted.
BBC
The survey was conducted online with 2,500 Canadians (including oversample of Gen Z) from Sept. 19-26, 2023.
Canadian Medical Association
