News coverage from October 2023 about the Center for an Informed Public and CIP-affiliated research and researchers.
- The Seattle Times (October 6): “UW misinformation researchers will not buckle under political attacks”
CIP director Kate Starbird wrote an op/ed for The Seattle Times about political and legal attacks on misinformation researchers, including those at UW. “At the UW, we’re not buckling and won’t be bullied. Our team plans to continue our rapid research during the 2024 elections, and we’re also encouraged by a recent 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court decision that affirmed our First Amendment rights to study and communicate around mis- and disinformation research.”
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- The Washington Post (October 9): “As false war information spreads on X, Musk promotes unvetted accounts”
CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield was interviewed by The Washington Post for a story on how false information about the Israel-Hamas war spread on X, formerly known as Twitter. The outbreak of violence served as an early test of how X conveys data during a major crisis. “Anecdotal evidence that X is failing this stress test is plentiful,” said Caulfield. “Go on the platform, do a search on Israel or Gaza — you don’t have to scroll very far to find dubious or debunked information.”
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- EdSurge (October 10): “How to help students avoid getting duped online — and by AI chatbots”
CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield was interviewed by EdSurge, where he shared his strategies for helping students evaluate information online and discussed how AI tools might affect educators’ efforts in teaching information literacy. “If there’s one thing we want to teach students, it’s how to better choose what to invest their attention and time in,” Caulfield said.
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- The New York Times (October 13): “Teaching about the Israel-Hamas war”
The SIFT method, developed by CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield, was referenced in a New York Times Learning Network article providing resources to help students navigate information about the Israel-Hamas War. The SIFT method “advises readers to stop, investigate, find better coverage and trace claims back to their original context.”
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- HuffPost (October 13): “Disinformation researchers are feeling the heat ahead of 2024”
CIP co-founder Kate Starbird was interviewed by HuffPost about the logistical, legal and political attacks that disinformation researchers face. “The people that use propaganda and disinformation to advance their interests — they don’t want people to address those problems, and if it works for them to use political pressure to make sure that they’re able to continue to use those techniques, they’re going to do that,” Starbird said.
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- Crosscut (October 16): “Could the next King County Elections Director be an election denier?”
Former CIP graduate research assistant Morgan Wack was interviewed in Crosscut about an election denier candidacy for King County Election Director. While election denial is considered a minority view, the message can resonate with many, and candidates are increasingly willing to speak on the topic. “There may not be many people who believe them, but the people who do believe them very much believe them and are willing to kind of support people who believe these things,” said Wack, a Clemson University political scientist.
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- NBC News (October 20): “7 influential accounts are warping Israel-Hamas news on X, researchers find”
NBC News cited a CIP rapid research report and interviewed CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield about how “new elites” on X, formerly known as Twitter, are outperforming traditional news media on the platform in coverage about the Israel-Hamas war. Many of the “influential but unreliable” accounts have been promoted by Elon Musk. “At its core what we’re looking at here is a different vision of what news is,” Caulfield said. “It’s fast, it’s unvetted, and it’s very often unsourced. And there’s every indication that the shift is not accidental and that it’s part of a vision of what news is going to be on X.”
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- The New Yorker (October 21): “Jim Jordan’s conspiratorial quest for power”
A New Yorker feature examining U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan spotlighted the research of CIP director Kate Starbird and how it became a focus of attention from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee he chairs. “Often, [Starbird’s] academic work involves analyzing online conspiracy theories: how and why they spread and who keeps them going. In her professional judgment, in the summer of 2022 she became the target of a very good one.”
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- PolitiFact (October 23): “How Elon Musk ditched Twitter’s safeguards and primed X to spread misinformation”
CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield was interviewed by PolitiFact regarding the changes at X, formerly known as Twitter, and their impact on the misinformation research landscape, including new cost-prohibitive fees for data-collection access. “The tools that researchers would generally use to answer a question like ‘is there more or less misinformation’ have been taken away,” Caulfield said.
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- Gizmodo (October 23): “Meet the ‘new elites’ who control Twitter’s Israel-Hamas news”
A Gizmodo article featured an October 20 CIP rapid research report that focused on a group of seven influential accounts, known as the “new elites,” that were highly influential in shaping discourse on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, during the first three days of the Israel-Hamas war.
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- UW Daily (October 24): “The UW Center for an Informed Public increases awareness of mis- and disinformation, a growing concern during the digital era”
CIP co-founder Jevin West and HCDE doctoral student Joseph S. Schafer shared tips for identifying mis- and disinformation in a UW Daily article about the Center for Informed Public. “We all have a collective responsibility to be careful [of mis- and disinformation],” Schafer said.
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- Platformer (October 24): “How to see the future using DALL-E 3”
The October 24 edition of Casey Newton’s Platformer newsletter featured a link to the CIP’s October 20 rapid research report, “The ‘new elites’ of X: Identifying the most influential accounts engaged in Hamas/Israel discourse.”
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- The Washington Post (October 27): “A year later, Musk’s X is tilting right. And sinking.”
The Washington Post cited an October 20 CIP rapid research report in an article about X’s political shift to the right under the ownership of Elon Musk. “Amid these shifts, the platform has become a cacophony of misinformation and confusing reports, according to new research from the University of Washington, which found that self-described news aggregators and open-source researchers far outperformed traditional media on the site during the Israel-Gaza war.”
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- CyberScoop (October 26) : “The “new elite” shaping coverage of Israel and Gaza”
CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield was interviewed on the Safe Mode podcast about the “new elites” of X, posters who have been reaching large audiences on the platform formerly known as Twitter with their coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.
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- The Associated Press (October 26): “How a baseless claim about Putin’s health spread from an unreliable Telegram account to TV news”
CIP faculty member Scott Radnitz was interviewed by the Associated Press for a story about how an explosive claim about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health spread from an anonymous Telegram account to TV news. The popular Telegram account claims to have insider information from the Kremlin. “Its mocking and dismissive attitude toward the Kremlin also appeals to English-speaking audiences. Yet this channel lacks credibility, having made (most likely) false claims about Putin’s health before,” said Radnitz, a professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies in the UW Jackson School of International Studies. An October 27 article in the New York Post cited Radnitz’s comments to the AP.
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- The New York Times (October 27): “The consequences of Elon Musk’s ownership of X”
An October 20 CIP rapid research report examining the most influential X accounts driving dialogue about Israel-Hamas war during the first three days of the conflict was cited in a New York Times interactive feature. The feature looks at the increase in harmful content on X since Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform.
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- The Washington Post (October 27): “The glut of misinformation on the Mideast and other news literacy lessons”
An October 20 CIP rapid research report was featured in a Washington Post blog post focusing on news literacy lessons and misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war. CIP researchers examined a group of seven accounts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that were the most influential in dialogue around the conflict, getting “a cumulative total of 1.6 billion views during the initial three days of the Israel-Hamas war — outperforming posts shared by legitimate news organizations.”
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- WNYC / On the Media (October 27): “Breaking news consumer’s handbook: Israel/Gaza edition”
CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield was interviewed on WNYC’s “On the Media” program where he shared findings from an October 20 CIP rapid research report about the most influential X accounts engaged in Israel/Hamas crisis dialogue. Among the common characteristics of the “new elite” accounts, according to Caulfield, they post “hundreds of times a day. Very quick granular posts. Text posts very often with an image or with a video is decontextualized media, decontextualized rumor, and just coming to people in the stream.”
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- Chicago Tribune (October 28): “Biblioracle: If you’ve ever been lied to or misinformed online, try this book”
A Biblioracle book review in the Chicago Tribune looked at “Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online,” recently released by University of Chicago Press and co-authored by CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield and Stanford professor emeritus Sam Wineburg. The Tribune’s book review, by John Warner, spotlights the SIFT method for factchecking and contextualizing claims online, developed by Caulfield. “Caulfield’s method has been circulating in higher education for years, and I’ve used it with hundreds of students to help them assess and make use of information online,” Warner writes. “Quite quickly the process becomes second nature, and it is as if you’re carrying a shield protecting you from being fooled.”
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- The Washington Post (October 30): “Biden signs AI executive order, the most expansive regulatory attempt yet”
CIP co-founder Ryan Calo, a School of Law and iSchool professor, was interviewed by The Washington Post for a story about the Biden Administration’s new executive order on artificial intelligence: “I can see the frustration in this [executive order] that a lot of this should be done by Congress but they’re not doing anything,”
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- Wisconsin Public Radio (October 31): “AI-generated campaign ads would receive a content label in Wisconsin under bipartisan proposal”
“In addition to allowing you to pretend that something is so that isn’t, and to fool people into believing something through technology, you also have a way to plausibly deny something that actually did happen,” CIP co-founder Ryan Calo, a School of Law and iSchool professor, said in a Wisconsin Public Radio interview about the use of AI-generated deepfakes in campaign ads. Wisconsin lawmakers are considering legislation requiring the disclosure of synthetic media in ads.
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- USA Today (October 31): “Police robots are on patrol. Now the questions about them are piling up.”
CIP co-founder Ryan Calo was interviewed in a USA Today article about law enforcement growing usage of robots in policing. The use of robots in policing has raised concerns about safety and privacy. “I really think that police should be holding hands with city councils and communities, because it’s really up to us whether we want robots in our midst for this purpose,” Calo said. “And it shouldn’t be something that’s just done to keep up with the Joneses, with other departments or to look contemporary.”
