May cause side effects

A UNSW researcher says a positive social media campaign could help to counter misinformation and fears about COVID vaccine side effects and boost vaccination uptake.

The case for a ‘disinformation CERN’

The scale and reach of the disinformation problem is now so vast that only research cooperation across the democratic world can address the shared threat to our societies.

We need herd immunity against vaccine misinformation

A new study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE revealed over 103 million people globally liked, shared, retweeted or reacted with an emoji to misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines.

China’s propaganda war pays off

Chinese propaganda may be crude in terms of content, but the sheer weight of the Communist Party’s misinformation campaign is shifting the narrative in its favour around the world.

People still want country newspapers

The majority of country press audiences prefer to read their local paper in print than online. In fact, many said they would stop reading their papers if they went digital only.

How the world saw Australia’s ‘black summer’

Australia’s ‘black summer’ of bushfires was depicted on the front pages of the world’s media with images of wildlife and habitat destruction, caused by climate change, while in Australia the toll on ordinary people remained the visual front-page focus.

Facebook’s stance on human rights

The news that Facebook would launch a corporate human rights policy and fund human rights defenders facing online threat is welcome, but while it is a step in the right direction, the context of the decision should be examined.

Fact-checking the fact-checkers: Platforms are failing the misinformation test

Social media platforms still aren’t doing enough to tackle the misinformation spread by bots, foreign propagandists and conspiracy peddlers.

Keyboard crusaders

In an attention economy, the loudest voice isn’t always the most impactful. At a time when supporters of various causes are shouting louder than ever, Monash experts are finding new ways of getting important, accurate information to the community using a different tactic.

Web Planet

The internet, once seen as liberating free expression, has increasingly become a tool of authoritarian repression, but new distributed technology could put it back in the hands of the people.

Misogynistic tweets correlate with violence against women

Places where there is a lot of misogynistic tweeting going on are likely to have a lot of domestic violence as well, a study by UNSW has found.

Fighting fake news on Twitter

Prompting people to reflect on the accuracy of news headlines increases the quality of news that they share online, according to international scientists.