Misinformation spreads fast when people are afraid and a contagious and potentially fatal disease is frightening. This provides the ideal emotionally charged context for rumours to thrive.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Misinformation
Displaying 321 - 340 of 368 articles
We claim not to trust social media yet it seems to shape our political opinions.
When news stories include a catchy hashtag, readers perceived the news topic to be less socially important and more partisan.
Twitter’s proposed policy would result in the prolific spread of fabricated, but highly realistic images and videos. This could allow widespread misinformation on the platform.
Trump’s attempt to co-opt Ukraine’s precarious position with Russia worsens existing divides inside Ukraine and weakens US influence abroad.
Every day, new “alternative facts” are peddled in the public realm. But misinformation is not solely a modern problem - its origins are as old as humanity.
Publishing the comments of climate change deniers would be journalistically irresponsible. That’s why we’re redoubling our efforts to weed out misinformation.
You might see a headline from The Onion or The Babylon Bee and, for a split second, think it’s true. But many social media users don’t get the joke – and share these articles as if they’re real.
New evidence suggests most YouTube videos on climate change deny its existence.
New regulations have been rolled out to counter the spread of misinformation during the campaign, but these steps will largely be ineffective in the fast-moving social media sphere
Facebook has finally taken action on accounts spreading fake news on its platform.
It’s easier than ever to create a fake image and spread it far and wide online. But there are steps that you can take to protect yourself from fishy photos.
Research in Indonesia shows that people’s age, education levels and gender do not determine their likelihood to share fake news. Internet spending does.
Effective communication strategies will be crucial if scientists want to counter the worrying anti-vaccination trend.
WhatsApp has become a haven of misinformation in developing countries.
Protect yourself from hackers, trolls, bots, social media executives and programmers in need of ethics training.
Disinformation in Africa often takes the form of extreme speech inciting violence and spreading racist, misogynous, xenophobic messages.
Protecting democracy requires more than just technical solutions. It includes education, critical thinking and members of society working together to agree on problems and find solutions.
The Iffy Quotient measured misinformation on social media in the run-up to the recent elections. Facebook has gotten better at combating untrustworthy links, but Twitter still struggles.
A study of recent epidemics like Zika and Ebola suggests that the media may fail to tell the public what to do during an outbreak.
Top contributors
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Professor and Chair, Department of Journalism, Stellenbosch University
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Professor of Social Psychology in Society, University of Cambridge
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Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State University
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Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol
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Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Royal Roads University
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Lecturer in Journalism, University of Sheffield
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Associate Research Professor of Social Psychology, Louisiana State University
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Postdoctoral Fellow, Psychology, University of Cambridge
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Professor of Informatics and Computer Science, Indiana University
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Associate professor, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra, University of Canberra
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Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston
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Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, School of Media and Strategic Communications, Oklahoma State University
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Professor, Queensland University of Technology
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Professor of Education and (by courtesy) History, Stanford University
