* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Monday, June 30, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    A Secret Society, Ritualistic Killings, and a Century-Old Curse Netflix and YRF Entertainment’s ‘Mandala Murders’ Premieres July 25 – About Netflix

    A Secret Society, Ritualistic Killings, and a Century-Old Curse: Dive into the Chilling World of ‘Mandala Murders’ Premiering July 25

    Susquehanna Raises Penn Entertainment Inc. (PENN) Price Target. – Yahoo Finance

    Susquehanna Raises Price Target for Penn Entertainment Inc. (PENN)

    George Lopez is coming to Spokane – KXLY.com

    George Lopez is coming to Spokane – KXLY.com

    Netflix unveils Dallas immersive venue for fans of hit shows like ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Houston Chronicle

    Step Inside Netflix’s New Dallas Immersive Experience Featuring Hits Like ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Stranger Things

    ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’: Civic Players bring ‘Young Frankenstein’ to life – Yahoo

    Civic Players Deliver a Hilarious and Unforgettable Performance of ‘Young Frankenstein

    ‘Wheel of Fortune’: Amputee Wins $60,000 After Breaking Incredible ‘Curse’ – Hastings Tribune

    Wheel of Fortune’ Amputee Breaks Incredible ‘Curse’ to Win $60,000!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    New center coming to Mizzou will focus on energy research and technology – Columbia Missourian

    Mizzou Launches Innovative New Center Dedicated to Energy Research and Technology

    Mirrors in space and underwater curtains: can technology buy us enough time to save the Arctic ice caps? – The Guardian

    Can Technology Like Space Mirrors and Underwater Curtains Buy Us Time to Save the Arctic Ice Caps?

    Naples restaurant owner prepares for hurricane season with new flood technology – Fox4Now.com

    Naples restaurant owner prepares for hurricane season with new flood technology – Fox4Now.com

    Emerging Memory and Storage Technology Market Analysis Report 2025-2034 | AI and HPC Boom Fuels Surging Demand for Fast, Low-Power Memory Devices – Yahoo Finance

    How AI and HPC Are Driving Explosive Growth in Fast, Low-Power Memory Technologies Through 2034

    Ostin Technology (OST): Volatility’s Warning or Contrarian Opportunity? – AInvest

    Ostin Technology (OST): Navigating Market Volatility – Red Flag or Hidden Opportunity?

    St. Francis Medical Center brings advanced robotic surgery technology to Northeast Louisiana – KNOE

    St. Francis Medical Center brings advanced robotic surgery technology to Northeast Louisiana – KNOE

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    A Secret Society, Ritualistic Killings, and a Century-Old Curse Netflix and YRF Entertainment’s ‘Mandala Murders’ Premieres July 25 – About Netflix

    A Secret Society, Ritualistic Killings, and a Century-Old Curse: Dive into the Chilling World of ‘Mandala Murders’ Premiering July 25

    Susquehanna Raises Penn Entertainment Inc. (PENN) Price Target. – Yahoo Finance

    Susquehanna Raises Price Target for Penn Entertainment Inc. (PENN)

    George Lopez is coming to Spokane – KXLY.com

    George Lopez is coming to Spokane – KXLY.com

    Netflix unveils Dallas immersive venue for fans of hit shows like ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Houston Chronicle

    Step Inside Netflix’s New Dallas Immersive Experience Featuring Hits Like ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Stranger Things

    ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’: Civic Players bring ‘Young Frankenstein’ to life – Yahoo

    Civic Players Deliver a Hilarious and Unforgettable Performance of ‘Young Frankenstein

    ‘Wheel of Fortune’: Amputee Wins $60,000 After Breaking Incredible ‘Curse’ – Hastings Tribune

    Wheel of Fortune’ Amputee Breaks Incredible ‘Curse’ to Win $60,000!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    New center coming to Mizzou will focus on energy research and technology – Columbia Missourian

    Mizzou Launches Innovative New Center Dedicated to Energy Research and Technology

    Mirrors in space and underwater curtains: can technology buy us enough time to save the Arctic ice caps? – The Guardian

    Can Technology Like Space Mirrors and Underwater Curtains Buy Us Time to Save the Arctic Ice Caps?

    Naples restaurant owner prepares for hurricane season with new flood technology – Fox4Now.com

    Naples restaurant owner prepares for hurricane season with new flood technology – Fox4Now.com

    Emerging Memory and Storage Technology Market Analysis Report 2025-2034 | AI and HPC Boom Fuels Surging Demand for Fast, Low-Power Memory Devices – Yahoo Finance

    How AI and HPC Are Driving Explosive Growth in Fast, Low-Power Memory Technologies Through 2034

    Ostin Technology (OST): Volatility’s Warning or Contrarian Opportunity? – AInvest

    Ostin Technology (OST): Navigating Market Volatility – Red Flag or Hidden Opportunity?

    St. Francis Medical Center brings advanced robotic surgery technology to Northeast Louisiana – KNOE

    St. Francis Medical Center brings advanced robotic surgery technology to Northeast Louisiana – KNOE

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Disinformation threatens global elections: How to fight back

February 19, 2024
in Science
Disinformation threatens global elections: How to fight back
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

disinformation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

With over half the world’s population heading to the polls in 2024, disinformation season is upon us—and the warnings are dire. The World Economic Forum declared misinformation a top societal threat over the next two years and major news organizations caution that disinformation poses an unprecedented threat to democracies worldwide.

Yet, some scholars and pundits have questioned whether disinformation can really sway election outcomes. Others think concern over disinformation is just a moral panic or merely a symptom rather than the cause of our societal ills. Pollster Nate Silver even thinks that misinformation “isn’t a coherent concept.”

But we argue the evidence tells a different story.

A 2023 study showed that the vast majority of academic experts are in agreement about how to define misinformation (namely as false and misleading content) and what this looks like (for example lies, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience). Although the study didn’t cover disinformation, such experts generally agree that this can be defined as intentional misinformation.

A recent paper clarified that misinformation can both be a symptom and the disease. In 2022, nearly 70% of Republicans still endorsed the false conspiracy theory that the 2020 US presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. If Trump had never floated this theory, how would millions of people have possibly acquired these beliefs?

Moreover, although it is clear that people do not always act on dangerous beliefs, the January 6 US Capitol riots, incited by false claims, serve as an important reminder that a misinformed crowd can disrupt and undermine democracy.

Given that nearly 25% of elections are decided by a margin of under 3%, mis- and disinformation can have important influence. One study found that among previous Barack Obama voters who did not buy into any fake news about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, 89% voted for Clinton. By contrast, among prior Obama voters who believed at least two fake headlines about Clinton, only 17% voted for her.

While this doesn’t necessarily prove that the misinformation caused the voting behavior, we do know that millions of black voters were targeted with misleading ads discrediting Clinton in key swing states ahead of the election.

Research has shown that such micro-targeting of specific audiences based on variables such as their personality not only influences decision-making but also impacts voting intentions. A recent paper illustrated how large language models can be deployed to craft micro-targeted ads at scale, estimating that for every 100,000 individuals targeted, at least several thousand can be persuaded.

We also know that not only are people bad at discerning deepfakes (AI generated images of fake events) from genuine content, studies find that deepfakes do influence political attitudes among a small target group.

There are more indirect consequences of disinformation too, such as eroding public trust and participation in elections.

Other than hiding under our beds and worrying, what can we do to protect ourselves?

The power of prebunking

Many efforts have focused on fact-checking and debunking false beliefs. In contrast, “prebunking” is a new way to prevent false beliefs from forming in the first place. Such “inoculation” involves warning people not to fall for a false narrative or propaganda tactic, together with an explanation as to why.

Misinforming rhetoric has clear markers, such as scapegoating or use of false dichotomies (there are many others), that people can learn to identify. Like a medical vaccine, the prebunk exposes the recipient to a “weakened dose” of the infectious agent (the disinformation) and refutes it in a way that confers protection.

For example, we created an online game for the Department of Homeland Security to empower Americans to spot foreign influence techniques during the 2020 presidential election. The weakened dose? Pineapple pizza.

How could pineapple pizza possibly be the way to tackle misinformation? It shows how bad-faith actors can take an innocuous issue such as whether or not to put pineapple on pizza, and use this to try to start a culture war. They might claim it’s offensive to Italians or urge Americans not to let anybody restrict their pizza-topping freedom.

They can then buy bots to amplify the issue on both sides, disrupt debate—and sow chaos. Our results showed that people improved in their ability to recognize these tactics after playing our inoculation game.

In 2020, Twitter identified false election tropes as potential “vectors of misinformation” and sent out prebunks to millions of US users warning them of fraudulent claims, such as that voting by mail is not safe.

These prebunks armed people with a fact—that experts agree that voting by mail is reliable—and it worked insofar as the prebunks inspired confidence in the election process and motivated users to seek out more factual information. Other social media companies, such as Google and Meta have followed suit across a range of issues.

A new paper tested inoculation against false claims about the election process in the US and Brazil. Not only did it found that prebunking worked better than traditional debunking, but that the inoculation improved discernment between true and false claims, effectively reduced election fraud beliefs and improved confidence in the integrity of the upcoming 2024 elections.

In short, inoculation is a free speech-empowering intervention that can work on a global scale. When Russia was looking for a pretext to invade Ukraine, US president Joe Biden used this approach to “inoculate” the world against Putin’s plan to stage and film a fabricated Ukrainian atrocity, complete with actors, a script and a movie crew. Biden declassified the intelligence and exposed the plot.

In effect, he warned the world not to fall for fake videos with actors pretending to be Ukrainian soldiers on Russian soil. Forewarned, the international community was unlikely to fall for it. Russia found another pretext to invade, of course, but the point remains: forewarned is forearmed.

But we need not rely on government or tech firms to build mental immunity. We can all learn how to spot misinformation by studying the markers accompanying misleading rhetoric.

Remember that polio was a highly infectious disease that was eradicated through vaccination and herd immunity. Our challenge now is to build herd immunity to the tricks of disinformers and propagandists.

The future of our democracy may depend on it.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.The Conversation

Citation:
Disinformation threatens global elections: How to fight back (2024, February 18)
retrieved 18 February 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-02-disinformation-threatens-global-elections.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Phys.org – https://phys.org/news/2024-02-disinformation-threatens-global-elections.html

Tags: Disinformationsciencethreatens
Previous Post

Communities must get prepared for increased flooding due to climate change, expert warns

Next Post

WATCH: Tatum meets Bird for first time before All-Star Game

Aceso Life Science Group Enhances Governance with New Nomination Committee Appointment – TipRanks

Aceso Life Science Group Boosts Leadership with Exciting New Nomination Committee Appointment

June 30, 2025
Aceso Life Science Group Updates Board Composition and Roles – TipRanks

Aceso Life Science Group Updates Board Composition and Roles – TipRanks

June 30, 2025
59 Years Ago Today… – Corvette: Sales, News & Lifestyle – CorvetteBlogger

59 Years Ago Today… – Corvette: Sales, News & Lifestyle – CorvetteBlogger

June 30, 2025
Botafogo sack manager Paiva after Club World Cup exit – Reuters

Botafogo sack manager Paiva after Club World Cup exit – Reuters

June 30, 2025
Deep inside U.S. economy, more sticker prices start going up due to tariffs, and inventory is headed down – CNBC

Soaring Tariffs Drive U.S. Prices Up Amid Shrinking Inventory Levels

June 30, 2025
A Secret Society, Ritualistic Killings, and a Century-Old Curse Netflix and YRF Entertainment’s ‘Mandala Murders’ Premieres July 25 – About Netflix

A Secret Society, Ritualistic Killings, and a Century-Old Curse: Dive into the Chilling World of ‘Mandala Murders’ Premiering July 25

June 30, 2025
Immune Health Supplements Market Size to Reach USD 56.23 – GlobeNewswire

Immune Health Supplements Market Size to Reach USD 56.23 – GlobeNewswire

June 30, 2025
‘I don’t believe in losing’: GOP lawmaker responds to concerns about passing bill | CNN Politics – CNN

‘I don’t believe in losing’: GOP lawmaker responds to concerns about passing bill | CNN Politics – CNN

June 30, 2025
New center coming to Mizzou will focus on energy research and technology – Columbia Missourian

Mizzou Launches Innovative New Center Dedicated to Energy Research and Technology

June 30, 2025
Atlanta Dream Dealt Concerning Loss During Liberty Game – Yahoo Sports

Atlanta Dream Faces Crushing Defeat in Thrilling Liberty Clash

June 30, 2025

Categories

Archives

June 2025
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 
« May    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (700)
  • Economy (725)
  • Entertainment (21,614)
  • General (15,638)
  • Health (9,764)
  • Lifestyle (730)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (725)
  • Politics (731)
  • Science (15,942)
  • Sports (21,221)
  • Technology (15,709)
  • World (705)

Recent News

Aceso Life Science Group Enhances Governance with New Nomination Committee Appointment – TipRanks

Aceso Life Science Group Boosts Leadership with Exciting New Nomination Committee Appointment

June 30, 2025
Aceso Life Science Group Updates Board Composition and Roles – TipRanks

Aceso Life Science Group Updates Board Composition and Roles – TipRanks

June 30, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version