Disinformation

This is what we're up against

Bad actors spreading disinformation online to fuel intolerance.

Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.

Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.

Authoritarian... See more

Sophisticated fake news attacks targeting financial markets have become increasingly common. In 2016, fraudsters created an exact replica of a reputable news site and published false allegations about French construction giant Vinci SA's accounting practices. The result was immediate—a staggering 18% drop in the company's share price, erasing 6... See more

Disinformation aims to confuse, paralyse and polarise society at large for political, military, or commercial purposes through orchestrated campaigns to strategically spread deceptive or manipulative media content. On social media, disinformation tools include bots, deep fakes, fake news and conspiracy theories.

Tell me in two minutes

The cross-roads between AI and online safety present two major societal risks:

1. the generation of ‘deepfakes’ and abusive content


2. the proliferation of false information.

These risks derive from generative AI ( GenAI ) - and they are more dangerous and damaging than the long-known risks from traditional AI. GenAI can make... See more

A study released Sunday by The Global Disinformation Index, a UK nonprofit that rates sites’ trustworthiness, found that 70% of roughly 1,700 disinformation sites it analyzed were getting so-called “programmatic ads” — ads placed automatically — from Google, putting brand names such as Audi and Sprint next to junk content.

“There has always been good placements of ads and bad placements of ads and media buying companies have always prided themselves on trying to get the context right,” said Charlie Crowe, chairman of the media and marketing publisher C Squared. “The difference in the online world is that it’s all done by an algorithm. The human element is taken out... See more