Latest news with #disinformation
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
BBC Verify largely factchecks international stories – what about UK politics?
In a world of fake news and disinformation, factchecking claims and the veracity of images has become an important part of impartial journalism. People invest their trust in information sources they believe are accurate. With this in mind, the BBC launched its Verify service in May 2023. Its more than 60 journalists routinely factcheck, verify videos, counter disinformation, analyse data and explain complex stories. Then in June 2025, the BBC launched Verify Live, a blog that tells audiences in real time what claims they are investigating and how they are being checked. At the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University we have been monitoring BBC Verify since its launch. And we have systematically tracked the first month of BBC Verify Live from June 3-27 this year, examining all 244 blog posts as well as the hundreds of claims and sources that featured. We've found that the service places a heavy emphasis on foreign affairs. We argue that it could (and should) be used more to factcheck UK politics, enhancing the quality of the BBC's impartiality journalism and serving the public service broadcaster's domestic audiences. Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK's latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences. Our analysis found international stories made up 71% of all BBC Verify Live coverage. The coverage largely focused on verifying international conflicts and humanitarian crises, from the Middle East and Ukraine to the recent plane crash in India. This might reflect the large number of major international stories that occurred over the first month of BBC Verify Live's launch. But the emphasis on foreign news was also evident in our analysis of the main BBC Verify service over the last 18 months. We monitored how much the factchecking service appeared on the BBC's News at Ten, and found it was used more often in coverage of foreign affairs. One exception was during the 2024 general election campaign, when BBC Verify was used to challenge politicians' claims, and scrutinise policies around migration and the economy. BBC Verify has also covered recent major political developments, like the budget and announcements of flagship government policy. The emphasis on covering international conflicts is consistent with its editorial mission to 'analyse satellite imagery, investigate AI-generated content, factcheck claims and verify videos when news breaks'. BBC Verify regularly uses satellite mapping and geolocation data, which most newsrooms do not have at their disposal, to factcheck images and social media posts. However, the resources and expertise Verify has could also be used to more regularly factcheck false or misleading claims in domestic political issues. This could be important to building audience trust at a time when the BBC's impartiality is regularly questioned, while helping people better understand political debates in the UK. Our past research with media users suggests they want journalists to be bolder and more transparent when assessing the credibility of politicians' competing claims. BBC Verify is a logical tool to do this. Two years after it launched, Verify is considered one of the most trusted factchecking sources in the UK by the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the most used by media regulator Ofcom. BBC Verify has proved it can effectively use its resources and expertise to unpack and challenge domestic political claims – covering the spending review and party manifestos ahead of the 2024 general election. We have previously analysed how BBC Verify robustly challenged a misleading Conservative party claim about a future Labour government raising taxes during the election campaign. Interrogating real-time claims BBC Verify Live takes a variety of approaches to its analysis of real-time claims. We assessed all claims appearing in blogs throughout most of June 2025 and discovered that 22% were challenged to some extent (found to be inaccurate), while 23% were upheld (considered accurate) and 13% partially upheld. Meanwhile, 10% were still being verified at the time the blog was posted (but may have been upheld or challenged in subsequent coverage), and 12% had additional context added to them. One fifth of all claims were not subject to any clear judgement about their accuracy. BBC Verify Live most often used the UK or official foreign governments, and their militaries or agencies, as the main corroborating sources to factcheck claims, or the focus of the claim being investigated in some stories. These made up well over three quarters of sources in factchecking coverage. There was, comparatively, limited use of think tanks, policy institutes, nongovernmental organisations, experts, academics or eyewitnesses. Just over one in ten claims had additional context added to them (as opposed to verifying or challenging a claim). This was most often the case in blogs about domestic affairs and rival political claims. Given the recent cuts to the BBC's World Service, Verify's international news agenda will bolster the public service broadcaster's worldwide profile and credibility. Yet, for BBC Verify to enhance impartiality and trust with domestic audiences, we would argue it should play a more prominent role in routine political reporting, not just during elections or high-profile stories. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, AHRC, BA and ESRC. Nathan Ritchie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Pakistan power companies have not introduced additional peak charges
Pakistan authorities have rejected claims circulating online that its power companies are charging more for electricity during morning peak hours, calling the posts "actionable disinformation". There is still only one peak hour period in the evening throughout the country. "Morning hours are also counted as peak hours ... Loot with both hands, loot the public," reads an Urdu-language post on X on July 12, 2025. It includes a screenshot of a table titled "Regional Peak Hours by Distribution Company" listing peak hour periods in the morning and evening from different Pakistan power companies. The same table was also shared elsewhere on Facebook and TikTok. Soaring fuel costs globally, coupled with demands from the International Monetary Fund to slash government subsidies, led successive Pakistani administrations to repeatedly hike electricity costs (archived link). Prices have fluctuated since 2022 but peaked at a 155-percent increase, and power bills sometimes outweigh rents. However, the country's power companies have not introduced additional peak hour charges for the morning. A reverse image search found the Ministry of Energy rejected the claim by reposting one such false post on X (archived link). "There is no change in electricity peak hours. Claims about the inclusion of morning hours as peak hours are completely false and misleading. Peak hours remain the same as before," it reads. "This is fake news and actionable disinformation." Most of Pakistan's power companies share the same evening peak hour charging schedule as the state-owned Power Information Technology Company, as shown in a timetable posted on its official website (archived link). Meanwhile, the privately owned Karachi Electric charges extra for power usage between 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm from April to October, and between 6 pm to 10 pm for the remaining five months of the year (archived link). Neither company has announced an additional peak charge in the morning. Pakistani outlet Geo News also debunked the false claim (archived link).
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
A MAGA bot network on X is divided over the Trump-Epstein backlash
A previously unreported network of hundreds of accounts on X is using artificial intelligence to automatically reply to conservatives with positive messages about people in the Trump administration, researchers say. But with the MAGA movement split over the administration's handling of files involving deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the accounts' messaging has broken, offering contradictory statements on the issue and revealing the AI-fueled nature of the accounts. The network, tracked for NBC News by both the social media analytics company Alethea and researchers at Clemson University, consists of more than 400 identified bot accounts, though the number could be far larger, the researchers say. Its accounts offer consistent praise for key Trump figures, particularly support for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. As often is the case with bot accounts, those viewed by NBC News tended to have only a few dozen followers, and their posts rarely get many views. But a large audience does not appear to be the point. Their effectiveness, if they have any, is in the hope that they contribute to a partisan echo chamber, and that en masse they can 'massage perceptions,' said Darren Linvill, the director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, which studies online disinformation campaigns. 'They're not really there to get engagement. They're there to just be occasionally seen in those replies,' Linvill told NBC News. The researchers declined to share specifics on how they identified the accounts, but noted they shared a number of distinct trends. All were created, seemingly in batches, around three specific days last year. They frequently punctuate their posts with hashtags, often ones that are irrelevant to the conversation. They post almost exclusively by replying to other users, often to people who pay X for verification and by repeating similarly worded sentiments over and over in short succession. At times, they will respond to someone's post by repeating it back to them verbatim. It's unclear who is behind the network, or which of the multiple AI chatbots that are widely accessible to the public was used to power it. The bots have posted support for conservative figures since 2024, including supporting Trump and other Republicans on the ballot in the lead-up to the election, and then afterward posting that they were excited for Trump to take office. Though they would occasionally mix their messages — some have professed affection for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, for instance — their messaging was consistently in favor of MAGA figures until the recent Epstein files controversy. A core constituency of Trump supporters voted for him on the belief that Trump, a former friend of Epstein's, would expose a list of supposed rich and powerful clients and bring justice to Epstein's victims. It's only since earlier this month, when Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she would not release additional Epstein files, that the accounts' messaging has become so split, with some accounts telling different users opposite opinions almost concurrently. During the same minute last Saturday morning, for example, one account in the network both cautioned a MAGA supporter from judging Bondi too harshly and told another that Bondi or FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino should resign over the scandal. When Bondi first said she would not release additional files, another declared that she 'comes out clean as the DOJ confirms no Epstein client list found, while reaffirming his death by suicide.' Since then, it has since told multiple people on X that they should engage in full revolt against the Trump administration. 'Retweet if you believe that Trump & his cronies are lying to the public and treating us like we're stupid. We won't be fooled by their games,' it posted Friday. While it's unknown what the accounts' prompts are, they appear to be trained on real MAGA social media accounts, whose messages tend to be more unified, said C. Shawn Eib, Alethea's head of investigations. 'This split reaction mimics the organic reaction among supporters of Trump's second administration,' Eib told NBC News. 'It's possible that the behavior of these automated accounts is influenced by content posted from prominent influencers, and this shift is reflective of the general change in tenor among many of Trump's supporters.' For years, social media has been infested with inauthentic accounts designed to sway popular opinion, whether they're marketing firms pushing products or foreign governments and domestic groups pushing political propaganda. But that has become turbocharged with the rapid proliferation of AI chatbots that can write and post convincing messages without human intervention, and exacerbated by social media companies scaling back their moderation. The White House declined to comment, and the Department of Health and Human Services and X did not respond to requests for comment. The researchers believe X is likely rife with inauthentic accounts, though it's impossible to tell the scope. Last year, researchers found a different network of AI-driven pro-Trump accounts on X. But there is no way to grasp the scale of their presence on the network. X disbanded much of its trust and safety team when billionaire Elon Musk bought the site in 2022 and has since made it significantly harder for researchers to access data. This article was originally published on
News24
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- News24
Inside SA's fog of lies, 5 fascinating reads, wines from Wellington, and weighted vests
This week, Andrew Thompson reflects on what five months running News24's disinformation desk reveals about truth, trust, and how easily they can unravel; Anneliese Burgess talks to climate activist Ayakha Melithafa about her mom's wisdom and meeting Greta Thunberg; Noluthando Ngcakanifound 13 recipes for eat-out classics to recreate in your kitchen this weekend; Daléne Fourie gets lost in the wines of the eclectic Wellington Valley; Shaun de Waal curates five fascinating reads; Marilynn Manuel talks to Sheldon Tatchell, founder of Legends Barber, about how he spends his Saturdays; and she looks at the use of weighted vests for workouts.
South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Disinformation and AI-generated content drive growing partisan divide in the Philippines
The flood of online disinformation – turbocharged by new technology and recycled tactics – is thriving in a digital ecosystem where engagement often outweighs accuracy, analysts warn. The Philippines' polarised political climate, combined with low digital literacy and eroding institutional trust, has created a 'perfect storm' for false narratives to flourish – particularly those generated by AI, according to Paco Pangalangan, a regional disinformation and tech policy consultant. 'Filipinos spend more time on social media than almost anyone else in the world, but digital literacy remains low, institutional trust is eroding, and platforms continue to reward engagement over accuracy,' he told This Week in Asia. One recent high-profile case involved a falsified Beverly Hills police report linking first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos to the March death of Filipino retail scion Paolo Tantoco in Los Angeles. The report, which went viral online, falsely claimed that Tantoco died from a drug overdose and that Marcos had been summoned for questioning. Liza Araneta-Marcos (right), wife of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, during his proclamation at the House of Representatives in Quezon City on May 25, 2022. Photo: AFP Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro on Tuesday dismissed the document as fabricated, saying the Philippine consulate in Los Angeles had verified with American authorities that it had been 'altered'.
