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Bots & coordinated campaignsSpread & networks
Social Bots and the Spread of Fake NewsA presentation on how social bots amplify misinformation spread on Twitter and other social platforms. The speaker discusses bot detection techniques (network structure, user behavior, temporal patterns), case studies of coordinated bot campaigns (2010–2016 elections, vaccine debates, Brexit), findings showing bots act as "igniters" in…
Fact-checking & verificationPsychology & interventions
How to separate fact and fiction onlineMarkham Nolan, editor of Storyful, explains how journalists use open-source intelligence tools to verify content in the age of information overload. Through real-world case studies—including fake Hurricane Sandy photos and identifying locations in Syrian conflict videos—he demonstrates that truth-seeking requires human judgment combined…
Spread & networksPlatforms, policy & society
Beware online filter bubblesAlgorithmic personalization on major platforms like Facebook and Google has created "filter bubbles" — personalized information universes that show us what we're predicted to like rather than what we need to see. This invisible algorithmic gatekeeping threatens democracy and information diversity by isolating us in narrow perspectives,…
Psychology & interventionsPlatforms, policy & society
How We Create Our Own Fake NewsBobby Duffy's "Perils of Perception" research (100,000+ interviews across 40 countries) reveals that people systematically misestimate social realities by factors of 2–3×. Using concrete examples (teenage pregnancy, murder rates, immigration, social media adoption), Duffy traces these perception gaps to four psychological mechanisms: (1)…
Spread & networksPlatforms, policy & society
Network PropagandaBenkler presents research on media asymmetry during the 2016 U.S. election, revealing that the right-wing media ecosystem operates under a fundamentally different structure than the center and center-left press. Rather than technological systems (Facebook algorithms, Russian interference) or individual-level factors, the key driver of…
Detection methodsPlatforms, policy & society
Truth DecayTruth Decay—the erosion of reliance on facts and data in policy-making and civil discourse—is not new but cyclically emerges during periods of technological disruption in media. Kavanagh traces this through yellow journalism, radio demagoguery, cable news, and now social media.
Psychology & interventionsPlatforms, policy & society
How to Pre-Bunk Misinformation and DisinformationJon Roozenbeek discusses psychological inoculation as a scalable defense against misinformation. Rather than focusing on veracity (which becomes politically contested), he proposes teaching people to recognize predictable manipulation techniques before encountering false content.
Spread & networksDetection methods
Climate Change Misinformation: Supply, Demand, and the Challenges to ScienceLewandowsky examines climate denial through supply and demand lenses: well-funded disinformation campaigns (billions annually from fossil fuel interests and conservative think tanks) deploy cherry-picked data to infiltrate mainstream media and political rhetoric, while political ideology (conservatism, libertarianism) predisposes people…
Psychology & interventionsPlatforms, policy & society
Prebunking and Inoculating Against DisinformationVan der Linden argues that reactive fact-checking fails to scale and leaves misinformation's psychological influence intact. Instead, he proposes psychological inoculation: preemptively exposing people to weakened examples of misinformation techniques before they encounter the real thing, building cognitive resistance.
Psychology & interventionsPlatforms, policy & society
Psychological Inoculation Against Misinformation (Trinity College, Cambridge)Van der Linden presents psychological inoculation as an alternative to reactive fact-checking. Rather than debunking false claims after people have been exposed, inoculation preemptively builds resistance to misinformation techniques.
Psychology & interventionsFact-checking & verification
How You Can Help Combat Fake NewsA researcher presents empirical findings challenging the "motivated reasoning" account of why people believe false headlines. Instead, a multi-study investigation with 25,000+ participants shows that critical thinking and cognitive reasoning—not willful bias—are the primary determinants of misinformation susceptibility.
Platforms, policy & societyFact-checking & verification
How Polarization Can Help Solve the Misinformation ProblemDavid Rand presents a counter-intuitive argument: while polarization is widely viewed as exacerbating misinformation, it may actually improve crowd-sourced fact-checking systems like Twitter's Birdwatch/Community Notes. Rather than a traditional technology approach (machine learning classifiers), platforms can scale fact-checking by…
Psychology & interventionsPlatforms, policy & society
The Misinformation AgeFalse beliefs persist and spread through social factors—conformity, institutional curation of evidence, and network structure—rather than individual cognitive biases alone. O'Connor examines historical cases (variolation in 18th-century England, tobacco industry strategy) and mathematical models to show how unbiased actors (journalists,…
LLMs & generative AIFact-checking & verification
Factuality Challenges in the Era of Large Language ModelsNakov surveys the twin challenges posed by large language models (LLMs) to misinformation detection and fact-checking: (1) LLMs generate coherent, persuasive, and factually-unreliable text—hallucinations are pervasive and often hidden; (2) LLMs can be weaponized to automate misinformation production at scale through paraphrasing, persona…
Deepfakes & multimodalDetection methods
The Erosion of Shared Reality in the Age of DeepfakesGenerative AI has moved from nascent to commodity in just 18 months; text-to-image, text-to-video, and real-time interactive deepfakes are now trivial to create. Humans are bad at detecting them (performing ~60% accuracy on trained tasks vs. 50% chance).
Psychology & interventionsLLMs & generative AI
Misinformation and Data LiteracyData and numbers are surprisingly effective misinformation tools because they convey false authority and precision—people trust numbers even more than words. West illustrates how charts can deliberately mislead through axis manipulation, bin-width distortion, and selective framing; these occur regularly in mainstream media and academic…
Spread & networksPlatforms, policy & society
Misinformation (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver)Immigrant diaspora communities face disproportionate exposure to misinformation spread through private messaging apps (WhatsApp, WeChat, KakaoTalk) rather than public social media. Platforms invest 13% of moderation resources on 90% of non-US users; messaging apps' encrypted, group-based design makes content invisible to fact-checkers;…