Dec 05 Opinion: WhatsApp skewed Brazilian election, showing social media’s danger to democracy By Luca Belli, The Conversation Brazil’s WhatsApp election scandal should be a wake-up call particularly for other developing world democracies. Continue reading
Sep 13 Lawmakers want to know how ‘deepfake’ videos of real people could threaten national security By Deb Reichmann, Associated Press The rising capabilities of the technology are fueling concerns it could be used to make a bogus video, for example, of an American politician accepting a bribe or of a U.S. or an adversarial foreign leader warning of an impending… Continue reading
Sep 03 How seeing a political logo can impair your understanding of facts By Nsikan Akpan Political symbols have a sneaky influence on your brain, according to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania. Continue reading
Jul 29 Times publisher asks Trump to reconsider anti-media rhetoric By Darlene Superville, Associated Press President Donald Trump met with the publisher of The New York Times to discuss media coverage of his administration, including his oft-repeated accusation that the media is the "enemy of the people."… Continue reading
May 02 Miles To Go podcast takes a behind-the-scenes tour of junk news By Fedor Kossakovski Science correspondent Miles O’Brien and series producer Cameron Hickey have been researching junk news on the internet since the election, uncovering important storylines close to home. Continue reading
Apr 25 Watch 11:20 How Facebook’s news feed can be fooled into spreading misinformation By Miles O'Brien Facebook’s news feed algorithm learns in great detail what we like, and then strives to give us more of the same -- and it's that technology that can be taken advantage of to spread junk news like a virus. Science… Continue watching
Apr 25 What is the NewsTracker? By Cameron Hickey As the country was reacting to the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election, concerns soared about the problems of misinformation or so-called “Fake News” spreading across social media. To understand the scale and shape of a problem that was incredibly… Continue reading
Apr 02 Trump defends Sinclair broadcasting after video slams anchors for scripted warning on ‘fake news’ By Associated Press Trump tweeted Monday that it was funny to watch “Fake News Networks” criticizing Sinclair for being biased. The president singled out CNN and NBC. Continue reading
Mar 11 ‘Fake news’ smear takes hold among politicians at all levels By Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press It's become ubiquitous as a signal to a politician's supporters to ignore legitimate reporting and hard questions, as a smear of the beleaguered and dwindling local press corps, and as a way for conservatives to push back against what they… Continue reading
Mar 09 False news travels 6 times faster on Twitter than truthful news By Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American False news -- inaccurate information presented as truth or opinion presented as fact -- is 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than information that faithfully reports actual events, according to a new study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Continue reading