#misinformation

#misinformation

Musk first announced the project in late September on his social media platform X, saying it would be "a massive improvement over Wikipedia," and "a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe." Musk said last week that he had delayed the launch of Grokipedia because his team needed "to do more work to purge out the propaganda."

Creators are also having an increasingly important political impact, with Donald Trump courting popular YouTubers and podcasters such as Joe Rogan and the Nelk Boys in the run-up to his 2024 election victory. The recent murder of activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk, and the coverage of the aftermath, reminds us of the critical role these personalities are now playing in shaping both public opinion and political narratives.

One such TikTok video, that has received more than 690,000 views, says: "Christmas is around the corner, Germany is CANCELLING their markets... and it also looks like other places in Europe are going to do the same." Meanwhile, a post on X, with 25,000 likes, says: "HUNDREDS OF CHRISTMAS MARKETS IN GERMANY CANCELLED." It cites a publication called Duna Press that has a report on markets being cancelled.

Wikipedia launched on January 15, 2001, and by 2006 was being roundly mocked on The Colbert Report as a disinformation train primed for derailment by the meddling demons of human nature - but the "pathological optimist" in Wales refused to concede that his venture, and by extension the entire concept, was doomed. His instincts were, to say the least, solid. The English Wikipedia is now roughly 93 times bigger than Encyclopædia Britannica, the shelf-warping print leviathan that fascinated him as a child.

Stewart, when asked about going on Rogan's show, said he enjoyed his time on The Joe Rogan Experience and found Rogan to be a curious comic and interesting interviewer. In fairness, he's had people on who are kind of Nazi curious. That's not good, Remnick said. Stewart immediately rejected the idea Rogan or anyone else should avoid talking to someone because of their political or social views.

The problem was: I had never given an interview to The Times. Yet here was a screenshot of the article along with a quote from "me" claiming that Mamdani's platform "doesn't add up." That's the opposite of what I believe and have said dozens of times publicly, including on national television and in this magazine. Yet, here was a major international media outlet, one of the most famous and oldest newspapers in the world, publishing a story stating that I had suddenly reversed myself.

Abortion rights group Reproaction notes that the "Baby Olivia" video claims that fetuses experience hiccups at seven weeks gestation, when scientists and medical professionals have repeatedly stated that fetal hiccups don't begin until 23 weeks. That kind of deception is a key tactic of Live Action, an anti-abortion group that produced the video. Lila Rose, the president of Live Action, has inaccurately said that abortion is " never medically necessary," and supports forcing rape and incest victims to bear their abusers' child. David Daleiden, who infamously released doctored videos smearing Planned Parenthood and was convicted for illegally recording protected communications between patients and reproductive health care providers, is a former Live Action staffer.

There are plenty of stories out there about how politicians, sales representatives, and influencers, will exaggerate or distort the facts in order to win votes, sales, or clicks, even when they know they shouldn't. It turns out that AI models, too, can suffer from these decidedly human failings. Two researchers at Stanford University suggest in a new preprint research paper that repeatedly optimizing large language models (LLMs) for such market-driven objectives can lead them to adopt bad behaviors as a side-effect of their training - even when they are instructed to stick to the rules.

While the ambition is admirable, the cost estimates reportedly exceeding $7bn annually rest on optimistic assumptions about eliminating waste and raising revenue through new taxes, De Blasio apparently said of Mamdani's plans to the UK newspaper the Times, in an article published on Tuesday. In my view, the math doesn't hold up under scrutiny, and the political hurdles are substantial.

When a rival lies or cheats, we demand justice. But when a friend does, we offer excuses. Equally, we believe our team plays by the rules while others bend them. Yet honesty depends on the messenger. When someone from our in-group bends the truth, we call it strategic, but when the out-group does it, we call it deceit. In a modern era of algorithmic bubbles, deep fakes, and partisan feeds, the cost of this bias grows.

PARIS -- It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates. Instinctively, he took the shot. It wasn't a particularly great photo, with someone's shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself.

The rise of political influencers - content creators on social media who sway public opinion by endorsing political causes or candidates - has raised questions about how best to regulate them, a German media regulator said in a study published Monday. EU rules for political advertising, aimed at countering information manipulation and foreign interference in elections, and at increasing transparency about sponsors, but political influencers fall outside that scope, have entered into force this month.

The White House website has a timeline of "Major Events" that now includes several scandals - some real, some imagined by the right - likely as a way to justify the president's destruction of the East Wing this week. These scandals include former President Bill Clinton's affair, former President Barack Obama's supposed ties to Muslim terrorism (which was not a real story), Hunter Biden's drug use, and former President Joe Biden's support for trans rights.

It was quite the sight in general but especially unnerving at a moment when Canadian-American relations are so deep in the toilet that they're in the Pacific Ocean. Word on the street is that Aaron Sorkin is to blame. Reports were circulating online that his latest project, The Social Reckoning, began filming in the city on Monday, October 20, and he apparently kicked things off by reenacting the January 6 insurrection on Canadian soil.

In doing so, we went down a series of rabbit holes, finding site after site cross-quoting other sites with the same basic message. We finally found one reference to a French podcast that Gates might have been on as a guest, although we were never able to find the podcast itself. Because The Economic Times and MSN are both outlets with some credibility, all the other sites appear to have taken their Bill Gates quotes at face value.

THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6.

The image purportedly captured an exchange between a user and what appeared to be a Campbell's customer service account. The comment read, "Your new commercial with the 2 dads makes me sick," and the response stated: "Hi Kim! If you're feeling sick, we suggest enjoying a delicious can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. Make sure to enjoy it hot, so that it can help warm up your cold, dead heart." The exchange was accompanied by a caption reading, "Campbell's doesn't f*** around."

Facts are becoming less sacred by the day in Donald Trump's US, where many of his supporters now deny the very existence of truths. To them, inconvenient evidence is by definition bias. His followers and those who fear his fist are falling into line: media, universities and that infamous regiment of tech zillionaires who stood right behind him on inauguration day.

"When you read content on X, you should be able to verify its authenticity," Bier posted on X. "This is critical to getting a pulse on important issues happening in the world."

The idea is that by exposing some of these details, users will be able to make a more informed decision about whether someone is operating an authentic account or if they're possibly a bot or bad actor attempting to sow misinformation. For instance, if an account's bio claims they're based in a U.S. state, but their account information shows it's based overseas, you may suspect the account has another agenda.

At issue is the envelope provided for ballots to be returned either by mail or at a drop box or vote center. Counties are in charge of printing the ballots and mail voting materials (including the return envelope), and some have opted to include small punched holes on the envelope to help visually impaired voters find where they need to sign in order for their ballot to be counted.

The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope," Weber said in a statement released Monday.

On October 7, 2023 Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (updated on June 22, 2025), a total of 57 deceased hostages have been brought back to Israel so far. Israel says that the bodies of at least 27 killed hostages who were abducted on October 7 are still being held by Hamas.

AI bots are everywhere now, filling everything from online stores to social media. But that sudden ubiquity could end up being a very bad thing, according to a new paper from Stanford University scientists who unleashedAI models into different environments - including social media - and found that when they were rewarded for success at tasks like boosting likes and other online engagement metrics,the bots increasingly engaged in unethical behavior like lyingand spreading hateful messages or misinformation.