On an initial glance, a video that's going viral on social media looks like a typical 1990s TV commercial for a children's toy set of a tropical island: there are palm trees, a waterfall, and - wait a minute - there's also a secret massage room, and even an "Orange Man" action figure who looks exactly like Donald Trump and says "don't release the files" in an ominous voice.
The problem of people falling for falsehoods has become an urgent issue in recent years, as new technologies have conspired with sociopolitical currents within the culture to spread misinformation at unprecedented speed and reach. Psychologists who study this issue have focused mainly on individual vulnerabilities: the cognitive quirks and biases that predispose us to believe falsehoods, buy into lies, and give in to speculation.
As human and AI-generated " slop" floods the internet, Perplexity says it's fighting back by making Comet - its AI-native browser that normally costs $200 a month - free for anyone in the world, forever. "We want to build a better internet, and that needs to be accessible to everybody," Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told Business Insider at a launch event in San Francisco on Wednesday.
"This child is a gift - a piece of Charlie I still carry," Erika Kirk revealed just 30 minutes ago, stunning the world with an announcement both heartbreaking and hopeful. Still mourning the loss of her husband, she shared that she is expecting their third child - a revelation that brings new light into her grief and carries Charlie Kirk's legacy forward into the future.
The clip, styled as a Fox News report fronted by Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump, included a bogus announcement from the president promising every American access to the fictitious machines that supposedly cure diseases, reverse injury damage, and even regrow limbs. Kicking off The Late Show on Monday night, Colbert delved into the moment with full revelry. The fantastic but fake medbed tech, the host joked, was the least bizarre part of the entire story.
Still, his creation keeps growing, absorbing our reality in the process. If you're reading this online, Berners-Lee wrote the hypertext markup language (HTML) that your browser is interpreting. He's the necessary condition behind everything from Amazon to Wikipedia, and if A.I. brings about what Sam Altman recently called "the gentle singularity"-or else buries us in slop-that, too, will be an outgrowth of his global collective consciousness.
In italics below the content of a post, you might see a warning label seemingly added after the fact that says: "This user is suspected to be a part of a terrorist organization called Antifa. Please report any suspicious behavior." Also: Is Meta secretly scanning your phone's camera roll? Check this setting to find out The label looks somewhat similar to Meta's community notes feature, so it's not a completely strange idea that a social media site might add context to a post.
They are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits,
Japan's foreign aid agency has scrapped a cultural exchange initiative with African countries after an online misinformation campaign led to a torrent of complaints and fear of increased immigration. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) announced on Thursday that it will cancel the Africa Hometown scheme, after an episode that experts say illustrates the potential impact of fake news and populist narratives to shape migration policy.
This is now the fifth or sixth time he's posted a political take contradicted by facts from his own law enforcement agencies. Favreau's post included a suggested community note, citing an NBC News report, regarding Vance's comments that read, According to an ICE spokesperson, the three individuals shot were ICE detainees, leaving two individuals dead and one injured. No law enforcement were injured in this shooting, according to law enforcement and news reports out of Dallas, Texas.
At the United Nations, President Trump repeated long-debunked claims about ending wars, renewable energy, climate science, and even the UN's own renovation costs. Trump's address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday was riddled with inaccuracies and exaggerations. He recycled familiar talking points about climate change, renewable energy, immigration, and his own diplomatic record, alongside fresh distortions about the UN's New York headquarters. While a full fact-check of every statement goes beyond this article's scope, DW Fact check examined several of his key remarks.
Saying that the right wants to exterminate trans people is not hyperbole. Republican bigotry has fueled an array of initiatives designed to drive trans people out of public life. But conservatives aren't content with turning trans people into fourth-class citizens. They want the public to see them as enemies of the state-as mentally ill savages pulling the country into the moral abyss. America's never-ending gun violence has become a useful tool in this effort.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Imagine an avid reader who one day flips through a summer book preview in their local paper. Among the books listed there is a novel by one of this reader's favorite writers, Isabel Allende. Intrigued, this reader heads to their local library to see if they have any copies of the novel, called Tidewater Dreams, in stock. Here's the problem: Tidewater Dreams doesn't actually exist; instead, it was part of an AI-generated article that included several nonexistent books by acclaimed
This village within a city, as locals describe it, came to global attention again last month when Elon Musk amplified anti-immigrant misinformation about an incident allegedly involving a 12-year-old girl who was charged with being in possession of offensive weapons. Scotland's first minister John Swinney accused the multibillionaire X owner of undermining community cohesion after he shared widely circulated video footage of the incident.
Few Onion headlines have better captured this moment in history like, "Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be." Through the grace of social media, whatever dumbass legal theory a non-lawyer cooks up based on half-remembered court cases, can now metastasize throughout the country, plopped into the For You feeds of any other unfortunate souls that tech companies feel match the speaker's advertising demographic.
