What is a “deepfake” and why should you care? With the rapid growth of AI technologies, deepfakes have become a growing tool for digital impersonation and the spread of misinformation. Deepfakes are any kind of text, audio or video generated by machine-learning algorithms that replicate the likeness of individuals without permission, often with the intent to deceive an audience for political gain, product endorsement, explicit content or to even spark controversy. Some of the most popular targets for deepfakes are celebrities, politicians and other people with a large following or influence. Some recent examples of influential individuals used in deepfakes…

Instagram In order to keep users safe, Instagram’s strategy to address misinformation is to remove, reduce and inform. Instagram is committed to reducing the spread of misinformation and the best way to do that is to remove it once identified. The platform uses third-party fact-checkers to identify false information and is able to remove inaccurate or manipulated posts, comments or accounts because inauthenticity and threats to user safety are against Instagram’s community guidelines. To reduce misinformation, Instagram uses a mix of technology and community feedback like Community Notes to identify posts and accounts that contain misinformation. When false information is…

A claim that I have seen online several times throughout the last few years is that Los Angeles police found evidence of human remains and cannibalism in Anne Hathaway’s home that she sold in 2013. This claim is worthy of evaluation because it is bizarre and can be damaging to Hathaway’s reputation as well as her career. This post definitely raised some red flags because the original poster is just some random Twitter user who included zero evidence to support this claim.  Using the SIFT approach to verification, the first step upon seeing this claim is to stop. Instead of…

News Literacy Project’s RumorGuard service RumorGuard is a service by The News Literacy Project that aims to educate the public on identifying misinformation and how to strengthen news literacy so that we can stop the spread of misinformation. The menu includes “Recent Checks,” which displays recent headlines and content that has been identified as misinformation based on five factors. These factors are listed and defined in “The Factors,” which explains that RumorGuard questions the authenticity, source, evidence, context and reasoning behind content. “The Topics” allows users to search through relevant topics of content that have been fact-checked like #ConspiratorialThinking that…

When tasked with tracking the media I consume for 24 hours, I decided that it was important to choose a day that I was working because it would be the most accurate reflection of a regular day for me. Going into this assignment, I like to believe that I am not as consistently online or consuming media in the way that other people typically do.  3:50 a.m. After getting out of bed and hurrying to get ready, this is the time that I leave for work. On my 30-minute drive, I listened to music on Spotify. I constantly get fixated…