Elon Musk's main tool for fighting disinformation on X is making the problem worse, insiders claim
"Even professional journalists, as I understand it, are having a lot of trouble understanding what's true and what's not true."
"Even professional journalists, as I understand it, are having a lot of trouble understanding what's true and what's not true."
"When you show people deepfakes and generative AI, a lot of times they come out of the experiment saying, 'I just don't trust anything anymore.'"
Inattentive readers are more likely to click on a false news story, with misinformation content producers exploiting this attention gap.
Mendacity and the uncritical repetition of blatant lies can chip away at our ability to assess the plausibility of other, unrelated news stories.
Large language models are good at dissuading conspiracy-theory believers because they're armed with facts and patience.
Research found deliberately false Facebook posts were less damaging than unflagged vaccine-skeptical content with click-bait style headlines.
"The misinformation flagged by fact-checkers was 46 times less impactful than the unflagged content that encouraged vaccine skepticism."
The hope of many researchers is that, in tandem, multiple tactics may add up to something of a defense.
When it comes to actually persuading voters, the efficacy of microtargeting is difficult to determine.
The findings of a study by David Rand and co-authors indicate people's minds can be changed with facts, despite pessimism about that prospect.