Disinformation

Democratic governance of digital platforms

Most brands do not want to be associated with hate speech and bot farms, but they are. It is easy to look the other way in such a technically complicated market, but marketers have a responsibility. Brands become complicit by remaining silent.

Policymakers and activists are pushing to reform digital... See more

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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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.

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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The involvement of big names, like BMW and IPG Mediabrands, in the study signals that the marketing industry is taking steps to create a safer, more transparent ad ecosystem. Trade association 4A’s unveiled the Advertiser Protection Bureau, where agencies collectively share the responsibility of creating a community to protect the health of all... See more

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

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 .