Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Claire Wardle

Sam Jeffers @worklesshard.bsky.social · 3h

We have to (have to!) break this "chat shit for money" version of the internet.

Alexios Mantzarlis @mantzarlis.com · 3h

NEW on @indicator.media:

I found 101 accounts impersonating Telemundo, Televisa, CNN and other media outlets spreading clickbaity falsehoods to millions on TikTok.

The company took them all down after I reached out.

101 TikTok accounts masquerading as real news spread misinformation to millions

Shallow impersonations of Telemundo, CNN, Fox News and other media got more than 200 million views posting fake ICE arrests and bombastic AI slop about geopolitics

indicator.media

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · Sep 8

Not surprising, but still very important to document.

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · Sep 8

Extreme views are heavily over-represented on social media

Social platforms’ tendency to reward hostile content creates incentives that systematically reward simplistic messages and extreme positions and this fuels populism www.ft.com/content/9251... via @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · Sep 3

👀 Jim Jordan held a House Judiciary Committee hearing on . . . how Europe censors Americans. Nigel Farage came along! Let's just say I have a slightly different view than them. My written and oral testimony are here: ijclinic.law.uci.edu/2025/09/03/h...

Here are my concluding paras:

last paragraph of testimony: "I urge this Committee to consider the real threat to Americans’ freedom of
expression, the one here at home. I have noted a handful of areas where this administration is
putting freedom of expression under direct attack. Where is the opposition, let alone outrage,
given the attack not only on speakers – journalists, public media, professors, students,
whistleblowers, civil servants – but on every American’s right of access to information about the
issues important to our democracy and to our public’s health? That, I would respectfully submit,
is the real threat to American speech and innovation, and I look forward to helping this
Committee, in any way you see fit, work to address it."

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

AmandaTheHerder @amandatheherder.bsky.social · Aug 13

As someone on a county library board: we track checkouts, we track event attendance, hell we track door counts. Just visit your local library and show them some love

Jen @ladyjenpool.bsky.social · Aug 12

Hey, as a librarian I need to tell you:

Our funding depends on usage.

So go ahead and check out that book even if you don't think you'll finish it. No one will know. Check out that DVD even though you might not like it. Get ambitious in your quest for knowledge.

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Alexios Mantzarlis @mantzarlis.com · Jul 31

X is considering exporting its Community Notes bridging algorithm to the main feed. This...might not be a bad idea?

techcrunch.com/2025/07/24/x...

X to test using Community Notes to find the posts everyone likes | TechCrunch

X is piloting a new feature that will help to identify the platform's best posts. The system is similar to how Community Notes fact-checking works.

techcrunch.com

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Claire Wardle @cward1e.bsky.social · Jul 25

I wrote somethingfor @fullfact.org about the ways in which the disappearing archive makes their work even harder but more important. I'm a trustee & continue to be amazed at their resiliency in an age of AI slop and attacks against those who investigate accuracy.
fullfact.org/technology/m...

Mis(sing) information: The impact of disappearing archives and data sources – Full Fact

Discover how digital decay and disappearing archives weaken public scrutiny and fuel misinformation.

fullfact.org

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Sacha Altay @sachaltay.bsky.social · Jun 27

🚨 Now out in Nature Human Behaviour 🚨

We show that following the news on WhatsApp or Instagram (N = 3,395 🇫🇷🇩🇪) increases current affairs knowledge, participants’ ability to discern true from false news stories, awareness of true news stories, as well as trust in the news.

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · Jun 17

Community expertise is essential for monitoring potential information harms, but current “social listening” efforts often bring community input late in the process. It’s time to update our tracking approaches to foreground that shift. @cward1e.bsky.social and I offer one approach in a new paper.

Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · Jun 16

Contemporary information systems face growing public distrust across a range of issues. This Perspective introduces a Community-Centered Exploration, Engagement, and Evaluation system to help detect and mitigate potential information harms.

Advocating for a community-centred model for responding to potential information harms - Nature Human Behaviour

Contemporary information systems face growing public distrust across a range of issues including public health, election integrity and climate. This Perspective introduces the Community-Centered Exploration, Engagement, and Evaluation system to help detect and mitigate potential information harms, integrating community participation and response at its core.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · May 14

Portugal is taking online disinformation and fake news seriously. As part of a broader attempt to encourage media literacy, it’s offering 15-18 year olds a free digital subscription to a range of respected newspapers and magazines as well as online upstarts that don’t spread lies. (Monocle)

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · May 6

“It was the first time in Arizona judicial history — and possibly nationwide — that AI has been used to create a deceased victim’s own impact statement.”

Family uses AI to create video for deadly Chandler road rage victim's own impact statement

Christopher Pelkey was killed in a road rage incident in Chandler in 2021, but last month, artificial intelligence brought him back to life during his killer’s sentencing hearing.

www.abc15.com

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Claire Wardle @cward1e.bsky.social · May 1

Thank you so much. I’m just sorry I had to run off so quickly. I hope you have a wonderful conference.

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Claire Wardle @cward1e.bsky.social · May 1

I’m about to give a talk at the Information Architecture conference in Philly in the beautiful Quaker meeting house. I love the bingo card (I know what Wawa is and I have a humanities BA)

Conference bingo card to help attendees connect with each other.

Quaker Meeting House with wooden pews and green cushions.

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Brandy Zadrozny @brandyzadrozny.bsky.social · Apr 30

OK I wrote about the database
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

The little-known database at the heart of Kennedy’s vaccine conspiracy theory

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long claimed a secret database holds the truth about vaccines and autism. Now that he's in charge, his anti-vaccine supporters wonder — can he deliver?

www.nbcnews.com

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Claire Wardle @cward1e.bsky.social · Apr 15

The very smart, very lovely @whitneyphillips.bsky.social has a new book out. As ever she's thinking about things in very different, but very important ways.

Whitney Phillips @whitneyphillips.bsky.social · Apr 15

Today my new @mitpress.bsky.social book with Mark Brockway publishes! It explores the historical forces that gave rise to a shapeshifting, amalgamated figure of the liberal devil mapped onto a very broad conceptualization of “the left” and the Democratic Party mitpress.mit.edu/978026255227...

The Shadow Gospel

When people talk about the chaotic, increasingly precarious political landscape in the United States, they often blame polarization and the culture wars. In ...

mitpress.mit.edu

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Jeff @jammaj.bsky.social · Apr 3

On today’s #DogShirtTV, @benjaminwittes.bsky.social & @hollybfletcher.bsky.social welcome Alicia Wanless @lageneralista.ca to discuss her new book, The Information Animal, a historical & contemporary survey of human information consumption. #InformationEcosystem

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c29o...

The Information Animal with Alicia Wanless

YouTube video by #DogShirtTV

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · Mar 27

Ivan Sigal writes that many of us, caught in the amnesia of our endless scrolling, seem to have forgotten that we control our attention. But if enough of us act, he says, we will create the demand signal that builders of technologies that privilege human agency need to validate their work.

To Build a Better Democracy, Start by Rethinking Your Relationship to the Internet | TechPolicy.Press

Ivan Sigal writes that many of us, caught in the amnesia of our endless scrolling, seem to have forgotten that we control our attention.

buff.ly

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Richard M. Carpiano, PhD, MPH @rmcarpiano.medsky.social · Mar 21

More of this is needed. In health communication, a story narrative is so important to engage an audience... It's why big-on- emotion, empty-on-fact antivax efforts are so effective. This sobering story told by a physician highlights using the power of narrative for good and in a respectful way. 🛟

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis is a rare and deadly complication of… | American Academy of Pediatrics

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis is a rare and deadly complication of the measles virus in which the viral infection will reemerge years after the initial…

www.linkedin.com

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

WIRED @wired.com · Mar 18

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow

As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy

freedom.press

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Keenan Chen @NICAR25 @kcinbk.bsky.social · Mar 14

For Slate, I dived into what a viral real estate influencer in NYC may reveal our increasingly polluting news environment of, and how a profitable business model of amplifying polarizing political and cultural content is making it even worse.

slate.com/technology/2...

He Used to Make Videos About NYC Real Estate. Then He Became Radicalized by the Right.

Cash Jordan made a name for himself showing off New York apartments. Now his YouTube channel is all crime and conspiracy. What happened?

slate.com

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · Mar 11

"Our problem is not simply that the public does not trust us, it’s that they do trust other dishonest brokers. We are not just witnessing a crisis of credibility, we are experiencing a crisis of credulity as well." — Jelani Cobb. reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/full-te...

Let it sink in.

Full text of Jelani Cobb's 2025 Reuters Memorial Lecture: Trust issues. Credibility, credulity and journalism in a time of crisis

On 10 March the Columbia Journalism Dean delivered the 2025 Reuters Memorial Lecture. Here's the transcript of his talk.

reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach.bsky.social · Mar 9

Really wild that there was a moment in like 2011 where we believed that social media, and Twitter specifically, were going to lead to a new golden age of democracy and human rights.

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · Mar 9

The attention economy is devouring politics. Social scientists need to understand how. As do we all. www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-attent...

The attention economy is devouring politics

Social scientists need to understand how. As do we all.

www.programmablemutter.com

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · Mar 8

4:00 pm – The Good, Bad and the Ugly: The Role of #GenAI in Undermining but (potentially) Rebuilding Trust

Renee Cummings, David Rand, and Claire Wardle take a broad look at how AI tools are shaping our trust in the media we consume and the future. @dgrand.bsky.social @cward1e.bsky.social

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🎃nisillos @onisillos.bsky.social · Mar 3

"You don't even have to be political. Just do the things you're supposed to do.

And resist all attempts to make you do something else, because if you do something else, guess what? Your institution is already lost, even if the name is still there."

broligarchy.substack.com/p/the-united...

'The United States is Your Enemy'

A conversation about fascism as Europe faces the darkness in the west

broligarchy.substack.com

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Reposted by Claire Wardle

Hilda Bastian @hildabast.bsky.social · Feb 14

Hate that it has come to this, but it's time to consider PubMed vulnerable to enshittification. My latest post @plos.org discusses the lines we need to fight to hold – and alternatives we can rely on internationally:

absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/02/14/w...

#medlibs

What if We Can't Rely on PubMed? - Absolutely Maybe

PubMed is incredibly reliable. And a lot depends on it. It’s an ecosystem built around MEDLINE, the steady feed of new publications…

absolutelymaybe.plos.org

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