As we browse the news, it's easy to become desensitized to awful events. Writer Amanda Ruggeri explores the psychology, and the steps you can take to avoid it happening.
BBC
The Secretary of State and a voter registration expert in Texas have refuted widespread disinformation spread by YouTubers and anonymous social media accounts this week.
The Center Square
The United States and Italy agreed on Wednesday to coordinate efforts to counter the spread of misinformation and fake news articles by foreign governments.
Reuters
After a man stabbed and killed six people at a mall in Sydney, Australia, false rumors about the identity of the attacker spread online along with antisemitic comments. Let’s look at the facts.
News Literacy Project/RumorGuard
In the digital age, the proliferation of disinformation has emerged as a formidable threat, infiltrating online spaces and perpetuating hate while posing grave risks to our population, especially certain groups.
Forbes
In the era of TikTok, self-diagnosis of mental health and developmental conditions, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is on the rise among young people. Some posts include people sharing reasons they believe their self-diagnosis is valid, while others contain mental health professionals stressing the importance of getting diagnosed by a provider.
Healthline
Millions of people have watched Mike Hughes die. It happened on February 22, 2020, not far from Highway 247 near the Mojave Desert city of Barstow, California. A homemade rocket ship with Hughes strapped in it took off from a launching pad mounted on a truck.
The New Yorker
How many times has it happened? You’re on your computer, searching for a particular article, a hard-to-find fact, or a story you vaguely remember, and just when you seem to have discovered the exact right thing, a paywall descends
The Atlantic
No facet of our lives is untouched by media. Our public spaces are infused with an unending cascade of media messages promoting an array of corporations, causes, candidates, events, and teams. Social media has reshaped our culture, even for those who never log on. And AI is making it easier than ever before for anyone to create content that feels real — even when it’s not.
Carnegie Corporation of New York
The tech industry has a new trend: adopting “transparency labels” modeled after the iconic Nutrition Facts panel found on food packaging. In 2020, Apple introduced “Privacy Labels” aimed at disclosing how apps handle user data. And that was just the beginning.
TIME
In a tech-driven world with news just at our fingertips, it can be hard to determine what’s true and what’s false.
CNBC Make It
More than 200 civil advocacy groups urged leading technology companies to increase efforts to combat misinformation fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) ahead of elections across the globe, in a letter published Tuesday.The groups wrote top executives for popular technology companies, including Google, Meta, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube and the social platform X.
The Hill
As ranchera music filled the Phoenix recording studio at Radio Campesina, a station personality spoke in Spanish into the microphone. “Friends of Campesina, in these elections, truth and unity are more important than ever,” said morning show host Tony Arias. “Don’t let yourself be trapped by disinformation.”
The Associated Press
A bipartisan coalition with support from Hollywood power players and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Archewell Foundation is working to prepare U.S. voters for a possible deepfake onslaught as the campaign year goes into high gear.
Axios
Over the past few weeks, social media channels, Telegram groups, and conspiracy-focused message boards have been flooded with every conceivable wild allegation about what will happen when the moon blocks out the sun.
Wired
Vaccine misinformation has led to the revival of diseases that could otherwise be eradicated, but experts in the field are considering how to improve education on the topic.
The State Press
Loose lips sink ships − especially when they're not telling the truth. Spotting misinformation can be difficult, especially on an information super-highway like the internet. Our Fact-Check team at USA TODAY is constantly finding both misinformation and disinformation.
USA Today
Is Taylor Swift a Pentagon psychological operations asset? Did Texas governor Greg Abbott say that Joe Biden needs to learn from Vladimir Putin to work for the interest of the United States? Did Donald Trump say that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job of the US government? Has the US military arrived in Ecuador to ‘kill terrorists’?
Reuters Institute
Fox News, one of the most relentless critics of the war on disinformation, now has a new challenge: Its parent company is looking to build up its own internal capability to combat disinformation.
The Intercept