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News on Defining "Disinformation"
Conspiracy theorists have latched on to the debate over US abortion rights on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok, leading to a spike in misinformation around what is already one of the most politically-charged topics online — and signaling the complex decision-making that lies ahead for social media companies if the procedure becomes illegal in some […]
By Davey AlbaThe sheer scale of disinformation on social media platforms is harming youths in India with no serious efforts shown by companies to combat the menace, says a new report.The report titled Politics of Disinformation, released on Thursday by the Delhi-based non-profit Future of India Foundation, follows discussions with youths in eight states to understand their […]
By Ritwik SharmaNina Jankowicz’s new book, “How to Be a Woman Online,” chronicles the vitriol she and other women have faced from trolls and other malign actors. She’s now at the center of a new firestorm of criticism, this time over her appointment to lead an advisory board at the Department of Homeland Security on the threat […]
By Steven Lee Myers and Zolan Kanno-YoungsRussia has pioneered a model of disinformation to gain political influence in Africa that is now being replicated by other actors across the continent. Disinformation is the intentional dissemination of false information with the intent of advancing a political objective. Africa has been the increasingly frequent target of such campaigns. In recent years, dozens of […]
By Africa Center for Strategic StudiesScroll through social media feeds today and you can expect to be bombarded with dubious claims about Russia’s war in Ukraine. Many were created by or on behalf of Russia, either to cast doubt on atrocities or to condemn Ukraine and its leaders for things they didn’t do. Fact-checkers like PolitiFact work to determine the […]
By Louis JacobsonSAN FRANCISCO — In 2011, President Barack Obama swept into Silicon Valley and yukked it up with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder. The occasion was a town hall with the social network’s employees that covered the burning issues of the day: taxes, health care, the promise of technology to solve the nation’s problems. More than a […]
By Steven Lee Myers and Cecilia KangAn unexpected tech platform is facing new pressure from Democrats to step up its policies against misinformation: LinkedIn. The Microsoft-owned networking site is the latest major platform added to the Democratic National Committee’s misinformation scorecard, which for years has graded platforms based on their rules against false or misleading content. […] Source: Democrats are calling […]
By Cristiano LimaA central feature of the Disinformation Studies program is the annual Symposium on Disinformation Studies. The Symposium is a multiday, interdisciplinary, cross-sector conference featuring practitioners and scholars who diagnose the mechanisms and effects of information warfare, foster nuanced understanding of contemporary processes of disinformation, prognosticate on the probable evolution of disinformation, and generate interdisciplinary solutions […]
With democracies across the globe under assault,The University of Chicago’s nonpartisan Institute of Politics and The Atlantic are hosting Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy, a groundbreaking three-day event exploring the organized spread of disinformation and strategies to respond to it. The conference, April 6 to 8, will explore the roots and scope of the […]
Images of the pregnant young Ukrainian woman wounded in a Russian airstrike on a hospital in Mariupol earlier this month soon went viral. And news that the woman had later passed away spread like wildfire. To counter the story, Russian mouthpieces worldwide began claiming that the woman was actually a paid actress and the images of […]
By Omer BenjakobAre internet technologies doing more harm than good to our democracy? And what – if anything – should lawmakers do about it? Because these questions are critical to U.S. elections, democracy and public health, Gallup and Knight Foundation sought American views on the way forward. Surprisingly, Americans’ opinions did not always follow party lines when […]
By Knight Foundation