💁🏻‍♀️ ICYMI: 🕵️‍♂️📰 Trying to piece together what to believe can feel impossible, but we can still find reliable, trustworthy #answers as long as we know how to look for them.

Hank Green and Sage Magee explain the SIFT method, a four-step tool to help you investigate sources and trace claims back to their origins to find the whole #truth.

👉 Learn more: zurl.co/182Du

#disinformation #diy #howto #information #literacy #media #microplastics #misinformation #news #plastic #research #science #journalism #psychology #mentalhealth #propaganda #education #tksst #video

🕵️‍♂️📰 Trying to piece together what to believe can feel impossible, but we can still find reliable, trustworthy #answers as long as we know how to look for them.

Hank Green and Sage Magee explain the SIFT method, a four-step tool to help you investigate sources and trace claims back to their origins to find the whole #truth.

👉 Learn more: seethis.tv/post/evaluating-sou…

#disinformation #diy #howto #information #literacy #media #microplastics #misinformation #news #plastic #research #science #journalism #psychology #mentalhealth #propaganda #education #tksst #video

Make fascism socially unacceptable again. Leave X.

#LeaveX #JohnOliver #fascim #FarRight #Disinformation #HateSpeech #Democracy

EN: Why the argument that you have to stay on social networks to provide opposition is complete nonsense

leavex.eu/posts/why-stay-on-so…

#X #LeaveX #Disinformation #Democracy

I wanted to track this down (no link in original post I can find)... and here it is.

Note original graphic was cropped, leaving out #WaPo and #FoxNews. Not sure why, maybe viewed on small screen? That would explain "swipe" mention.

Added: Also note that in the spirit of supporting the authors I'm not reproducing the graphic, but linking the entire article. The "auto website quote" feature of #Mastodon can't quite pick it up... I see only colored columns without text. If that's all you see... please click on the link and scroll down for the entire thing. My impressions for anyone who can't view it: death by #Terrorism is WAY over-represented (#NYTimes is the worst!), our old nemeses #HeartDisease & #Cancer (50% of deaths in the real world) are hardly covered. As Vonnegut would say "So it goes...". 🙄

👉 Reposting the full link because I think the information is important! 👈

#Misinformation #Disinformation Broken #MainstreamMedia #NYTimes

ourworldindata.org/does-the-ne…

One of the biggest threats we face to democracy is disinformation.

Our friend's at @MediaRevolution have pulled together Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, and Carole Cadwalladr, an investigative journalist working on Big Tech, to a focused panel at the RSA.

If you're in London next week, we'd highly recommend checking it out and meeting these brilliant people face to face.

Learn more here: thersa.org/events/2026/02/disi…

#SocialMedia #BigTech #Democracy #Disinformation

Art: Matias de Brasi

#fascism #disinformation #USpol #SocialMedia #fediart #art

Safer Internet Day is a good reminder:
You can’t defend democracy on platforms that profit from spreading disinformation.

European politicians:
Ditch autocrats’ propaganda.
Leave X. Now.

leavex.eu

#SaferInternetDay #Democracy #Europe #EU #Disinformation #Autocracy #FarRight #LeaveX

> [Die] Neuen deutschen #Medienmacher*innen #NdM ¹ … fordern „#Community Management“, das Fakten checkt und Kommentare moderiert, als neues journalistisches Berufsfeld anzuerkennen. ²

cc @iftas

¹ neuemedienmacher.de
² 31.1.2026 #verdi #MMM, #Journalismus in Zeiten von #BigTech
mmm.verdi.de/aktuelle-meldunge…

#FactChecking #Disinformation #Desinformation #FakeNews #Medien #Presse #SocialMedia #Moderation #CommunityManagement

Party like it's #1984! #Fake #photo release by #US #government is completely #Orwellian.

#misinformation #disinformation #whitehouse #NekimaLevyArmstrong #minneapolis

latimes.com/politics/story/202…

AI bot swarms threaten to undermine democracy

garymarcus.substack.com/p/ai-b…

> When AI Can Fake Majorities, Democracy Slips Away

#ai #democracy #disinformation

Ranking of MEPs by country and EU group still on X

leavex.eu/posts/ranking-of-mep…

Many members of the European Parliament (MEPs) still rely on X for public communication despite its moderation failures, disinformation risks, and instability. We compiled a dataset of all current MEPs to see which ones still maintain an active presence there.

#LeaveX #EU #ranking #democracy #disinformation #SaveSocial

The traitorous & xenophobic #TrumpRegime is fully fascist on NYE,🚨their leaders only care about making America, white & compliant.

“The entire U.S.🚨foreign-born population is only 45 million people, so this ridiculous edge-lord post by taxpayer-funded trolls is suggesting deporting 55 million native-born citizens.”
-A Reichlin-Melnick
#Racism #Fascism #WhiteNationalism #DHS #Deportations #Disinformation #Gaslighting #Lies #Propaganda #KristiNoem #StephenMiller #Uprising #Protest #USPol

AI-generated videos showing young and attractive women promote Poland’s EU exit

AI-generated videos promoting Poland’s exit from the European Union have appeared on Polish-language social media, featuring non-existent, attractive…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #ArtificialIntelligence #disinformation #EuropeanUnion #newtechnologies #World
newsbeep.com/342940/

Leave X was the right choice for this campaign.

Because here, "X" isn’t just X. It stands for TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and all the other Big Tech nonsense causing real harm.

#LeaveX #disinformation #BigTechs

Evolution of weapons. Today's cartoon by Asier Sanz. More cartoons: cartoonmovement.com/

#weapons #fakenews #lies #disinformation

bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/document…

#Genai #ai is increasingly a source of #news and it is NOT accurate. #openai released a new browser where there is no place to type the URL and every query NECESSARILY goes through #chatgpt which is already being used by 100s of millions. The damn thing will probably produce fake (but very real-looking) videos on the fly as it makes up stuff!

#democracy #justice #humanrights #misinformation #disinformation

Aaah finally a #Disinfo2025 panel that focuses on #FreeExpression and other human rights in the context of the work against #disinformation.

The brilliant @epirkova pushes back against the instrumentalisation of #FreeSpeech and the EU's #DSA to fuel far-right anti-democratic narratives. And she rightly calls out the incredible amount of #securitisation of the #disinfo debate. 👏

Day 1 of the #Disinfo2025 conference is over, so let me share some takeaways. As a #DigitalRights advocate I'm surprised about how large the gap between the #disinformation and digital rights communities seems to be:

1. The framing of conversations that I witnessed here were highly militarised, lots of talk about "the battlefield", the enemy, and various forms of (hybrid) #warfare.

2. There's was a strong "Us V Them" narrative across the conference, mostly as in the West V #Russia and #China.

3. There was a strong focus at #Disinfo2025 on foreign actors / #FIMI from #Russia, not so much on #disinfo attacks from internal actors, the far right, #Trump, or #BigTech billionaires.

4. There was hardly any discussion of the role of #BigTech social media's business models, algorithmic #amplification, and lack of due diligence in the spread of #disinformation. One ex-US #Army guy claimed "platforms are not the problem," information "is moving on its own." Does it though, does it? 🤦

This #Disinfo2025 afternoon was brightened by a brilliant talk by #ExxonMobil #whistleblower Lindsay Gulden about how the #fossilfuel lobby has lied to the public for decades about the #ClimateCrisis and which techniques the industry uses today to spread #disinformation and actively mislead our thinking about it.

If you haven't heard Lindsay speak yet, there are talks online.

youtube.com/watch?v=QonzyNL4XK…

#Disinfo2025 is a very new environment for me despite having worked on online platform regulation for over 6 years.

The conference is sponsored by #Tiktok among others, an important spreader of #disinformation, and panel speakers include people from #defence tech firms and #AI companies... Let's see what this does to the conference content.

So for now I'm listening to what sounds like a sales pitch from a #defence tech firm called #gerulata that claims they have developed an #AI model that can "predict" if certain pieces of online content will be used for a #disinformation campaign plus do all kinds of awesome magic. 🧐

#disinfo2025 #fimi

theargumentmag.com/p/you-have-…

In an era where the #complexity is growing, the last thing humanity may want to not lose is #READING and #WRITING which are the twin pillars of DEEP #THINKING (paraphrased from Cal Newport).

#ai #democracy #humanrights #justice #climatechange #genai #education #misinformation #disinformation

Education Department employees surprised to find their email automatically changed to blame Democrats for shutdown

nbcnews.com/politics/trump-adm…

Five furloughed employees told NBC News they had put up nonpartisan out-of-office messages, only to see they were changed — without their permission — to partisan ones.

#GOP #hypocrites #education #propaganda #disinformation #Trump #press

Cartoon of the day: #NickAnderson

Shedding some light on the meaning of #authoritarianism and how the #disinformation spread by control over mass #media is a key tool.

Warnings signs of Fascism, are attached below (real, not a cartoon)

But to me this is a perfect metaphor for the millions of 'fish' swimming amid a sea of #propaganda, #Truth - free state-approved narrative, and the ongoing assault of #FreeSpeech rights, etc.

ft.com/content/7d6ed5de-d011-4…

More spread of #misinformation and #disinformation in #India on top of the existing crap dished out by social media (#Meta and #Google). The 1.4B population has long been reeling under #climatechange #unemployment #poverty and now this.

Absolutely in-fucking-sane

#RFKJr to link #Tylenol use in pregnancy to autism

Tylenol is the just about safest drug in the world

*Health* Secy RFKJr plans to announce that use of Kenvue's popular over-the-counter pain medication Tylenol in pregnant women is potentially linked to #autism, WSJ reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter, WITHOUT including #EVIDENCE for the claims.

#MassHysteria #ConspiracyTheories #disinformation #Trump #science #medicine
reuters.com/business/healthcar…

"Hannah Arendt, in her Banality of Evil, argued that the World War II atrocities were not solely the work of monstrous individuals, but rather, were enabled by the actions of ordinary people who failed to think critically about the consequences of their actions."

#Trump #fascism #cruelty #literacy #CriticalThinking #lies #disinformation
/3

"If you want to know how democracy dies, don’t watch the tyrant. Watch your neighbor. Or better yet, watch yourself the moment you stop asking questions and start nodding along. ...

The question is not: 'What would I have done in 1933?' The question is: 'What am I doing now?'”

#Trump #fascism #cruelty #literacy #CriticalThinking #lies #disinformation
/3

"What all of the books [I've read recently] have in common is how victimhood, blaming the other and sheer manipulation can steer people into despicable, barbaric acts and take away people's ability to think for themselves.

I am particularly concerned about this, not because of any possible rise of a totalitarian state in the West, but because of declining literacy and the ability to think critically."

#Trump #fascism #cruelty #literacy #CriticalThinking #lies #disinformation
/2

I went to the U.S. Government site this morning that is supposed to be where you can order free at home COVID tests -- clicked through on a message that was in my inbox. It brought me to this *official* dreck (tranlation: 💩 ).

Just don't trust anything this administration says, does or publishes anymore. What a meteoric fall.

[NB: No alt text published here -- it's the Orange Menace's lies about origins of COVID. No need to repeat.]
#COVID19 #disinformation #USpol

@funkylab @martin_fff
to clarify this some more:

I said #Twitter is a #disinformation platform that can't be trusted

that doesn't mean that every account there is lying

but "because someone on twitter said so" is a non-argument for me

if the info of that "someone" proves to be correct I'm adjusting my opinion, twitter or not

if disinformation is spread on #Mastodon it is still disinformation & will be called out eventually

by a community

whereas in twitter there's a lying AI

While you say that the Digital Services Act keep elections free and fair, we would like to speak loud and clear to all European politicians:

STOP THE RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA IN EUROPE!
LEAVE X, NOW!

Please, protect democracy, sign, and share with your local representative this Open Letter to All European Politicians and Leaders to Abandon X/Twitter

leavex.eu

#LeaveX #EscapeX #disinformation #X #Russia #farright #fascism

Greetings from Muskau: Russian Propaganda Surges as Musk, Trump Jr. and AfD Align leavex.eu/posts/greetings-from…

*There are currently masses of Russian propaganda videos in circulation, ostensibly from the news media. Many are attacking the USAID. Elon Musk, Trump Junior and the AfD are happy to help. The closing of ranks is complete.*

Excellent article by @chrisstoecker. Share it.

#Russia #Musk #afd #USA #USPol #Europe #EU #disinformation #FakeNews #trump #USAID

The @Freiheitsrechte quit X **today**. This is the German civil society organization that won the legal case against X.

That all civil society organizations concerned with disinformation campaigns and their threat can do the same.

#X #eXit #LeaveX #EscapeX #disinformation

Why being on X for the sake of opposition is complete nonsense leavex.eu/posts/why-stay-on-so…

“The argument that you can’t leave platforms like X or TikTok because there would otherwise be a lack of “dissent” and “opposition” is untenable for several reasons—it’s simply complete bullshit. It is based on a false assumption about how these platforms work and what impact one’s presence there actually has.”

Great article by @kuketzblog, now in English!

#LeaveX #X #disinformation #USpol #Musk #TikTok

Top Historian Timothy Snyder Warns Elon Musk Is Performing a Coup
newsweek.com/timothy-snyder-el…

#coup #USPol #Musk #disinformation #authoritarianism

Putin’s disinformation networks flood social media in bid to skew German election.

A Kremlin-backed campaign is trying to influence voters ahead of the 23 February poll, according to a government report obtained by POLITICO.

mediafaro.org/article/20250206…

#Germany #Politics #Elections #Disinformation #FakeNews #Kremlin #Russia #SocialMedia #Twitter #X

#X - 💪 Independent: “A Welsh police force has completely quit X, claiming the social media site is “no longer consistent” with its values.

Police forces across the country have been reducing their usage of the platform under Elon Musk’s tenure after it was used to spread misinformation sparking the far-right riots this summer.”

#Twitter #ElonMusk #disinformation #rightwing
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home…

In our appeal we argue:
"#Disinformation and hate speech, ... are still defining elements" on #X, "elections are being manipulated and democratic institutions are attacked."

A current example of this is the #Trollrensics study on the #EPelection that became public last week. According to it, millions of posts promoting right-wing populist parties were distributed by over 50,000 fake accounts on X. 👇
theguardian.com/world/article/…

Why do #universities legitimize these fake campaigns with their presence on X?
Sign the petition 👉 → openpetition.de/unis4mastodon

#Unis4Mastodon 🇪🇺 🌼 🇪🇺

“In recent years, UU's reach on X has decreased compared to other platforms, such as LinkedIn. In addition, we have seen how X, often more than other platforms, struggles with the rise of disinformation, fake accounts and online harassment.”

There will always be comments about how things can be done faster or differently, but these are simply decisions that show courage of the @utrechtuniversity!! 💪❤️👌🏫📰

#utrechtuniversity #socialmedia #disinformation #publicvalues

uu.nl/en/news/utrecht-universi…

We, the Aktionsbündnis neue Soziale Medien (New Social Media Action Alliance) today appealed to #universities in Germany to shut down their #X (formerly #Twitter) accounts as soon as possible.

Signatures for the appeal, written as an open letter, are now being collected on the #OpenPetition platform 📝
openpetition.de/petition/onlin…

The appeal points out that the presence on X/Twitter does not do justice to the universities' remit to provide information because of the #disinformation and political agitation practised there. At the same time, presences should be established on #Mastodon and other services in the #Fediverse, whose decentralised and moderated design is much more compatible with the rules of democratic and sustainable coexistence.

First #universities in Germany leave X/Twitter

At the end of last year, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences announced its withdrawal from #X / #Twitter. President Prof. Steinmetz justified the move:

"We have observed with growing discomfort the consequences of inadequate content moderation on 'X'. Discriminatory and anti-Semitic content, conspiracy narratives, political #disinformation and even calls for #violence were able to spread rapidly on 'X', ... We no longer want to be found in this environment. We can no longer reconcile this with our values: ... As a community of diverse people, #tolerance and respectful interaction with one another is important to us."

h-da.de/meldung-einzelansicht/…

Bravo, #h_da!
There is an urgent need for universities to compare their mission statements with the behavior of the major advertising platforms and draw conclusions.
You can sign here to encourage more #unisinsfediverse:
👉 openpetition.de/petition/onlin…