misinformation
Washington (AFP) - US far-right conspiracy website Gateway Pundit is filing for bankruptcy, its founder said Wednesday, as it battles a string of lawsuits alleging it promoted misinformation related to the 2020 election. Parent company TGP Communications is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Florida, founder Jim Hoft said in a note to readers, blaming "progressive liberal" lawsuits. The Gateway Pundit, launched as a blog in 2004, rose to prominence as it trumpeted conspiracy theories about a range of subjects, from mass shootings to Donald Trump's false claim that the 2020 election wa...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Migrants, vaccines, pedophilia rings -- old conspiracy theories are resurfacing ahead of the US election despite being repeatedly debunked, in what researchers call "zombie" falsehoods that appear to resonate with polarized voters. Americans are deluged with misinformation about political hot-button issues that observers say have the potential to sway voters in the widely anticipated rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump in November. That includes misinformation that is recycled online despite being repeatedly knocked down by fact-checkers in what seems like a...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Terrified onlookers crouch behind a wall as lights streak across the night sky in what self-proclaimed digital investigators claimed was footage of Iranian drones over Israel. But the video is months old, repurposed to sow misinformation. Social media sites such as X, formerly Twitter, were swamped with misrepresented visuals after Iran launched an unprecedented wave of drones and missiles toward Israel at the weekend, exacerbating Middle East tensions during an ongoing war that has already seen a flood of misinformation. Many of the falsehoods about the Iranian strikes were...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - From India and South Korea to Croatia and North Macedonia, fact-checking organizations battling an ever-rising tide of misinformation in a major election year are buffeted by legal threats, harassment and funding shortfalls. Fact-checkers, largely under-resourced and increasingly under attack, have their work cut out this year as dozens of countries hold elections, a period when falsehoods typically explode. Debunking fake political claims and hoaxes that threaten election integrity, likened by some researchers as a seemingly endless game of whack-a-mole, comes with a litany...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - A digital tool considered vital in tracking viral falsehoods, CrowdTangle will be decommissioned by Facebook owner Meta in a major election year, a move researchers fear will disrupt efforts to detect an expected firehose of political misinformation. The tech giant says CrowdTangle will be unavailable after August 14, less than three months before the US election. The Palo Alto company plans to replace it with a new tool that researchers say lacks the same functionality, and which news organizations will largely not have access to. CrowdTangle has been a game-changer for yea...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - From vampires and wendigos to killer asteroids, TikTok users are pumping out outlandish end-of-the-world conspiracy theories, researchers say, in yet another misinformation trend on a platform whose fate in the United States hangs in the balance. In the trend reported by the nonprofit Media Matters, TikTok users seek to monetize viral videos that make unfounded claims about the US government secretly capturing or preserving mythical monsters that include -– wait for it –- King Kong. It is the latest illustration of misinformation swirling on the platform -- a stubborn issue ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Coined by the World Health Organization to denote a hypothetical future pandemic, "Disease X" is at the center of a blizzard of misinformation that American conspiracy theorists are amplifying -- and profiting from. The falsehoods, including that the unknown pathogen indicates an elitist plot to depopulate the earth, appeared to originate in the United States but spilled to Asia in multiple regional languages, AFP fact-checkers found. The fast-spreading misinformation, which experts say illustrates the perils of reduced content moderation on social media sites, threatens to ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - A TikTok army of American moms claiming to be "detox" specialists is pushing unproven treatments for childhood behavioral disorders -– while hiding that their misinformation is actually a marketing campaign aimed at making money. Influencers with a large following, these mothers typically cite personal testimonies to passionately endorse detox sprays or bath treatments, claiming without evidence that they help rid children of toxins such as heavy metals and parasites. Their videos, which often garner millions of views on platforms including TikTok, illustrate how unqualified...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Chomping peacefully on a fruitsicle cake in her grassy Washington zoo enclosure Mei Xiang is blissfully unaware that she and a handful of other cute pandas are at the center of a ferocious misinformation campaign driving anti-US sentiment in China. Evidence-free claims that pandas have been abused at US zoos have ricocheted across Chinese social media in recent months, fanning anti-American perceptions amid already fraught ties between Washington and Beijing. The falsehoods, which researchers say were amplified by clout-chasing influencers, have cast a shadow on Beijing's "p...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - As a global election season widely expected to be mired in misinformation and falsehoods fast approaches, the big US-based tech platforms are walking back policies meant to curb them, stoking alarm. Whether it is YouTube scrapping a key misinformation policy or Facebook altering fact checking controls, the social media giants are demonstrating a certain lassitude with being the sheriffs of the internet Wild West. The changes have come in a climate of layoffs, cost-cutting measures and pressure from right-wing groups that accuse the likes of Facebook-parent Meta or YouTube ow...
AFP
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