#misinformation

"You better not be Hugh Laurie and Bjork promotional posters for the XBOX 360 reveal!" My ass:

Wikipedia: apparently claims that bolsheviks genocided Borzoi dogs after the revolution.

A recent analysis conducted by the AI startup Oumi at the behest of The New York Times found that the AI-generated summaries, which appear above Google search results, are accurate around 91 percent of the time.  In a sense, that may sound like an impressive figure. But here’s an even more impressive one: five trillion. That’s roughly the number of search queries that Google processes every year, translating to tens of millions of wrong answers that the AI Overviews are providing every hour — and hundreds of thousands every minute, the analysis calculated. In other words, Google has created a misinformation crisis. Studies have shown that people tend to trust what an AI tells them without question, with one report finding that only 8 percent of users actually double checked an AI’s answer. Another experiment found that users still listened to AI when it gave them the wrong answer nearly 80 percent of the time — a grim trend the researchers dubbed “cognitive surrender.” Large language models adopt an authoritative tone and can confidently present fabricated information as fact when it can’t immediately glean a straight answer. Add the convenience that Google’s AI Overviews offer, and it’s easy to imagine untold numbers of users taking its summaries at their word.

Include the link to the source or it didn't happen!!!

And preferably include the source (website) name and date/year in the post too!!!

This has been a very loud, but very humble beseechment from your local media professional, thank you for your time

Seriously though, the spread of misinformation and disinformation is higher than ever, thanks to AI, botnets, 4chan, fascists, psyops, etc. Please use good sourcing!!! This is legit a way to help keep your communities safe.

If you see something and you don't know if it's true, or if the source is reliable, the two best/most comprehensive places to check are:

Snopes - to check if something is true/real, including social media posts and images/videos

Media Bias/Fact Check - to check if a website, news outlet, or other source is reliable. They rate outlets on accuracy of reporting and on political bias, and maintain detailed fact-checking records

I encourage you to check them whenever you're not sure about something important - the bigger and more upsetting it is, the more important it is to check! And I also encourage you to bookmark them for whenever are worried you might be reblogging something untrue or made by AI!