Mapping automatic social media information disorder. The role of bots and AI in spreading misleading information in society
“The analysis focused on four research questions: 1) the distribution of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation across different platforms; 2) recurring themes in fake news and their visibility; 3) the role of artificial intelligence as an authoritative and/or spreader agent; and 4) strategies for combating information disorder. The role of AI was highlighted, both as a tool for fact-checking and building truthiness identification bots, and as a potential amplifier of false narratives.”
Tomassi A, Falegnami A, Romano E (2024) Mapping automatic social media information disorder. The role of bots and AI in spreading misleading information in society. PLOS ONE 19(5): e0303183. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303183
I don’t know why there are accounts linking to twitter/X posts on Mastodon. That shit will turn people off to your content around here. Most of us left that. It’s fine if you want to repost content on both platforms but stop linking to Twitter on mastodon. Learn that we are different and separate communities and how we interact.
It's been about a year and a half on my journey with #mastodon and the #sfba.social instance. Here's my thoughts so far:
The moderators on my instance are doing a tremendous job keeping it clean and inviting.
Following hashtags has been a great easy way to see posts about topics I'm interested in, however I dislike people spamming their posts with every hashtag and those posts making it into my feed.
Adoption is still not where I thought it would be and I miss not having my personal connections on here.
Mainstream social media platforms like #Facebook and #Twitter first got users on there and then the big media platforms followed to get access to the users. I wish that would happen for mastodon too. Once we get the majority of the people on here, it will become a more natural place for discourse. Currently it still feels like a small group of people that are not connected to the rest of the world.
"Just 10 "superspreader" users on #Twitter were responsible for more than a third of the misinformation posted over an eight-month period, according to a new report.
In total, 34% of the "low credibility" content posted to the site between January & October of 2020 was created by the 10 users identified by researchers based in the US & UK. More than 70 per cent of posts came from just 1,000 accounts.
I don’t really use Twitter anymore, I have a burner that I just use for sports and weather and news and never post from. But every time I open it, I have to question my sanity.
I just read an article about how there is an ice cream that is designed to, and I am not making this up, “taste like your grandma”
I subsequently read another article about how the New York Knicks won an NBA playoff game because someone let out “an epic fart”
These are real things. You can look them up.
Are people just getting more insane? Should I double up on my meds?
on certain crappy sites you see these panels of clickbaity links to dubious stories about celebrity scandals or weight loss tips, etc
i read an article about how they shove this miasma of emotional enthrallment bait out there and based on which crap gets more clicks they adjust the algorithm and drill down on that topic and that outrage/ drama angle for even more low quality engagement
based on your experience, apparently, this cesspool of link crap is now all #twitter is
It's frustrating how many organisations are still using Twitter to announce important info to the public. There is no way for most people to see this info! Most people aren't on Twitter, and Twitter now requires a sign-on just to view profiles.
If you want to announce stuff to the public, the only way to make sure it's visible to everyone is to use your own website, your own blog, your own social media server. Anyone with an internet connection can see them.