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

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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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

“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

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

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