Category: Rumors and Misinformation

Deepfake of Baltimore Principal Leads to Arrest of School Employee

A high school athletic director in the Baltimore area was arrested after the police said he used A.I. to make a racist and antisemitic audio clip.
Meta’s A.I. Assistant Is Fun to Use, but It Can’t Be Trusted

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s hope for the chatbot to be the smartest, it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.
Nina Jankowicz Forms New Group to Defend Disinformation Research

The group intends to fight what its leader, Nina Jankowicz, and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and their allies to undermine researchers who study disinformation.
States Move to Ban Deepfake Nudes to Fight Sexually Explicit Images of Minors

Legislators in two dozen states are working on bills, or have passed laws, to combat A.I.-generated sexually explicit images of minors.
Smartmatic and OAN Settle Defamation Suit

Smartmatic, an elections technology company, had accused the conservative broadcaster of amplifying baseless claims about election fraud.
Jackson Hinkle Rides Rage Over Israel to Prominence

Jackson Hinkle’s incendiary commentary has generated over two million new followers on X since October — a surge that some researchers say is aided by inauthentic accounts.
How a Case Against Fox News Tore Apart a Media-Fighting Law Firm

Tensions had been brewing for years inside Clare Locke, a top defamation law firm. Then came the biggest defamation case of them all.
NewJeans Asks U.S. Court for Help Finding YouTuber in Defamation Case

The request by NewJeans is the latest effort by the K-pop industry in its struggle to stem rumors on platforms based outside South Korea.
Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in Schools

Using artificial intelligence, middle and high school students have fabricated explicit images of female classmates and shared the doctored pictures.
China’s Advancing Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election Raise Alarms

China has adopted some of the same misinformation tactics that Russia used ahead of the 2016 election, researchers and government officials say.
ISIS Claimed the Moscow Concert Hall Attack. Russian Officials Blame Others.

Russian narratives served to deflect attention from the failure to prevent the deadly attack while rallying the country behind the war in Ukraine.
British Media Showed Restraint on Princess Kate’s Health. It Didn’t Make a Difference.

The online frenzy over Catherine’s health escalated despite a reserved approach by Fleet Street — which promptly blamed Americans for the furor.