More on Disinformation 8

It's time for another post about disinformation and misinformation. I could probably do a post a day like this if I had the time and the stomach for it.  

Imagery faked with AI’s help only added to the awfulness of Hurricane Melissa. "A Category 5 landfall during Halloween week was scary enough on its own."

The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly. "We uncover footprints of activities connected to scientific fraud that extend beyond the production of fake papers to brokerage roles in a widespread network of editors and authors who cooperate to achieve the publication of scientific papers that escape traditional peer-review standards. Our analysis reveals insights into how such organizations are structured and how they operate."

Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation. "Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on long-debunked research."

Symbolic Strength More Important Than Facts When It Comes To Misinformation. "Why do some people endorse claims that can easily be disproved? It’s one thing to believe false information, but another to actively stick with something that’s obviously wrong. Our new research, published in the Journal of Social Psychology, suggests that some people consider it a “win” to lean in to known falsehoods."

You did no fact checking, and I must scream. "Recently, the beloved actor Patricia Routledge died. Several newspapers reposted a piece of viral slop which I had debunked a month previously. Let's go through the piece and see just how easy it is to prove false."

MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying), Freedom, and the Lie That Canada “Kills Its Own”. "When a government program becomes a punching bag for MAGA/MAPLE MAGA Religious Cult led internet outrage, facts go missing. Let’s put them back."

Anti-vaccine myths surged on social media ahead of the CDC shooting. Before the shooting, social media companies relaxed their protocols around misinformation.

The Autism Epidemic That Never Was. "RFK Jr.'s scientific illiteracy has led the ignorant down a dangerous path."

How the Rapid Spread of Misinformation Pushed Oregon Lawmakers to Kill the State’s Wildfire Risk Map. "This is how misinformation gets accepted as fact."

A Sodom and Gomorrah Story Shows Scientific Facts Aren’t Settled by Public Opinion. "Claims that an asteroid or comet airburst destroyed the biblical Sodom captured the public’s imagination. Its retraction shows that scientific conclusions aren’t decided by majority rule in the public square."

Delusion by Design: How Conspiracy Groups And Bad Actors Are Engineering AI Platforms And Chatbots to Confirm Their Beliefs and Lies. "Chatbots and AI Models Trained on Junk Science are now Being Used to Radicalize, Recruit, and Mislead the Masses - and It's working."

Three quarters of Canadians say misinformation affected the federal election: poll. "The Leger poll, which sampled more than 1,500 Canadian adults from April 29 to May 1, suggests that 19 per cent of people think false information or misinformation had a major impact on the election."

Hot Air: the danger of climate misinformation. "Tortoise has identified more than 300 influencers who are spreading content about climate change that ranges from scepticism to misinformation. Claims made over the past three years on X, YouTube, TikTok and media sites have been compiled in a searchable database that shows how online untruths about climate are growing, changing shape and spreading."