Disinformation

Throughout media history, media technologies and services have evolved to serve functions that are ultimately very different from those for which they were created. Radio was created to facilitate ship-to-shore communication. The VCR was created to facilitate home video recording, with its creators having no idea of the massive video rental/sales

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“Go Woke, Go Broke” Throws Rip Curl Overboard

At the end of January, Rip Curl stirred waves when it released a new campaign that featured transgender surfer Sasha Lowerson. While the more liberal followers praised Rip Curl for their diversity, representation and inclusivity, others criticized the brand for “not supporting real women”. Not unlike... See more

Bots Riding the Waves of a Trending Hashtag

19% of the profiles in the conversation were identified as fake accounts . On January 28, the most active day in the conversation, when #BoycottRipCurl was on X’s top trending hashtags, inauthentic profiles were responsible for over 30% of the discourse .

Where has the Wayfair conspiracy spread?Although it began in the US, the conspiracy theory soon became a global trend.According to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned social media analytics tool, the term Wayfair has generated 4.4 million engagements on Instagram. It also spread rapidly on public groups and pages on Facebook, resulting in more... See more

A verified Twitter account (thanks Elon) purporting to be related to the well-respected Bloomberg news empire, shared a photo of plumes of smoke billowing over a large white building with the words, “Large explosion near The Pentagon Complex in Washington D.C - Initial Report”.

The image and Twitter account was fake. The image was likely generated... See more

Dive Brief:

• Ads that appear near negative content cause a 2.8 times decrease in consumer intent to associate with the brands, according to “The Brand Safety Effect,” a new media trial study by brand safety company CHEQ, IPG Mediabrands, BMW, Magna and a leading online entertainment platform.


• Two-thirds of consumers who expressed a high purchase

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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.