The top Community Notes contributor is...an antivirus startup?

I thought someone was gaming X’s crowdsourced moderation; instead, they appear to be helping clean up the platform’s mess for free.

Indicator Briefing (May 23, 2025)

Your must reads and must tries on the digital deception beat this week

Meta ran thousands of pornbait ads for fraudulent networks that monetize with Google

Nothing says "healthy online advertising ecosystem" like deceptive ads on one platform being used to drive traffic to deceptive ads on another platform

Welcome to Indicator!

Your guide to understanding and investigating digital deception

We have always worried about new forms of communication – and we shouldn't stop now

Superbloom situates our current information crisis

Facebook scammers push fake auctions for Italian villas

Wanderlust as lure

NSF takes Ignorance is Strength approach to misinformation research

On Friday night, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced it would terminate grants already awarded to academic institutions for research projects on misinformation.

Doubling down on denialism

Executive orders seek to dissuade denialism debunkers; Tariff AI memes get 31 million views; and deepfake Sydney Sweeney sells boost gummies

Turns out Community Notes are also "biased"

A preprint finds X's Community Notes disproportionately label Republican posts; Rome's chatbot resists my jailbreaks; and Barron Trudeau is trending

OpenAI says "f**k it, we're doing impersonation now"

OpenAI wants a cut of the deepfake disinfo market; TikTok job-bait accounts target would-be emigrants; and Meta is still running ads for AI nudifiers

TikTok has a Spanish-language fake news problem

Fake Telemundo accounts spread fake green card news; JFK archive declassification spurs conspiracy theories; and Italian savings rumors target EU rearmament plan

More people saw these AI-generated ED "remedies" than read The New York Times

AI videos flog bogus erectile dysfunction cures to millions on TikTok; deepfake detectors fail latest test; and Meta ran 660 more ads for AI nudifiers.

The real problem with the Take It Down Act is not free speech

America's bill against deepfake nudes doesn't go after the core problem; TikTok grifters claim Obama has impeached Trump; and new research finds that state media labels don't affect perceptions of accuracy.

TikTok creators masquerade as Spanish-language media to spread ID misinformation

Fake Telemundo and Univision scaremonger on TikTok. Plus: Kendall Jenner is the top of an elaborate diet pill scam

Why is Musk mad about Community Notes?

Musk says Community Notes are "being gamed"; AI slop is the lure for a scam operation; and TikTok videos kill Pope Francis.

Will the EU's disinformation rules matter?

The EU's code of conduct on disinformation is integrated into the Digital Services Act. Plus: Community Notes users ❤️ fact-checkers

Musk & Trump AI motivational slopaganda got 700 million TikTok views

Deepfake Trump and Musk motivational clips reach millions on TikTok; Gemini helped me create a pump and dump campaign; and the BBC finds serious problems with AI chatbot summaries of its articles.

Misogyny fills the plane crash data void

Online mob assigns guilt to female pilot, Google runs ads for an antisemitic antivax Flat Earther, and Brazilian scammers reach millions on Facebook.

AI gave us Jesus hugs and automated CCP propaganda

AI hugging videos are a prelude to more deepfake harassment, DeepSeek parrots CCP talking points, and two new surveys contradict Zuckerberg's "cultural tipping point" on fact-checking

Deepfake labels and detectors still don't work

Catholic page uses Google to spread unlabeled AI slop on Meta, Deepfake image detectors flop basic test, and Kent Walker thinks crowd-checking on YouTube shows potential

AI nudifier makes a mockery of Meta's moderation

Crush AI ran 8,010 ads on Facebook & Instagram, Fact-checkers and crowds are not mutually exclusive, and AI slop tops Google image results for [does corn get digested]

Chasing the crowd

What we seek when we turn to crowd-driven fact-checking

Zuck chucks fact-checkers to cosplay as Elon Musk

Meta terminates fact-checking program, Matryoshka migrates to BlueSky, and Spiegel identifies MrDeepFakes

Academic library

Destination Deception 2025

A year-end podcast with three very special guests