Experts and fact-checkers have urged social media urgers and consumers of news media to be cautious about the information they share about the war in Ukraine.
In the war on disinformation, the enemy can be hard to determine. Journalists, politicians, governments and even grandparents have been accused of enabling the spread of online falsehoods.
While none of these groups is entirely innocent, the real adversary is more mundane. As Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen testified late last year, social media’s own algorithms are what make disinformation accessible.
Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has grown from a students’ social networking site into a surveillance monster that destroys social cohesion and democracy worldwide. It collects troves of user data including intimate facts, such as body weight and pregnancy status
Fake news makes Czechs vaccine-wary despite Covid crisis AFP 3/9/2021 AFP
As the Czech Republic struggles to cope with the world s highest coronavirus infection rate, a tidal wave of disinformation and a bungled government response are hampering vaccination efforts.
From pseudo-scientific videos explaining how vaccines can change your DNA to panic-inducing stories of seniors dying en masse after receiving the jab, fake stories have overwhelmed Czech social media, messaging apps and chain mail. Czech readers are exposed to lies about the Pfizer vaccine 25 times more than readers in the US, said Frantisek Vrabel, the founder and CEO of Semantic Visions, which identifies potential disinformation based on the use of language patterns online.