Enlarge / Quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers trots off the field following the NFL game at State Farm Stadium on October 28, 2021, in Glendale, Arizona. (credit: Getty | Christian Petersen) Fallout continues for NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers, who tossed out a smorgasbord of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and nearly every line from […]
Enlarge / BRASILIA, BRAZIL – OCTOBER 19: President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro coughs during a press conference. (credit: Getty | Andressa Anholete ) A Brazilian Senate committee investigating the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has recommended that President Jair Bolsonaro face nine criminal charges, including “crimes against humanity, ” for his role in the public […]
Enlarge / Centner Academy private school building is seen in Miami’s Design District in Miami on April 27, 2021. (credit: Getty | CHANDAN KHANNA ) An anti-vaccine private school in Miami, Florida, is requiring students who receive a COVID-19 vaccine to stay home for 30 days after each shot, according to local news outlet WSVN […]
Enlarge / A fire engine drives into air thick with smoke along Juniper Hills Road as the Bobcat Fire advances North into the Antelope Valley in 2020. (credit: Robert Gauthier | Getty Images) Late Thursday, Google announced that it is demonetizing content that makes misleading or false claims about climate change. As a result, content […]
Enlarge (credit: Gordon Jolly / Flickr ) In the wake of the flood of misinformation that’s drowning the US, lots of organizations have turned to fact-checks. Many newsrooms set up dedicated fact-check groups, and some independent organizations were formed to provide the service. We get live fact-checking of political debates, and Facebook will now tag […]
Influence campaigns appear to have diminishing returns. Read More
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images ) Over 135 subreddits have gone dark this week in protest of Reddit’s refusal to ban communities that spread misinformation about the COVID pandemic and vaccines. Subreddits that went private include two with 10 million or more subscribers, namely r/Futurology and r/TIFU. The PokemonGo community is one of 15 […]
Enlarge / This thriving Facebook group says viruses don’t cause disease and the pandemic isn’t real. (credit: Facebook) Listen up, sheeple: COVID-19 doesn’t exist. Viruses don’t cause disease, and they aren’t contagious. Those doctors and health experts who say otherwise don’t know what they’re talking about; the real experts are on Facebook. And they’re saying […]
Enlarge (credit: KJ Parish) For years, misinformation has flourished on Facebook. Falsehoods, misrepresentations, and outright lies posted on the site have shaped the discourse on everything from national politics to public health. But despite their role in facilitating communications for billions of people, Facebook executives refused to commit resources to understand the extent to which […]
Enlarge / US first lady Jill Biden (L) comforts Adriana Lyttle, 12, as she receives her vaccine at a Covid-19 vaccination site at Ole Smoky Distillery in Nashville, Tennessee, June 22, 2021. (credit: Getty | Tom Brenner) The Tennessee state government on Monday fired its top vaccination official, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, who says that state […]