Category: disinformation
A mathematician walks into a bar (of disinformation)
Disinformation, misinformation, infotainment, algowars — if the debates over the future of media the past few decades have meant anything, they’ve at least left a pungent imprint on the English language. There’s been a lot of invective and fear over what social media is doing to us, from our individual…
Read More
Twitter asks users to flag COVID-19 and election misinformation
Twitter introduced a new test feature Tuesday that allows users to report misinformation they run into on the platform, flagging it to the company as “misleading.” The test will roll out starting today to most users in the U.S., Australia and South Korea. In the new test, Twitter users will…
Read More
Twitter tests more attention-grabbing misinformation labels
Twitter is considering changes to the way it contextualizes misleading tweets that the company doesn’t believe are dangerous enough to be removed from the platform outright. The company announced the test in a tweet Thursday with an image of the new misinformation labels. Within the limited test, those labels will…
Read More
Indivisible is training an army of volunteers to neutralize political misinformation
The grassroots Democratic organization Indivisible is launching its own team of stealth fact-checkers to push back against misinformation — an experiment in what it might look like to train up a political messaging infantry and send them out into the information trenches. Called the “Truth Brigade,” the corps of volunteers…
Read More
Pro-Trump Twitter figure arrested for spreading vote-by-text disinformation in 2016
The man behind a once-influential pro-Trump account is facing charges of election interference for allegedly disseminating voting disinformation on Twitter in 2016. Federal prosecutors allege that Douglass Mackey, who used the name “Ricky Vaughn” on Twitter, encouraged people to cast their ballot via text or on social media, effectively tricking others…
Read More
EMA warns over doctored COVID-19 vaccine data hacked and leaked online
The European Medical Agency (EMA) has warned that information on COVID-19-related medicines and vaccines, which was stolen in a cyber attack last December and leaked online earlier this week, includes correspondence that’s been manipulated prior to publication “in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines”. It’s not clear exactly…
Read More