When he first emerged on social media, the user known as Harlan claimed to be a New Yorker and an Army veteran who supported Donald Trump for president. Harlan said he was 29, and his profile picture showed a smiling, handsome young man. A few months later, Harlan underwent a transformation. Now, he claimed to be 31 and from Florida..
The Associated Press
ABC News
As Brazil grappled with a flood of online disinformation around its 2022 presidential election, the nation’s Supreme Court made an unusual and fateful decision: It gave one justice sweeping powers to order social networks to take down content he believed threatened democracy.
The New York Times
A new United Nations report calls for countries to impose stricter legal penalties on businesses for contributing to climate change, including legal liability for “misinformation” relating to climate change and a ban of advertising by fossil fuel companies..
Forbes
Prince Harry of Sussex in the U.K. has hit out at the dangers of social media disinformation - days after false online rumors led to rioting across Britain. The royal, 39, spoke at the Responsible Digital Future forum in Bogota.
The Mirror
Growing numbers of Americans are buying into misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new national survey, with more than one in five believing it's safer to get the virus than to get a shot.
Axios
The Centres for Information Resilience and CNN identified 56 fake accounts, with at least 17 using images of real European women without their consent to promote a pro-GOP and Trump agenda ahead of the 2024 U.S. elections.
CNN
Imagine you’re walking down the street and a random guy asks you to solve a math problem. A complicated one, but one you know how to solve — it’d just take several minutes of some fairly serious thinking on your part. Would you do it?
Nieman Lab
Top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington sent a letter this month to Elon Musk complaining that the platform’s AI chatbot, Grok, produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.
The Associated Press
While the mpox outbreak in Africa is worrisome, federal health officials insist that this virus is dramatically different than Covid, and is highly unlikely to lead to school closures. That hasn't stopped online chatter to the contrary.
NBC News
New research shows exactly how communities of color are being targeted by "bad information," with concerned community members making up the best frontline defense against disinformation targeting Asian and Latino Americans on today's information battlefield – specifically ahead of the 2024 election.
Scripps News
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
