A bill that would impose a fee on tech platforms like Facebook for scraping and disseminating news stories passed in the California state assembly on June 1 2023 — despite an industry threat. Assembly Bill 886 (AB 886), a.k.a. the California Jour
Publication: news media
Truth or Fiction?→ Texas Journalists Rally to Save Progressive Magazine
The staff at the progressive Texas Observer magazine has raised more than $219,000 in an effort to stay open, less than a week after its managing board unilaterally voted to shut the publication down. The online fundraising effort, created on March 27
Truth or Fiction?→ New York Court: Fox News ‘Turned a Blind Eye’ to Guests’ Election Disinformation
The right-wing Fox “news” channel must face a second defamation lawsuit for promoting election deniers following Donald Trump’s resounding loss to Joe Biden in 2020. The New York State Supreme Court ruled on March 8 2023 that a $2.7 b
Truth or Fiction?→ Ukraine Marks One-Year Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion
Weaponized disinformation campaigns and more conventional attacks on February 24 2023 marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; amid retrospectives and updates, a popular Imgur post featured a video and commentary attribute
Truth or Fiction?→ Reporter Evan Lambert Arrested While Covering Ohio Train Derailment
On February 9 2023, a popular post to Reddit’s r/news was titled “Reporter arrested during news event on Ohio train derailment,” and a subsequent post to Imgur depicted the same headline: Reporter arrested during news event
Truth or Fiction?→ How to Fight Disinformation — Part V: Resilience Targeting
This is the last in a series about how communities can fight back and protect themselves against weaponized disinformation campaigns. You can read our previous articles here: Part I: Firehosing Part II: Gaslighting Part III: Distraction Part IV: Sign
Truth or Fiction?→ Arrests of Anti-Monarchy Protesters
On September 11 and 12 2022, popular tweets claimed that individuals protesting the monarchy at ongoing public events in the UK were (in some cases) being cautioned, detained, or arrested: The police were far more eager to arrest a woman with an ab
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘You Don’t Sound American’
A 2018 interview showing two local television news presenters ambushing an Iranian-American activist — and then getting rebuffed — received renewed attention in August 2022. Another activist, Dr. Arash Daneshzadeh, posted (and later deleted
Truth or Fiction?→ Florida Newspaper Pulls Op-Ed Sympathizing With White Nationalist Group
A Florida newspaper has apologized and pulled an op-ed by a woman married to a member of the far right, white nationalist group calling itself the Proud Boys — which they originally ran without disclosing her ties to that organization. The execu
Truth or Fiction?→ Fifth January 6 Hearing Shows Scope of Attempts to Undermine Democracy
The fifth hearing by the January 6 2021 committee covered the pressure that Donald Trump exerted on state and federal officials to call the U.S. presidential election in his favor in 2020 so that he could remain in power. The testimonials came on June
Truth or Fiction?→ Third January 6 Hearings Looks at Pressure, Disinformation Campaigns to Overturn Election
The third hearing by the House committee investigating the January 6 2021 insurrection focused on the pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 presidential election — and the deeply corrosive weaponized narratives which undergirded the attempt. The
Truth or Fiction?→ Disinformation Takes Center Stage at January 6 Committee Hearings
The role of weaponized disinformation campaigns in the January 2021 attempted coup at the United States Capitol was the main topic at the second January 6 Committee hearing about the events that culminated in a violent insurrection. The House select
Truth or Fiction?→ Los Angeles County Sheriff Announces Plans to ‘Investigate’ Journalist Over Articles
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has announced plans to target a journalist for an “investigation” over her reporting on their treatment of a man in custody. Conspiracy theory-slinging Los Angeles County sheriff Alex Villan
Truth or Fiction?→ Three Things to Remember About That Study of Fox Viewers Who Watched CNN
A report published in April 2022 showing short-term effects (thus far) in viewers of the right-wing Fox network as greeted with widespread coverage and, in some cases, familiar distortions of its findings. In the study by David E. Broockman and Joshua
Truth or Fiction?→ Anti-Tiktok PR Campaign Shows More Right-Wing Ties for Facebook
The relationship between Facebook and a public relations firm that promotes right-wing lawmakers — including some who voted against the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election — was brought to light amid o
Truth or Fiction?→ Paper: Sweden and the ‘Herd Immunity’ Response to COVID-19
An academic paper attempting to make sense of Sweden’s COVID-19 “herd immunity” policy describes a cavalcade of preventable horrors. The article (which was published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications) was – in its own w
Truth or Fiction?→ How to Fight Disinformation — Part IV: Signaling and Dog Whistling
This is part of an ongoing series about how communities can fight back and protect themselves against weaponized disinformation. The Trump administration may be just a memory, but the disinformation that paved its way and the lies that it launched are
Truth or Fiction?→ Kenosha Homicide Trial Riddled With Disinformation, Weaponized Narratives
The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people and wounded a third during a shooting spree in Kenosha, Wisconsin during protests against police brutality in August 2020, has made daily headlines nationally and internationally —
Truth or Fiction?→ Anatomy of an Inauthentically Organized Campaign
In mid-2021, as the Delta variant rapidly spread among unvaccinated populations across the United States and public officials began publicly flirting with the prospect of still more measures to quell the spread of the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemi
Truth or Fiction?→ Foreign Influence Agents Goaded Trump Forums After U.S. Elections, Researchers Say
Foreign agents — particularly those working from or on behalf of Russia — were active on Donald Trump-themed forums in the weeks and months leading up to the January 6 2021 coup attempt at the United States Capitol, a new report says. Accor
Truth or Fiction?→ International Disinfo Machines Turning After State-Sponsored Kidnapping of Belarusian Journalist
On May 24 2021, in the hours and days after Belarusian dissident journalist Roman Protasevich was taken from a Ryanair flight that had been rediverted to Minsk and arrested along with his girlfriend, graduate student Sofia Sapega, in a dramatic state-
Truth or Fiction?→ Anti-Vaccine Disinformation Still Going Strong on Social Media: Report
Just twelve accounts are responsible for fully two-thirds of online disinformation about vaccines — but social media platforms still aren’t doing much about them. In a follow-up to a report tracking a majority of disinformation about vaccin
Truth or Fiction?→ Native American Journalists Call On Cohorts to ‘Withdraw Support from CNN’ after Pundit’s Racist Comments
The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) called on fellow industry advocacy groups to push back against CNN in response to inaccurate and racist comments by one of the news network’s pundits. The group made the request in the wake of pa
Truth or Fiction?→ How to Fight Disinformation: Part II — Gaslighting
This is part of an ongoing series about how communities can fight back and protect themselves against weaponized disinformation. You can read Part I here. On January 6 2021, a mob of Donald Trump supporters, enraged by corrosive rhetoric and lies fr
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘Vanity and Greed’: Despite Disinformation Crises, Facebook Continues Making Inroads Into Major Newsrooms
Despite years of scrutiny now yielding a whole slew of lawsuits — such as those announced in the United States, Australia, and Germany in late 2020 — Facebook is continuing to pursue partnerships with news organizations, despite major c
Truth or Fiction?→ Flint Robocalls Purportedly Advised Voters to Avoid Long Lines and ‘Vote Tomorrow’
Election Day 2020 brought with it expectations of widespread, ongoing attempts at voter suppression — and those expectations bore out early and often. One report from Flint, Michigan concerned “robocalls” warning of long lines at
Truth or Fiction?→ As U.S. Election Looms, Agitprop Floods Social Media Platforms
In the days leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the disinformation that has been a hallmark of the Trump campaign, then administration, then campaign again reached new heights with political smears, Soviet-style weaponized conspiracy t
Truth or Fiction?→ The Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop
On October 14 2020, as increasingly bold or desperate attempts from all corners to sway the November 2020 U.S. elections reached a fever pitch, a story appeared in the New York Post about Hunter Biden, son of Democratic Party presidential candidate Jo
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘A Pound of Flesh’: Facebook’s Provides Little Explanation for Anti-Fascist Takedown
Even as it claimed to have done so to guard against accounts promoting violent, Facebook has refused to provide evidence behind the elimination of pages belonging to two news organizations that post anti-fascist content. The platform removed Facebook
Truth or Fiction?→ Imperial College London’s COVID-19 Report, Explained
On March 17 2020, an Imperial College London paper about coronavirus and COVID-19 trajectory models was referenced widely in the news and on social media, causing a considerable amount of concern and drawing global attention. Discourse about the Imper
Truth or Fiction?→ Trump Intervenes in Sentencing of Lobbyist Who Spread Corrosive Disinformation on His Behalf
The sentencing of convicted felon Roger Stone was abruptly derailed on February 11 2020, when all four of his prosecutors resigned on the same day that United States President Donald Trump, freshly emboldened by his impeachment acquittal the week befo
Truth or Fiction?→ Who Broke the Iowa Caucuses and Why Were Results Delayed?
One day after the February 3 2020 Iowa caucuses — the first primary voting of all fifty American states — the hashtag #IowaCaucusDisaster remained at the top of Twitter’s “trending” charts after a confusing night with no
Truth or Fiction?→ How Many Moms Are in ‘One Million Moms’?
In December 2019 the group One Million Moms grabbed headlines for purportedly forcing the Hallmark Channel’s decision — quickly reversed — to discontinue holiday season television commercials by the brand Zola due to its inclusion of a lesbi
Truth or Fiction?→ British Media Falls For Bogus Claim That Protesters ‘Whacked’ Government Advisor
On December 9 2019 — just days before a hotly contested and high-stakes general election on December 12 — British news organizations were apparently taken in by a disinformation effort as they spread a false accusation against protesters outside o
Truth or Fiction?→ UK’s Conservative Party’s Communications Team Briefly Rebrands to Mislead Public
As a December 12 2019 general election looms over the UK and the rhetoric around its third election since 2015 grows ever louder, distractions and political stunts have hit a fever pitch, injecting misinformation and outright disinformation into its p
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘Your Page is at Risk of Being Unpublished’ Facebook Warning
On November 19 2019, a number of Facebook page administrators received messages from the social media platform bearing the warning: “Your page is at risk of being unpublished” for various actions. One poster on Reddit’s r/facebook on
Truth or Fiction?→ Facebook ‘News’ Service to Include ‘Diverse’ Category, Sites Associated With White Nationalism
Facebook has announced a news service aimed at providing users with a “personalized” slate of stories from four different types of categories: general, topical, local, and “diverse”: Diversity publishers as those focused on key
Truth or Fiction?→ California Law Limiting Freelance Publication Options Could Face Legal Threat
A California law addressing the discrepancies between independent contractors and contracted workers could spur a legal challenge from journalists before it takes effect in January 2020. Under the new law, known as AB5, news outlets would face a cap i
Truth or Fiction?→ ABC News Yanks ‘Slaughter in Syria’ Video Revealed as YouTube Clip Filmed in Kentucky
On October 14 2019, ABC News walked back a story that aired on two of its marquee programs after the footage was revealed to be a YouTube clip filmed in the United States in 2017. “This video obtained by ABC News, appears to show the fury of the
Truth or Fiction?→ Trump Administration Rushes To Distance Itself From Massacre Video at Far-Right ‘Meme Event’
United States President Donald Trump’s administration and other right-wing figures attempted to distance themselves on October 14 2019 from a violent propaganda video, as coverage spread of a scene altered to depict Trump gunning down his “