Misinformation Monthly – May 2023

Each month, our experts at Cyabra list some of the interesting articles, items, essays and stories they’ve read this month. Come back every month for the current misinformation, disinformation, and social threat intelligence news.

 

Apple co-founder says AI may make scams harder to spot

“AI is so intelligent it’s open to the bad players, the ones that want to trick you about who they are.”

Mr Wozniak, better known in the tech world as Woz, is a Silicon Valley veteran who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs and invented the first Apple computer. 

bbc.com 

 

Russians boasted that just 1% of fake social profiles are caught, leak shows

“The Russian operators of those accounts boast that they are detected by social networks only about 1 percent of the time, one document says.

That claim, described here for the first time, drew alarm from former government officials and experts inside and outside social media companies contacted for this article.”

Washingtonpost.com 

 

Manchester Arena survivors to take ‘disaster troll’ to court

“Manchester Arena bomb survivors have filed landmark legal action against a conspiracy theorist who claims the attack was faked.

Martin and Eve Hibbert, who were left with severe disabilities after the 2017 blast, are suing Richard D Hall for defamation and harassment.

It is the first time such action has been launched in the UK against a conspiracy theorist.”

bbc.com

 

AI Chatbots Have Been Used to Create Dozens of News Content Farms

“Some are dressed up as breaking news sites with generic-sounding names like News Live 79 and Daily Business Post, while others share lifestyle tips, celebrity news or publish sponsored content. But none disclose they’re populated using AI chatbots such as OpenAI Inc.’s ChatGPT and potentially Alphabet Inc.’s Google Bard, which can generate detailed text based on simple user prompts. Many of the websites began publishing this year as the AI tools began to be widely used by the public.”

bloomberg.com

 

The UK company spreading Russian fake news to millions

“UK-registered media company is spreading Russian state disinformation to millions of people in the Arab-speaking world. Yala News claims to offer impartial news, but BBC analysis has shown most of its content directly mirrors stories on Russian state-backed media sites – and that it actually operates out of Syria.”

bbc.com

 

Lower U.S. Life Expectancy Is Linked To Spread Of Misinformation
“Why aren’t we using medical products as effectively and efficiently as our peer countries? A lot of it has to do with choices that people make because of the things that influenced their thinking,” Califf told CNBC.

Forbes.com

 

Gucci Employee Is Fired After One of Her Tiktoks Goes Viral and Reaches Corporate

“Commenters have taken to Melanie’s video to show their support, with some arguing that all she did was post a playful video promoting her employment. “Why would you even want to work for a company that fires someone for something so minute,” one user asked. “I don’t see where you went wrong.”

Intheknow.com 

 

Biden may regulate AI for ‘disinformation,’ ‘discriminatory outcomes’

“The Biden administration is pursuing regulations for artificial intelligence systems that would require government audits to ensure they produce trustworthy outputs, which could include assessments of whether AI is promoting “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

foxnews.com

 

Twitter gives fake Disney account verified status

“The account, called @DisneyJuniorUK, was tweeting vile content, but managed to be verified with a gold tick before being suspended.

The owner alerted his followers by saying “this isn’t actually real right. someone pinch me or something” – and the tweet has since gone viral.”

bbc.com

 

The entire Super Mario Bros. movie keeps getting posted to Twitter

“One copy of the movie has been up since April 28th and has amassed… 9.3 million views as of posting. A lot of those views came from this Tweet, which itself has 8.5 million views.”

Theverge.com

 

Pro-Russian propagandist ID’d as US Navy vet who helped spread Pentagon intelligence leak

“While Bils touted herself online as a Ukraine-born woman backing Russia’s invasion and spreading misinformation against Kyiv, she was actually born in New Jersey and now lives in Oak Harbor, Washington, Malcontent News first reported with information from the pro-Ukraine North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO).”

nypost.com

 

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