Tag: Misinformation

MSU co-authored study: 10 insights to reduce vaccine hesitancy on social media

sarah JonasResearch Results

Young Anna Argyris, associate professor in the Michigan State University Department of Media and Information, is part of an international team studying the detrimental effects of vaccine misinformation on social media and interventions that can increase vaccine uptake behaviors.

Machine learning, blockchain technology could help counter spread of fake news

sarah JonasResearch Results

A proposed machine learning framework and expanded use of blockchain technology could help counter the spread of fake news by allowing content creators to focus on areas where the misinformation is likely to do the most public harm, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Location intelligence shines a light on disinformation

sarah JonasResearch Results

Using disinformation to create political instability and battlefield confusion dates back millennia. However, today’s disinformation actors use social media to amplify disinformation that users knowingly or, more often, unknowingly perpetuate. Such disinformation spreads quickly, threatening public health and safety. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic and recent global elections have given the world a front-row seat to this form of modern warfare.

YouTube’s credibility tags face “credibility conundrum” in fight against misinformation

sarah JonasResearch Results

While YouTube’s newly introduced tagging policy attempts to steer consumers to credible information sources on the social media platform by prioritizing credible sources in the search algorithm, individuals may still tend to rely on sources they trust for health information, like friends or even celebrities. The authors of a new commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine refer to this as the “credibility conundrum.” What one person considers “credible,” another may not.

Penn Nursing Center Joins with 50 Leading National Organizations to Curb Infodemic of Health and Science Misinformation and Disinformation

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The creation of The Coalition for Trust in Health & Science, was formally launched during the 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The alliance, which includes Penn Nursing’s NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health, was formed to unite leading organizations from across the entire health ecosystem to advance trust and factual science-based decision-making.

Rensselaer Researcher To Follow the Trail of Misinformation

sarah JonasAnnouncement

On 9/11, lawmakers from both parties unified in their response. Just over 20 years later, Congress is distinctly partisan, clashing on everything from the January 6 insurrection to COVID to climate change. Why? Many blame widespread and widely believed misinformation and disinformation. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Boleslaw Szymanski, Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers examining the flow of (mis)information in social media.

JMIR Aging | Using Twitter to Examine Stigma Against People With Dementia During COVID-19

sarah JonasResearch Results

JMIR Publications recently published “Using Twitter to Examine Stigma Against People With Dementia During COVID-19: Infodemiology Study” in JMIR Aging which reported that during the pandemic, there has been significant social media attention focused on the increased COVID-19 risks and impacts for people with dementia and their care partners.

Mass shootings: Conservative, liberal #socialmedia users starting to agree — enough is enough, says @UNLV researcher

sarah JonasExpert Pitch

Schoolchildren huddled in Uvalde, Tex. classrooms as classmates and teachers are cut down by a rogue gunman. A peaceful weekend afternoon at a Buffalo, N.Y. grocery store interrupted by a white supremacist who sprays the aisles of elderly, predominantly African American weekend shoppers with an AR-15 style rifle. Only five months into the year, these attacks tallied as the 198th and 214th U.

Virtual News Briefings and Research Highlights, APS 2022 Convention

sarah JonasFeature

Journalists are invited to attend two virtual news briefing that will cover the latest research and discoveries from the field of psychological science. Topics will include the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education, tools to support ethnic and gender minorities, fake news and misinformation, romance and relationships, and more. Register: [email protected]

Rural Bangladeshis turn to faith, family for fact-checking

sarah JonasResearch Results

On top of the COVID-19 pandemic, people worldwide have dealt with an infodemic – a flood of ever-evolving information and misinformation about the virus, causing confusion and mistrust. New Cornell research finds that in remote parts of Bangladesh with little internet access, people have relied on local experts, spiritual views and their sense of social justice to evaluate new coronavirus information.

Political ads during the 2020 presidential election cycle collected personal information and spread misleading information

sarah JonasResearch Results

University of Washington researchers looked at almost 56,000 political ads from almost 750 news sites between September 2020 and January 2021. Political ads used multiple tactics that concerned the researchers, including posing as a poll to collect people’s personal information or having headlines that might affect web surfers’ views of candidates.

As COVID-19 and Online Misinformation Spread, Children and Teens Were Poisoned with Hand Sanitizer and Alcoholic Drinks

sarah JonasResearch Results

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, as false health information spread on social media, the number of children and teens poisoned with hand sanitizer or alcoholic beverages surged in Iran. These poisonings resulted in hundreds of hospitalizations and 22 deaths. Misinformation circulating on social media included the false suggestion that consuming alcohol (methanol) or hand sanitizer (ethanol or isopropyl alcohol) protected against COVID-19 infection (it does not). A major alcohol poisoning outbreak sickened nearly 6,000 Iranian adults, of whom 800 died. It was not known, however, to what extent children and adolescents were affected. For the study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, investigators compared pediatric hospitalizations for ethanol and methanol poisoning during the early COVID-19 pandemic in Iran with the same period the previous year. They also looked at types of exposure and how those were linked to the children’s ages and clinical outcomes.

FSMB: Spreading COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation May Put Medical License at Risk

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The Federation of State Medical Boards’ Board of Directors released statement in response to a dramatic increase in the dissemination of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and disinformation by physicians and other health care professionals on social media platforms, online and in the media.

Flagging coronavirus misinformation tweets changes user behaviors, UAH research shows

sarah JonasResearch Results

When Twitter flags tweets containing coronavirus misinformation, that really does affect the degree of validity most people ascribe to those messages, says new research based on a novel branching survey by three professors at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System.

American University Experts Available to Comment on Congress Hearing on Fake News & Misinformation on Social Media Platforms

sarah JonasExpert Pitch

American University Experts Available to Comment on Congress Hearing on Fake News & Misinformation on Social Media Platforms What: Today, the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee and the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee are holding joint hearing on misinformation and…

Education Level, Interest in Alternative Medicine Among Factors Associated with Believing Misinformation

sarah JonasResearch Results

While many people believe misinformation on Facebook and Twitter from time to time, people with lower education or health literacy levels, a tendency to use alternative medicine or a distrust of the health care system are more likely to believe inaccurate medical postings than others, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

April 2021 Issue of AJPH highlights COVID-19 as it relates to unemployment and excess deaths in Florida, Medicaid expansion, and misinformation spread by crowdfunding campaigns

sarah JonasResearch Results

April 2021 highlights from AJPH Issue includes COVID-19-related articles around deaths linked to unemployment, higher than reported death toll in Florida and crowdfunding campaigns spreading misinformation