Latest news with #misinformation
Fast Company
10 hours ago
- Fast Company
AI videos are tricking tourists into visiting places that don't exist. That's just the beginning
I can perfectly imagine the pain, confusion, and betrayal in the voice of the elderly Malaysian woman who, according to a hotel staff member, asked 'Why do they do this to people?' when she found out that her dream holiday destination wasn't real but a video fabricated with Veo3, the generative artificial engine made by Google. She and her husband had just driven three hours from Kuala Lumpur to this location in Perak state, convinced they would find a scenic cable car attraction called the Kuak Skyride. Instead of a gondola to wander across paradise, they found nothing but a quiet town and a hotel worker trying to explain that the glamorous TV journalist they'd watched on TikTok —the one who had ridden the tram through lush forests and interviewed happy tourists—had never existed at all. There was a Veo3 logo in the bottom right corner. How on Earth didn't they see that? Oh well, it's something to tell the grandkids and feel really dumb. No criminals lifting $200,000 from their savings account, no false accusations to sink grandpa's reputation, like others have experienced thanks to AI -made videos. No real harm done. Except it is harmful. It's another brick out of the walls of our reality in a world that's been crumbling in this post-truth era. AI has made the impossible indistinguishable from the actual, and now it's turning even vacation planning into a minefield of false experiences. The alleged Malaysian couple's story might sound like an isolated incident, but it's the expression of something far more sinister—the complete erosion of our ability to trust what we see, hear, and experience in a world where artificial intelligence can manufacture any narrative with increasingly terrifying precision. The AI black hole is growing exponentially The numbers tell the story of our collective descent into digital deception. Deepfake attacks have exploded from just 0.1% of all fraud attempts three years ago to 6.5% today—a staggering 2,137% increase that represents one in every 15 fraud cases, as identity services company Signicat detailed in February 2025. The statistics have real victims behind them, like Steve Beauchamp, an 82-year-old retiree who drained his entire $690,000 retirement fund after watching deepfake videos of Elon Musk promoting investment schemes. 'I mean, the picture of him—it was him,' Beauchamp told The New York Times, his life savings vanished into the digital void. The scope of AI-powered deception now touches every aspect of human experience. The British engineering company Arup lost more than $25 million when an employee was tricked during a video conference call featuring deepfake versions of the company's CFO and other staff members. A school principal in Maryland received death threats after an AI-manipulated audio clip showed him making racist and antisemitic remarks —a fabrication created by his own athletics director to discredit him. Even democracy itself isn't safe: AI-generated robocalls impersonating President Joe Biden encouraged Democrats not to vote in the New Hampshire primary. The list goes on and on. And now this couple. AI tourism The deception began with a video published on TikTok by 'TV Rakyat,' a television channel that sounds official but exists only in the realm of artificial intelligence. The footage showed a reporter experiencing the Kuak Skyride, a cable car attraction supposedly located in the town of Kuak Hulu in Perak state. She rode the tram through beautiful forests and mountains, interviewing satisfied customers about their journeys. Everything looked perfect, professional, and real. On June 30, the couple checked into their hotel in Perak state and approached someone on the staff— who goes by @dyaaaaaaa._ on Threads —to ask about the scenic cable car they'd seen online. The worker claims that she initially thought they were joking because there was no cable car, no attraction, nothing to see around. But the couple insisted, showing the detailed video they'd watched featuring the TV host and her interviews with happy tourists. When the staff member explained that what they'd seen was an AI-generated video, the couple refused to believe it. They had driven three hours based on footage that felt completely authentic, complete with a professional news presentation and satisfied customer testimonials. According to the hotel employee, the elderly woman threatened to sue the journalist in the video before learning that she, too, was nothing more than a pixel figment of an AI's imagination. Things were bad enough already Tourism was already drowning in manufactured reality before AI perfected the art of deception. Social media has transformed travel into 'selfie tourism,' where visitors flock to destinations not for cultural immersion but to capture Instagram-worthy shots for their feeds. UNESCO has declared a three-alarm fire on this phenomenon, warning that travelers now visit iconic landmarks 'primarily to take and share photos of themselves, often with iconic landmarks in the background.' The consequences are devastating. In Hallstatt, Austria—a town that inspired Disney's Frozen—over a million tourists descend annually to re-create viral moments, forcing the frustrated mayor to erect fences and tell the press that 'the town's residents just want to be left alone' Venice gondolas capsize when tourists refuse to stop photographing. Portofino, Italy, now fines visitors $300 for lingering too long at popular selfie spots to prevent what Mayor Matteo Viacava calls 'anarchic chaos.' That was all the product of influencers already distorting reality with carefully cropped shots of empty beaches and architectural marvels, editing out the crushing crowds and environmental destruction that mass tourism brings. These curated fantasies created unrealistic expectations about travel destinations, leading to overcrowding, infrastructure strain, and the degradation of local communities. And don't get me started on AI-generated travel influencers. Yes, fake humans peddling AI-generated travel advice on video is now a thing that has turned into an industry (and while many people hate them, many others totally buy the scam). Even governments like Germany have sanctioned them: The German National Tourist Board launched an online marketing campaign in 2024 that featured artificial personalities to promote travel to the country. It's a depressing prospect. The Malaysian couple's experience is just the newest chapter in our journey from reality to manipulated reality to completely fabricated reality. I tell myself that we can only face it with pervasive education campaigns, but I'm afraid that it will always be too little too late.
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- RNZ News
How a local website was hijacked and filled with AI-generated 'coherent gibberish'
Crazy stories, none of them true. Photo: RNZ The headline states: "This valley is no longer safe for overnight stays - and DOC isn't explaining why." The story that follows conjures a scene from a horror film. Something odd has been going on in Whakataki valley east of Mount Aspiring National park, it is claimed. "Today, it's officially been closed to overnight stays - and the Department of Conservation isn't saying exactly why." A former hut warden, identified only by their first name, is quoted. An anonymous DOC worker adds: "There's more going on than we can talk about right now." As intriguing as it all sounds, none of it is true. This story is among a growing number of invented stories published to harvest views at the domain The website exists to give people information about an Auckland entertainment precinct but the news section is full of weird, bogus stories like this one that don't seem to belong. There is a Whakataki, but it's in the North Island not in Fiordland, like the story suggests. Another article claims DOC has put steel barriers across the entrance to Echo Hole, which it says is a cave tucked into a limestone bluff, in the South Island back country. According to DOC, there are numerous caves in Waitaki, but none called Echo Hole. The photo used in the story appears to be generated by artificial intelligence (AI). It shows a cave surrounded by rain forest. "The Waitaki district in the South Island is quite a dry district. It doesn't really have rain forest," DOC's manager of visitor safety and standards Andy Roberts told RNZ. DOC staff stumbled across the stories online earlier this month. All come from the same website, and many follow a pattern of taking a real place name, but applying it to the wrong part of New Zealand and making up a story. In several of the stories, DOC is cast as unforthcoming about reasons for supposed closures, and often the discovery of taonga is mentioned as a possible theory. None of the stories related to DOC are true. What is going on at Rod Ballenden, who runs the site, says it has been "hacked". The news section was added to the site and is being populated with the articles, which are all crammed full of digital ads. They are still trying to remove the stories but it's proving difficult, Ballenden says. Cyber security expert Adam Boileau says he suspects the domain name may have not been renewed by the site owner. Expiry details are public, and people look out for ones soon to expire. "They can basically snipe the domains that expire out from underneath their original owners." What is a little more unusual in this case is that the original website was left intact, and just a fake news section added. "I think in this case, because it's someone who's trying to leverage the existing reputation. They want that value to continue. Keeping the original services and making the original site owner not notice that anything's happened is a kind of a good way to preserve their investment." Boileau, who is technology editor at the 'Risky Business' podcast, thinks the site owner may be able to lodge a dispute with New Zealand's domain name registry to wrest ownership back. "All this feels like, you know, it's just every day on the shady modern internet. This is just what happens." Technology expert and author of Fake Believe: Conspiracy Theories in Aotearoa , Dylan Reeve says we may never know who is behind the hack, and whether it was a New Zealander, or someone offshore. The likely motivation for the hacking was to make money off the advertising appearing on the stories. "It's just filthy with ads," he says. The content also appears to be tailored to repeat search terms and he notes content from it is appearing in Google AI suggestions at the top of search results. "The fundamental thing going on here is revenue harvesting," he says. "It's just coherent gibberish designed to attract attention with headlines and some vaguely plausible paragraphs of content. But it's nonsense. I would be shocked if it wasn't AI generated," Reeve says. The automation may go beyond article text and image generation. There may be "automation flow" in use, Reeve says. This might include a tool which scrapes discussion website Reddit for popular topics, then uses these topics as a prompt for an AI tool to write the article and create an image. "This can all happen completely autonomously and you can just be pumping those out three a day, or three a minute." Along with numerous articles about the Department of Conservation, there are articles about petrol prices, real estate and grocery prices. "It's all successfully click bait-y, in a way that is sort of attached to the zeitgeist of New Zealand interests." Most of the stories include some mention of cultural issues and mention iwi, a taonga, remains, and occasionally a rāhui. Reeve thinks the choice of a divisive element to stories is intentional. "It's probably seen that divisive topics are successful and get a lot of attention." In some cases comments following the story express anger: "Totally ridiculous. As long as people are respectful to the area. Why can't we make the most of OUR country? We pay for it. It doesn't belong to Māori, just because they think they were there first. There was another tribe of people way before they got here." It's not clear whether the comments are from real people, or are fake. In some stories the same, or remarkably similar comments are repeated, suggesting some or all of the comments are also fake. A common pattern is for a comment starting with the word "honestly" and a reply starting with the word "exactly". University of Waikato research fellow Hemopereki Simon says discourse suggesting Māori aren't the indigenous population of the country isn't new but used to take place in books. In recent times these views have shifted online, particularly on social media. Simon has recently studied racism in Twitter discussion on the Three Waters proposal. "When I say this stuff is out there, it's out there," he says. If the comments are generated by AI, Simon is not surprised at the tone. "AI will ultimately, to some degree, promote some type of racist tropes." DOC's Andy Roberts has some advice for people who stumble across fake news stories about the conservation estate. "One of the things you'll notice in these stories is they never quote an actual DOC person. So when DOC puts information out in a press release, there'll always be a person that's behind that story." Official notices about closures are always published on the DOC website, and Roberts urged people to visit the official site to ensure they are getting correct information, rather than rely on second-hand sources. Closures do occur, but there is a high bar for this to happen. This could be due to a real safety risk, or occasional track or hut repairs.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Old photo of plane wreck falsely linked to Indian Air Force crash in July
A decade-old photo of a jet wreckage has resurfaced in posts falsely claiming it depicts an Indian Air Force Jaguar training aircraft that crashed during a routine operation in the northwestern Rajasthan state on July 9. The June 3, 2015 AFP photo of the old disaster was taken in the eastern Odisha state. "Air Force's Jaguar fighter jet crashes in Churu, two pilots martyred," reads a Hindi-language Facebook post shared on July 9, 2025. The Indian Air Force (IAF) confirmed a jet crashed in the Churu district of western India's Rajasthan state during a routine training mission on July 9, killing two pilots onboard (archived link). The post shares a breaking news graphic with a photo of a plane wreck in a field surrounded by people. Hindi-language text repeats the claim. The same image circulated across Facebook, Threads and X on the day of the crash. However, reverse image searches found the photo is of a different crash in 2015. The photo was published by BBC in a February 27, 2019 report about misinformation circulating during rising tensions between India and Pakistan (archived link). It is credited to AFP and captioned, "Wreckage of an Indian Air Force jet. Photo: June 2015." Keyword searches found the same photo in AFP's archives, published on June 3, 2015 (archived link). The caption reads, in part, "Onlookers look at an Indian Air Force advanced jet trainer aircraft (A 3492) which crashed in a paddy field at Kudurasahi in Mayurbhanj district, some 365 kms north of Bhubaneswar on June 3, 2015". Mayurbhanj disrict in the eastern Odisha state is more than 1,340 kilometres (835 miles) from Churu (archived link). The same photo was used in reports by local outlets The Hindu and The Telegraph about the 2015 crash, which said the accident occurred due to a technical glitch and both pilots were able to eject in time (archived links here and here).
News24
2 days ago
- Health
- News24
Making diphtheria great again? Why SA's public health experts are worried about RFK Jr
US health czar Robert F Kennedy Jr's vaccine stance is completely at odds with the global public health community and years of vaccine science, ignoring years of research that have found vaccines are safe and effective and which have saved an estimated 154-million lives — mostly under the age of 5 — over the past 50 years. In June he accused Gavi, the international vaccine alliance, of distributing a version of DTP — the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine — that does more harm than good, and halting all US funding to the group. Public health experts say what could be more dangerous than the funding cuts is the misinformation campaign he's driving, which is fuelling a growing lack of trust in vaccines with global repercussions, including right here in South Africa. They used to call it the strangling angel. The grey membrane would take the form of wings at the back of the child's throat, spreading quickly, thickening up like leather. As the diphtheria moved through the body, a toxin would be released, potent enough to stop the heart and paralyse the nervous system. Some of the children who caught it would die within days, their narrow airways blocked by the winged formation. Before vaccines were widely available, diphtheria was a leading global killer. But after the World Health Organisation (WHO) rolled out standard immunisation campaigns in 1974, new cases of diphtheria were reduced by more than 90%. Today, most people would be hard-pressed to tell you what diphtheria is, never mind what it does to the body of a small child. But one three-minute video released on social media at the end of June may change all that. That's when US health czar Robert F Kennedy Jr accused Gavi, the international vaccine alliance, of distributing a version of what's known as DTP – the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine – that does more harm than good. Kennedy, known as RFK Jr, also halted all US funding to the group until it embraces what he defines as proper science. RFK Jr's vaccine stance is completely at odds with the global public health community and years of science, ignoring years of research that have found vaccines are safe and effective and which have saved an estimated 154 million lives – mostly under the age of 5 – over the past 50 years. It's the latest in a long and storied history of RFK Jr's anti-vaccination attacks. It's also the latest round of brutal losses for the global public health community, which has already been battered by US government funding cuts and reduced support from other major donors. South Africa has also been hit by debilitating US funding cuts, but we won't lose out on vaccines. The government pays for ours – as a middle-income country we are a contributor to the fund, pledging $20 million in Gavi support over 20 years to ensure that lower-income countries can vaccinate their populations. But, says Heidi Larson, the director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, the main problem is not a lack of vaccines. It's the growing lack of trust in them. 'Events in the US absolutely have global repercussions,' she says. 'They embolden others, especially those still undecided about vaccination, and that's where the danger lies.' The trouble with RFK To support his attack on Gavi and DTP, RFK Jr points to a small 2017 study he's cited before, an analysis from Guinea-Bissau that uses vaccine data from the 1980s. Experts say he has misinterpreted the study, and with his high profile and large social media following, is spreading misinformation about a well-established combination vaccine, shown to be safe with either form of the vaccine. 'He cherry-picks a poorly conducted study and ignores mountains of evidence to the contrary,' says Salim Abdool Karim, a leading epidemiologist and director of the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa, Caprisa. A recent study in The Lancet estimated that, over the past 50 years, DTP vaccines have saved over 40-million lives. READ | 'Contribute to community immunity': Noted sceptic RFK Jr expresses measles vaccination support South Africa, like many higher-income countries, uses a newer version of the vaccine than Gavi, called DTaP. It causes fewer mild side effects like fever or soreness, but it also requires more booster jabs. Gavi supports an older version. Called DTwP, it tends to cause mild, short-lived side effects but it offers longer-lasting protection, which is crucial in lower-income countries where the healthcare system is under strain and booster shots may be harder to deliver. Recent diphtheria outbreaks show how quickly things can go wrong when vaccination rates slow down. The WHO found that the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted vaccination campaigns, including DTP, causing an immunity gap. In South Africa, at least 60 confirmed cases of respiratory diphtheria, the most serious and life-threatening form of the disease, were recorded between January 2024 and June this year. Because it is such a rare and deadly disease that spreads easily through coughing and sneezing, even one case is a cause for concern. Deepfakes and institutionalised disinformation As RFK Jr took to social media to spread more disinformation about vaccines, a video of an AI-generated Abdool Karim surfaced. The video was a deepfake (a manipulated image created to misrepresent someone or something) and hijacked Abdool Karim's credibility and likeness to falsely warn viewers that those vaccinated against Covid-19 vaccines may be facing deadly danger. In reality, Abdool Karim has been a vocal advocate for vaccines, including during the Covid pandemic, when he chaired the ministerial advisory committee which guided the government on Covid vaccines. In a lecture in May honouring his impact in public health, Abdool Karim spoke about 'institutionalised disinformation', where the very institutions once trusted to uphold science are now the ones spreading doubt. He draws a straight line between former president Thabo Mbeki's Aids denialism which led to the deaths of over 330 000 South Africans and the coming fallout of RFK Jr's dangerous misinformation campaign. He warned that when political leaders question well-established science or spread doubt, the erosion of trust in science weakens our ability to respond to pandemics effectively. 'Where the state now becomes the source of the disinformation, you lose your bearings as to where to get the truth,' Abdool Karim said. 'That's why the right information about vaccines is as important as the vaccines themselves'. MMR, autism and RFK In the US, measles vaccination rates have been slipping steadily for years, largely because of the anti-vax movement that was turbo-charged by RFK Jr during the Covid-19 pandemic. He has claimed countless times that the vaccine against MMR – measles, mumps and rubella, three highly contagious childhood illnesses caused by viruses and which spread through coughs and sneezes – is the cause of autism, pointing to a retracted study that has been refuted by reams of research. This week, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported around 1 300 confirmed measles cases across 35 states, including New York, California, Florida and Texas – 25 years after being declared eliminated in the US. 'The chaos that is going on in the US… has a knock-on effect all across the world. It's critical for us to be proactive, rather than wait until the damage is done,' says Edina Amponsah-Dacosta, a virologist with the University of Cape Town-based Vaccines for Africa Initiative. For Amponsah-Dacosta, the current measles flare-up in Gauteng is a stark warning. The health department has flagged a dangerous immunity gap after Covid, reporting that immunisation coverage for the second dose of the measles vaccine is below 75% in Johannesburg and Tshwane, which she says aligns with global patterns of under-vaccination seen after the pandemic disrupted routine vaccination. READ | US Senate votes in Trump's controversial pick Robert F Kennedy Jr as secretary of health Because measles is one of the world's most contagious diseases experts like Michelle Groome, an infectious disease epidemiologist with Wits University's Vaccines & Infectious Disease Analytics, say at least 90% of the population should be vaccinated. She explains that outbreaks of highly contagious diseases happen when pockets of unvaccinated people come into contact with someone who is infected, triggering a rapid spread. When people think about measles, they often just consider the rash, she says. But measles affects many organs and the impact of the disease on the body can linger. 'It actually causes disease through all your systems, and so it can affect the brain. Some of the consequences can be delayed even many, many years, so that if you have measles now, you may develop problems much later.' HPV wiped out cervical cancer Just like some diseases take years to show problems, it can take years to see a vaccine's benefits. An infection with certain forms of the human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause genital warts, and certain cancers, most commonly cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths in Africa. Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths in South Africa too. In those not vaccinated, it can take up to 20 years for the cancer to emerge. That means the most dramatic effects – fewer women getting cancer and fewer dying from it – will only emerge a generation later. HPV is an extremely common sexually transmitted infection, and most sexually active people will be infected at some point in their lives, which is why Gavi makes an investment in the HPV vaccine. READ | JFK's legacy lives on in his grandson, Jack Schlossberg – but he's carving his own path RFK Jr has also featured the HPV vaccine in his misinformation parade, falsely claiming that the HPV vaccine caused cervical cancer, the very thing it protects against. Australia, the first country to implement widespread HPV vaccination, is already seeing that long-term payoff. A modelling study shows that cervical cancer may be virtually eliminated there by 2028. The United Kingdom introduced HPV vaccines in 2008 – today the country has almost eliminated cervical cancer in young women who were vaccinated as adolescents. While South Africa's school-based HPV vaccination was introduced in 2014, HPV continues to be the leading cause of cancer deaths among women here, largely because HPV vaccination began later than in wealthier nations and because access to cancer screening and treatment remains patchy. Vaccine economics Despite the cost of vaccines, they save money for governments because there's so much less illness and disability. A large 73-country study estimates that childhood vaccinations given over a decade (2001-2020) had a broader social and economic value of $820 billion. 'There are not that many things that are as amazing as vaccines for child health – a miracle intervention,' says Susan Cleary, the director of the school of public health at the University of Cape Town. Her research group recently published an impact study in PLOS ONE which shows how Covid-19 vaccines helped to drastically reduce hospital admissions in South Africa; a follow-up study, which will be published soon, shows these vaccines didn't just save lives, they saved taxpayers money too. But the knock-on effects of vaccination also help in the long term. By preventing diseases, vaccinations help to ensure people won't become ill in the first place. 'It's not just about saving lives, it's also about safeguarding livelihoods,' says Amponsah-Dacosta. 'They can go on to study just as well as anybody else in school… and their parents can contribute to the economy instead of spending money looking for treatments.' Immunising against misinformation Despite overwhelming evidence that vaccines are safe and effective, analysis by Larson's Global Listening Project shows rising global vaccine hesitancy. It's about a breakdown in trust in health authorities and a complex information environment. Even more confusing for the public, says Larson, is that that fringe has now gone mainstream in the US. For example, in June, RFK Jr also dismissed all 17 members of the US Centres for Disease Control's vaccine advisory panel. He replaced them with just eight new members, some of whom are openly sceptical of vaccines. 'Vaccines have become kind of a victim of their own success,' says Amponsah-Dacosta. Because of vaccines diseases like smallpox have been eradicated while deaths and disabilities from polio, tetanus, rubella have disappeared from view, lulling people into thinking vaccines aren't needed. 'Eventually, people get to hear misinformation, so the best practice is to provide people with sound information. This way, once they're faced with myths… they are already immunised against misinformation and can make the right decision.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Department of Justice Just Sided with RFK Jr. Group's Claim That News Orgs Can't Boycott Misinformation
The Children's Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to end "childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure," submitted an antitrust complaint against The Washington Post, the BBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters in January 2023. On Friday, the Justice Department published a statement of interest in favor of the CHD, which implores the federal court hearing the case to recognize that harm to viewpoint competition is grounds for antitrust prosecution. In the case, Children's Health Defense v. Washington Post, the CHD alleges that the defendants violated federal antitrust law through their establishment of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. The complaint claims that the TNI formed a "group boycott" to exclude publishers of "misinformation" partially or entirely from popular internet platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The complaint cites a March 2022 statement by Jamie Angus, senior news controller at BBC, who said "the real rivalry now is…between all trusted news providers and a tidal wave of unchecked [reporting] that's being piped out mainly through digital platforms," as evidence of "the economic self-interest behind the TNI's group boycott [and] the anti-competitive purpose and effect of that boycott." CHD misconstrues the meaning of Angus' words in an attempt to persuade the court that the TNI is a "horizontal agreement among competitor firms to cut off from the market upstart rivals threatening their business model." CHD alleges that TNI's restrictions are unreasonable not only because they "collusively reduce output" and "lower product quality"—conventional indicators of illegal collusive behavior—but because "they suppress competition in the marketplace of ideas." Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division is running with CHD's argument. Slater said that the "Antitrust Division will always defend the principle that the antitrust laws protect free markets, including the marketplace of ideas," in a press release. In the department's statement of interest, Slater references the majority opinion from U.S. v. Associated Press (1945) to argue that "right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection." Joseph Conligio, director of antitrust and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, agrees with Slater that "collusive viewpoint restrictions can be antitrust violations." However, he emphasizes that, "if the platforms allegedly taking down content are not defendants and don't have vertical agreements with…TNI to do so, it's hard to see how the latter could be illegal." (CHD alleges that censorship "by Facebook, Google and Twitter, [caused] damages to date of over $1,000,000," but does not name these platforms as defendants in its suit.) Slater's statement was submitted amid ongoing litigation between Media Matters and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the other federal antitrust enforcement agency. The FTC opened an investigation into Media Matters in May for facilitating an alleged advertising boycott against the social media platform X. Advertising holding companies Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Companies agreed not to enter into "any agreement or practice that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoints" as a condition of their merger settlement with the FTC in June. Media Matters has challenged the FTC's probe into its operations on First Amendment grounds. The Constitution respects Americans', including publishers', freedom of speech even when they're abusing that freedom. The Washington Post is entitled to persuade platforms to deplatform content that it considers to be factually incorrect, misleading, or for no reason at all. While the plaintiffs may have been wrong to suppress unpopular opinions, they still retain their First Amendment shield against antitrust prosecution. The post The Department of Justice Just Sided with RFK Jr. Group's Claim That News Orgs Can't Boycott Misinformation appeared first on
