Taylor Swift didn’t endorse former President Donald Trump last weekend. Ryan Reynolds wasn’t photographed wearing a pro-Kamala Harris shirt. And the Communist Party USA never backed President Joe Biden’s now-defunct campaign.
CNN
The Summer Olympics opened in Paris on 26 July 2024, with over 11,000 athletes present for three weeks of competition and millions of people watching around the globe. Though the games are intended to represent international unity and cooperation, they also have a long history of politicization, controversy and misinformation.
Global Disinformation Index
Disinformation campaigns can be a powerful tool to shape beliefs on matters of great geopolitical importance. Bad actors can deploy them against rivals to sow costly discord, create political uncertainty, and deepen divides within a community.
Council on Foreign Relations
Most people have a general understanding of disinformation — false information that is intentionally created to cause harm. Disinformation becomes “gendered” when deliberately false information draws on common understandings of issues like masculinity, femininity and sexual violence.
The Conversation
Artificial intelligence-created content is flooding the web and making it less clear than ever what’s real this election. From former president Donald Trump falsely claiming images from a Vice President Kamala Harris rally were AI-generated to a spoofed robocall of President Joe Biden telling voters not to cast their ballot, the rise of AI is fueling rampant misinformation.
The Washington Post
The F.B.I. and other agencies quietly resumed coordinating with the major social media companies earlier this year to fight what government officials warned was a coming onslaught of foreign disinformation and influence operations leading up to the presidential election in November.
The New York Times
Just over four years ago, an insurrectionist mob found each other online, descended on Washington, stormed the Capitol and threatened the vice-president with a noose. But that was the good old days. We’re living in a different reality now. One in which the billionaires have been unchained.
The Guardian
Misinformation online is always a concern, particularly in a presidential election year. Part of what can make online misinformation so effective is the clarity and relative simplicity with which it is conveyed.
GW Today
Meta has been bombarded by academics, researchers, politicians and regulators about a tool called CrowdTangle, which most people probably haven’t heard of. It’s been used to investigate the spread of violence, political disinformation and false narratives on Facebook and Instagram.
National Public Radio
The Detroit Free Press is partnering with the Center for Media Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin to launch a new community reporting tool for misinformation and disinformation.
Detroit Free Press
Bill Gates, an Arizona county official who fought off threats and defended election results, will take on a new role to preserve democracy from the nation's epicenter of election denialism.
Arizona Republic / AZCentral.com
The American Board of Internal Medicine revoked the certifications of Pierre Kory and Paul Marik, two physicians known for continuing to promote ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication, as a treatment for covid long after the medical community found it to be ineffective. The two men co-founded the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, which experts say spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.
The Washington Post
Climate misinformation may be more effective than we’d like to think because of a phenomenon called the illusory truth effect. In short, we are more likely to believe a lie if we encounter it repeatedly. Worse, the effect works immediately — a lie seems to be more true even after just one repetition.
Nieman Lab
Just like comedy fans replay their favorite routines every so often, I often find myself returning to a few journalistic pieces written about comedy to help me order my thoughts. One is Lindy West’s 2013 Jezebel piece she wrote in the wake of debating Jim Norton concerning comedy’s role in perpetuating rape culture on the canceled FX series “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.”
Salon
A new Gallup poll reveals that anti-science attitudes and the politicization of health care is potentially having a massive negative impact on public safety, as a mere 40% of adults now feel it is ‘important’ for parents to have their children vaccinated, down from 58% pre-pandemic.
The Hill
The animal health sector is just as vulnerable to threats posed by misinformation and disinformation. In October 2022, viral online content about the spread and treatment of lumpy skin disease stirred up conspiracy theories, undermining cattle vaccination efforts and suggesting that milk is not safe to drink.
World Organisation for Animal Health
Britain is facing its worst riots in 13 years, as a wave of violent anti-immigration protests sweep across the country. The uprisings began after the spread of misinformation online about a mass stabbing at a dance class in Southport that killed three young girls and left numerous others injured.
TIME Magazine
Distinguished author and researcher Sam Harris explores the nuances of influence and propaganda in the context of today's dizzying media landscape with social media researcher and author of 'Invisible Rulers,' Renee DiResta.
Podcast: Making Sense
A false name - attributed to the 17-year-old accused of killing three little girls as well as injuring eight other children and two adults - spread like wildfire across X, formerly known as Twitter.
BBC
Kamala Harris’ election campaign has accused Elon Musk of spreading ‘manipulated lies’ after the Tesla chief executive posted a doctored video featuring the vice-president on his X account.
The Guardian