Disinformation, the practice of blending real and fake information with the goal of duping a government or influencing public opinion, has its origins in the Soviet Union. But disinformation is no longer the exclusive domain of government intelligence agencies. Today’s disinformation scene has evolved into a marketplace in which services are contracted, laborers are paid and shameless opinions and fake readers are bought and sold.
After months of trying to get on their calendar, González — the co-chief executive of media advocacy group Free Press — had finally managed to secure a meeting with some of the Facebook employees responsible for enforcing the social platform’s community standards. The issue at hand: the spread of viral misinformation among Latino and Spanish-speaking Facebook users.
In a bid to undermine the establishment media in France, a well-known prankster teamed up with a local weather service in the south of France to trick news outlets into believing there had been credible sightings of UFOs in several locations in the south of the country. But first, we take a look at a debunked video claiming to show a detention centre in Queensland, Australia for those not vaccinated against Covid-19.
