Hospitals have requested that people avoid non-emergency visits, and conspiracy theorists are posting images of empty parking lots online as false proof that COVID-19 is an elaborate hoax.
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Articles on Hoaxes
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Why have conspiracy theories so easily circulated during the COVID-19 pandemic? What do these theories tell us about societies and what challenges do they present?
The Voynich Manuscript has researchers, the media, and the public hooked. But pseudo-explanations for the book's 'code' reveals a serious problem with society's relationship with science.
Lifestyle gurus define themselves in opposition to experts — but can we really trust what they tell us?
Six tips on how to check out that latest online threat that's targeting your children. How you can easily tell if it's real or just another hoax?
It's not just the media who fuel unnecessary concern about so-called suicide games.
Research in Indonesia shows that people's age, education levels and gender do not determine their likelihood to share fake news. Internet spending does.
Errol Morris's new series is not a traditional documentary, but it's doggedly committed to discovering what happened to Frank Olson.
Dozens of voluntary researchers in nine Indonesian cities mapped digital literacy activities and they found the country needs much more to solve their digital media problems.
A century-old case of scientific fraud illustrates how hard it is to untangle the truth when access to new discoveries is limited.
Researcher who has studied online news for 20 years says people fall for fake news because they don't value journalistic sources and consider themselves and their friends as credible news sources.
If people can be conned into jeopardizing our children's lives, as they do when they opt out of immunizations, could they also be conned out of democracy?
One of paleontology's most notorious hoaxes has long been blamed on a serial forger named Charles Dawson. But might a Jesuit priest have been in on a joke that went wrong ?
Fossils claiming to be the missing link between ape and humans were manipulated in such a way that Charles Dawson, who discovered them, was most likely the forger.
The adage that the camera doesn't lie is, of course, a lie, as a long history of hoaxes amply demonstrates. And yet we can still be duped by tricksters. We should remain vigilant.
A recent hoax study suggesting chocolate helps people lose weight highlights many problems with the way science is conducted and reported by the media.
Social media entrepreneur Belle Gibson is not the first to be accused of fabricating a personal recovery story for public consumption. So what responsibility do publishers have in such cases?
The ease with which a hoaxer was recently able to call the prime minister’s mobile phone, pretending to be the head of GCHQ, highlights a major dilemma for democratic political leaders. Cameron said he…
With somewhere in the region of 1.3 billion users, Facebook is the largest ever internet social engagement phenomenon. With so many people interconnected through the site, information can speedily propagate…
Top contributors
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Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
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Senior Lecturer, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University
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Associate Professor, UNSW Art & Design, UNSW
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Researcher: Children and Technology, Western Sydney University
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Senior Lecturer in Networking, The Open University
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Professor of Sociology, City, University of London
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Emeritus Professor of Government, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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Associate lecturer in Communication, Universitas Padjadjaran
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Honorary Research Associate, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
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Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, Liverpool John Moores University
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Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of St Andrews
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Professor of Informatics and Computer Science, Indiana University
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Distinguished Professor of Communication & Co-Director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University
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Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Cybercrime, University of Portsmouth
