#WhatsApp misinformation

[silkiecorn]

A bunch of old guys

[thepastisalreadywritten]

NOTE: Additional photos have been included in this article.

[marsixm]

its been super clear to me what this has been for a while but ive avoided saying anything super direct bc i dont wanna be crucified by that cohort, but seeing it all over twitter has been making my own medical ocd worse lately, plus i straight up saw someone tweet “this is bad but i wonder how many of the people upset about this (this being THE LEAD FOUND IN STANLEY CUPS) are even masking 🤔” and that was truly like. what are we even doing here man.

[lilithism1848]

[einaudis]

.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

No X in Brazil? No problem, Brazilians say.

When a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered the suspension of the social media platform X in Latin America’s largest country, Shirley Sampaio wasn’t bothered. She preferred Instagram anyway.

“If they took that away, or WhatsApp, it would hurt,” the 56-year-old jewelry saleswoman said. “But people don’t use X.”

This nation of 215 million was an early and enthusiastic adopter of Twitter, the platform now known as X, once commanding its largest international market. More than 40 million Brazilians — nearly one-fifth of the population — routinely took to the network to engage in heated discussions on politics or gossip over the latest episode of Big Brother Brasil. It was credited with mobilizing massive and wide-ranging protests in 2013. Then helping to propel former president Jair Bolsonaro’s riseto power.

Since then, X’s clout in Brazil has shrunk considerably. At last count, the social media network had an estimated 22 million Brazilian users. Surveys showed Brazilians were far more likely to use WhatsApp or Instagram — even the Chinese video-sharing appKwai — than X. In2022, only 3 percent of Brazilians cited the social network as their preferred location to consume political news, thearea in which Twitter was once strongest, according to a survey by the Institute for Democracy and Democratization of Communication.

Under the stewardship of tech billionaire Elon Musk, the losses have deepened. Musk bought the platform in 2022, reinstated banned users, changed content moderation standards and re-christened it X: a global public square, he says, for all people and views.

But apparently fewer Brazilians. Since his takeover, more than 2 million have fled the network.

Last week’s imbroglio has made even more apparent the network’s growing weakness here. Justice Alexandre de Moraes, one of the world’s most aggressive prosecutors against misinformation, ordered X to block accounts that Moraes said were threatening democracy. The judge requested that Musk name a representative in Brazil to carry out judicial orders.

Musk refused, Moraes suspended X — and Brazilians shrugged.

Continue reading.

[orgasming-caterpillar]

Mahabharat characaters on Social Media: pt. 3

Pt. 2

Dhritarashtra

Boomer

Does not know what social media is used for

Only social media he uses is Facebook and WhatsApp

Sends 👌 and 👍 in response to everything

Old as fuck and partially blind

Thinks Duryodhan is gonna join the army since he's training so much (he won't, he just likes to have muscles and challenge bheem)

Gandhari

"A day in my life as a selectively blind person"

BLINDFOLD CHALLENGES LMFAOOOOOO

Here's ten reasons why I've never seen my children's faces

1. Judging from my husband's personality and... other things, they're probably ugly

Cutu cutu mom-daughter vlogs with dushala

Pandu

He's dead.

Don't ask me for anything he's just dead in this au that's all he is

Used to cameo on madri's channel a suspiciously large amount of time

Kunti

Wholesome cooking channel

With stories in the voiceovers

Does livestreams teaching people to cook

Internet mom for many teenagers countrywide

Randomly drops insane mom lore in the middle of cooking

"There was this one time I had to put my newborn kid up for adoption because I was 17 at the time and now he's adopted by a neighbour and also my nephew's boyfriend so if any of you know a good therapist please recommend."

Madri

Used to be on twitter only but she overshared too much and had to be making insanely long apology videos over it

Does QNAs only and people watch that just cuz she's such a problematic cunt

"Madri you said in one post that you were married but you've never mentioned your husband." "Madri you made posts about post partum depression but you never mentioned your kids."

Replies to this with a video explaining how she was having an affair with a certain influencer's husband and got pregnant with twins but then the guy died of a heart attack so she left his SINGLE MOTHER wife with two more sons

The people hate her for what she's done. She loves them for the clout they give her.

Vidur

He doesn't do social media. He does what people call "A Job".

Only on Facebook. Only there to bunk people who spread misinformation.

Also now on ao3

[ai-yo]

The amount of foolishness I have seen on social media relating to Jamie Lloyd's Romeo and Juliet and then Rapunzel is so annoying/funny weird that people making fun of older people believing everything they see on Facebook and WhatsApp group chats need to shut up.

They believe everything they see on tiktok and twitter getting their info from people who don't read and/or spread misinformation intentionally.

White People getting upset over the casting of Avantika Vandanapu as Rapunzel in the Tangled live action. But wait a Tangled live action was never announced. Meaning white people and others were getting mad that a Avantika Vandanapu fanpage I think made a fancast video and photo edits of her as Rapunzel

Now with Romeo and Juliet so many people think that it's a movie, and a remake and are talking about Hollywood. When it's actually a stage play happening in London West End and is set to go to Broadway too I think.

Even the ones that do know it's a play are still doing the most, they don't care about theatre because they are unaware that colourblind casting and even genderbent casting in Shakespeare plays happens all the time look at the posters for upcoming productions at the globe theatre

Twelfth Night in central park starring Anne Hathaway and Audra McDonald

The only reason they are paying attention is because of the stunt casting of Tom Holland and the only media they consume is superhero movies. People from different countries saying they won't watch, you don't live in England and you're not rich you ain't flying here to watch a play. You do not even watch plays.

So much racist stupidity over the past few days I had to rant

[collapsedsquid]

First, I mean my earlier observation literally: millionaires and billionaires are just like us in a very relevant and direct sense. Beyond a) possessing a lot of money and contacts and b) some very narrow and particular skills, it turns out that the very rich and very powerful are not astonishing super-beings but more or less the same people that most readers of this newsletter will recognize. Their chat dynamics appear recognizable because even elites are pretty much the same as us—except, of course, for those resources, which are considerable. Yet those resources don’t mean that they conduct conversations on a plane inaccessible to mortals; if anything, their discussions appear to have been less challenging and less interesting than the conversations my group chats entertain. This matters. Back in the day, WhatsApp chats were blamed for radicalizing the masses of Brazil into electing Jair Bolsanaro. This era of misinformation/disinformation research always had the whiff of believing that there was a cognitive/information elite that could escape such pollution, but the unwashed could not. Yet the more we learn about the Internet habits of the rich and famous the less likely this seems. If Sam Alito has a group chat, then I guarantee you its contents are indistinguishable from hundreds of thousands of Fox News-pilled chats around the country. It’s not just the mass but the elites who can be radicalized and endumbened, in other words. And the effects of those information environments might not even be similar to the effects on less sophisticated observers—they might be more radicalizing or totalizing for people who are motivated to believe and act in certain ways. Back in the day, politicians more or less learned about the world from the same newspapers and networks any voter did. Now imagine the reinforcing doom loop of politicos sending the same misinformation to each other that you can see on any Facebook politics page (well, that you used to).

Bilderburg group meetings must be kept ultra secret so nobody can learn what fuckin morons they are.

[bergoose]

i said this in discord but i think it's important to put here

there was no usability research done for this, at least from what i can see

like absolutely no interest checks were done at all or else I feel like they would have realized this is not feasible or at least the way they did it wasn't

none of the paterons mods knew, barely any fans knew (also there was a leak which makes a little worried for their website security)

what i think they needed was some user research before they did the launch. because all the feedback, the critism, the hate (yes even the hate) is the kinda of feedback that would SHOULD have been given BEFORE. during the production stages not NOW after the launch. it would have made everything a lot smoother for them

(by feedback i mean things like: users are interested in different tiers, users are think the price doesn't justify how much product they're getting with the service, users are confused due to misinformation, etc.)

and like testing and interest checks stuff like this would have been essential to make this launch have a better reaction from the fan base

more UX stuff below the cut but

TL:DR Watcher hire a UX designer please this would have solved all your problems OR JUST DO SOME USER TESTING NEXT TIME JESUS

my biggest thing is there's a lot of companies (big and small) that tend to make these types of big changes (whether it's to better their product, bring in more people, appeal to a new demographic, whatever their goal may be) but in the process they forget their core userbase (in this case Watcher's current audience) which are arguably the most important group to factor in company decisions bc they're the ones that are going to stay long term

idk if I'm making any sense but i hate seeing this trend of what's basically just picking up other companies "trending feature" (for example tiktok becoming popular and all other platforms adopting short form video content, Instagram/Snapchat stories becoming popular and other social media like WhatsApp and Twitter tried it too) only for the feature that originally made them appeally in the first place to fall to the wayside

and the ones who jumped on the trend aren't guaranteed to stay, and now you've lost your loyal userbase

and even tho Watcher didn't do exactly that it still kinda feels like they did u know? I'm certain (and hopeful) this will work out but the execution was just absolutely not it at all, and i wish there was more research done because it helped so much and they wouldn't be bombarded the way they were now

i get it this was something that may have been a long time coming but it is clear that it wasn't ready, both the product and your userbase. also the method of dropping was also absolutely not it

(also i am critiquing it because i want to buy it, i am fortunate enough to be in the position to do so but i won't forever and i know many who also can't and are understandably upset about it)

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users. "Brazil blocks Musk’s X after company refuses to name local representative amid feud with judge"

"The justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access it."

“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote.

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.

The looming shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.

Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta’s WhatsApp, the nation’s most widely used messaging app, several times in 2015 and 2016 due to the company’s refusal to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and stayed online.

X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries — mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings, which some dubbed the "Twitter revolution," but it has since been restored.

A search Friday on X showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they were logging on from outside the country. It was not immediately clear how Brazilian authorities would police this practice and impose fines cited by de Moraes.

By GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA, BARBARA ORTUTAY and DAVID BILLERAugust 30, 2024

SAO PAULO — (AP) — Brazil started blocking Elon Musk's social media platform X early Saturday, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through mobile apps after the billionaire refused to name a legal representative to the country.

The move escalates a monthslong feud between Musk and a Brazilian Supreme Court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension on Friday.

To block X, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, told internet service providers to suspend users’ access to the social media platform. As of Saturday after midnight local time, major operators had begun doing so.

De Moraes had warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative, and established a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month.

“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote in his decision on Friday.

The justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access it.

In a later ruling, he backtracked on his initial decision to establish a 5-day deadline for internet service providers themselves — and not just the telecommunications regulator — to block access to X, as well as his directive for app stores to remove virtual private networks, or VPNs.

Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Musk purchased the former Twitter in 2022. Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.

“This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform. I wish it did not have to come to this – it breaks my heart,” X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino said Friday night, adding that Brazil is failing to uphold its constitution’s pledge to forbid censorship.

X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday that it expected X to be shut down by de Moraes, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”

“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote.

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.

Accounts that the platform previously has shut down on Brazilian orders include lawmakers affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy. X’s lawyers in April sent a document to the Supreme Court in April, saying that since 2019 it had suspended or blocked 226 users.

In his decision Friday, de Moraes' cited Musk's statements as evidence that X's conduct “clearly intends to continue to encourage posts with extremism, hate speech and anti-democratic discourse, and to try to withdraw them from jurisdictional control.”

In April, de Moraes included Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news and opened a separate investigation into the executive for alleged obstruction.

Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist," has repeatedly claimed the justice’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted de Moraes on his platform, characterizing him as a dictator and tyrant.

De Moraes’ defenders have said his actions aimed at X have been lawful, supported by most of the court’s full bench and have served to protect democracy at a time it is imperiled. He wrote Friday that his ruling is based on Brazilian law requiring internet services companies to have representation in the country so they can be notified when there are relevant court decisions and take requisite action — specifying the takedown of illicit content posted by users, and an anticipated churn of misinformation during October municipal elections.

The looming shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.

Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta’s WhatsApp, the nation’s most widely used messaging app, several times in 2015 and 2016 due to the company’s refusal to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and stayed online.

X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries — mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings, which some dubbed the "Twitter revolution," but it has since been restored.

A search Friday on X showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they were logging on from outside the country. It was not immediately clear how Brazilian authorities would police this practice and impose fines cited by de Moraes.

“This is an unusual measure, but its main objective is to ensure that the court order to suspend the platform's operation is, in fact, effective," Filipe Medon, a specialist in digital law and professor at the law school of Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro, told The Associated Press.

Mariana de Souza Alves Lima, known by her handle MariMoon, showed her 1.4 million followers on X where she intends to go, posting a screenshot of rival social network BlueSky.

On Thursday evening, Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet service provider, said on X that de Moraes this week froze its finances, preventing it from doing any transactions in the country where it has more than 250,000 customers.

“This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X. It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil. We intend to address the matter legally,” Starlink said in its statement. The law firm representing Starlink told the AP that the company appealed, but wouldn’t make further comment.

Musk replied to people sharing the reports of the freeze, adding insults directed at de Moraes. “This guy @Alexandre is an outright criminal of the worst kind, masquerading as a judge,” he wrote.

Musk later posted on X that SpaceX, which runs Starlink, will provide free internet service in Brazil “until the matter is resolved” since “we cannot receive payment, but don’t want to cut anyone off.”

In his decision, de Moraes said he ordered the freezing of Starlink’s assets, as X didn't have enough money in its accounts to cover mounting fines, and reasoning that the two companies are part of the same economic group.

While ordering X’s suspension followed warnings and fines and so was appropriate, taking action against Starlink seems “highly questionable,” said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Technology and Society Center.

“Yes, of course, they have the same owner, Elon Musk, but it is discretionary to consider Starlink as part of the same economic group as Twitter (X). They have no connection, they have no integration,” Belli said.

___

Ortutay reported from San Francisco and Biller from Rio. AP writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Sao Paulo.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others. When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him. We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that. In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency. Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders. To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to protecting your freedom of speech. ------------------- Em breve, esperamos que o Ministro Alexandre de Moraes ordene o bloqueio do X no Brasil – simplesmente porque não cumprimos suas ordens ilegais para censurar seus opositores políticos. Dentre esses opositores estão um Senador devidamente eleito e uma jovem de 16 anos, entre outros. Quando tentamos nos defender no tribunal, o Ministro ameaçou prender nossa representante legal no Brasil. Mesmo após sua renúncia, ele congelou todas as suas contas bancárias. Nossas contestações contra suas ações manifestamente ilegais foram rejeitadas ou ignoradas. Os colegas do Ministro Alexandre de Moraes no Supremo Tribunal Federal estão ou impossibilitados de ou não querem enfrentá-lo. Não estamos absolutamente insistindo que outros países tenham as mesmas leis de liberdade de expressão dos Estados Unidos. A questão fundamental em jogo aqui é que o Ministro Alexandre de Moraes exige que violemos as próprias leis do Brasil. Simplesmente não faremos isso. Nos próximos dias, publicaremos todas as exigências ilegais do Ministro e todos os documentos judiciais relacionados, para fins de transparência. Ao contrário de outras plataformas de mídia social e tecnologia, não cumpriremos ordens ilegais em segredo. Aos nossos usuários no Brasil e ao redor do mundo, o X continua comprometido em proteger sua liberdade de expressão.

[glavilio]

love my community of course but for the love of god the misinformation about hrt floating around is bordering whatsapp grandma levels. if you don't get your ass on transfemscience.org and read some actual research...

[meret118]

Chatbots Are Primed to Warp Reality

A growing body of research shows how AI can subtly mislead users—and even implant false memories.

More and more people are learning about the world through chatbots and the software’s kin, whether they mean to or not. Google has rolled out generative AI to users of its search engine on at least four continents, placing AI-written responses above the usual list of links; as many as 1 billion people may encounter this feature by the end of the year. Meta’s AI assistant has been integrated into Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and is sometimes the default option when a user taps the search bar. And Apple is expected to integrate generative AI into Siri, Mail, Notes, and other apps this fall. Less than two years after ChatGPT’s launch, bots are quickly becoming the default filters for the web.

Yet AI chatbots and assistants, no matter how wonderfully they appear to answer even complex queries, are prone to confidently spouting falsehoods—and the problem is likely more pernicious than many people realize. A sizable body of research, alongside conversations I’ve recently had with several experts, suggests that the solicitous, authoritative tone that AI models take—combined with them being legitimately helpful and correct in many cases—could lead people to place too much trust in the technology. That credulity, in turn, could make chatbots a particularly effective tool for anyone seeking to manipulate the public through the subtle spread of misleading or slanted information. No one person, or even government, can tamper with every link displayed by Google or Bing. Engineering a chatbot to present a tweaked version of reality is a different story.

. . .

As the election approaches, some people will use AI assistants, search engines, and chatbots to learn about current events and candidates’ positions. Indeed, generative-AI products are being marketed as a replacement for typical search engines—and risk distorting the news or a policy proposal in ways big and small. Others might even depend on AI to learn how to vote. Research on AI-generated misinformation about election procedures published this February found that five well-known large language models provided incorrect answers roughly half the time—for instance, by misstating voter-identification requirements, which could lead to someone’s ballot being refused. 

. . .

The idea was to see if a witness could be led to say a number of false things about the video, such as that the robbers had tattoos and arrived by car, even though they did not. The resulting paper, which was published earlier this month and has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that the generative AI successfully induced false memories and misled more than a third of participants—a higher rate than both a misleading questionnaire and another, simpler chatbot interface that used only the same fixed survey questions.

More at the link.

----

Very interesting article, but warning for a gif that I think will bother photosensitive readers at the top.

[freezerbunny-sims2]

It scares me how some people who are experts in their field of research will believe something about a topic they're not familiar with, without fact-checking it even a little. I'm talking easily debunkable things from unreliable sources, like a whatsapp chain letter advising people to turn off their phones because of an incoming wave of cosmic radiation, or a president using Imane Khelif, a cis woman, to exemplify why "trans women have an unfair advantage in sports" or whatever.

I'm not immune to misinformation, of course. It just surprises me that people who are way smarter than me fall for these things.

[charyou-tree]

More than 150 fake local news websites pushing Russian propaganda to U.S. audiences are connected to John Mark Dougan, an American former law enforcement officer living in Moscow, according to a research report published Wednesday by NewsGuard, a firm that monitors misinformation. The websites, with names like DC Weekly, New York News Daily and Boston Times, look similar to those of legitimate local news outlets and have already succeeded in spreading a number of false stories surrounding the war in Ukraine. Experts warn they could be used to launder disinformation about the 2024 election. In an interview over WhatsApp, Dougan denied involvement with the websites. “Never heard of them,” he said. Dougan, a former Marine and police officer, fled his home in Florida in 2016 to evade criminal charges related to a massive doxxing campaign he was accused of launching against public officials and was given asylum by the Russian government.

The disinformation campaigns are out in force, stay aware.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil’s flood disaster set off a torrent of AI misinformation

Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are failing an early test of misinformation safeguards.

Since the beginning of May, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul has been devastated by heavy rain. At one point, four months worth of rainfall fell over the course of three days. Weeks later, much of the state capital is still flooded, and over half a million people are displaced. It’s the worst flood in Brazil’s history, and given the ongoing rainy season, it may take weeks more before the waters fully subside.

Amid the chaos of the disaster, misinformation has taken root. One image flagged by a popular Brazilian account shows a helicopter draped in the branding of a local retailer rescuing victims from floodwaters. “The photo that’s being shared on WhatsApp is actually a prompt-generated image,” @mphistoria wrote on X. “These so-called AIs must be regulated urgently.”

The Brazilian tech outlet Nucleo found 21 other AI-generated posts on Facebook and Instagram purporting to show imagery from the flood. Many were fantastical in nature, showing Christ comforting flood victims, but others were ambiguous enough to appear close to reality. This kind of AI-generated chum has become inescapable on Facebook in recent months. From the bizarre Shrimp Jesus meme to more banal manipulations of celebrity faces, AI imagery has become a fixture on social platforms. 

It’s not surprising that the same tools might be successfully applied to a disaster like the floods in Brazil — but it’s significantly more impactful. Photos and information from the Rio Grande do Sul region are scarce, which means there’s both a high demand for images and few ways to debunk false claims. AI-generated content is filling the gap, and the structure of social media means the most sensational content travels the farthest. The images spotted by Nucleo are relatively mild, but it’s easy to imagine a more alarming take — a broken dam or a mass migration, for instance — that would alarm viewers to the point of sending them into harm’s way. There’s a reason that humanitarian groups and governments treat natural disasters as one of the most dangerous settings for misinformation.

Continue reading.