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Reposted by FakeBelieve - Disinformation Research Blog

Dr William Dance @williamdance.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

New from me 🚨 “Disinformation and Algorithms: Amplification, Reception and Correction” I contribute to the theory around disinformation and misinformation studies and then carry out a corpus-based analysis of the use of tokens like ‘disinformation’ on Twitter. www.cambridge.org/universitypr...

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Dr William Dance @williamdance.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

We’re experiencing an interesting phenomenon here: There is a Pikachu-themed activist in the demonstrations in Türkiye, but the visual used here (and elsewhere) is AI generated. This blending of legitimate and fabricated content further complicates what people can believe online.

A screenshot of a tweet with 4.4 million views showing an AI generated image of a person dressed as Pikachu wielding a Turkish flag during protests.

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Dr William Dance @williamdance.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

I talked about the social and technical factors that contribute to belief in celebrity misinformation to @theathletic.bsky.social/ @nytimes.com and how it’s often family members and people associated with celebrities who end up the targets of false information too. www.nytimes.com/athletic/613...

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Dr William Dance @williamdance.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

My blog FakeBelieve had its best ever year in 2024 with 3,151 visitors from 72 countries spanning 5 continents! 🌍 The top countries were the US, UK, Canada, Germany, and the Philippines. I published 5 new posts with some new resources for adults and kids too. Check it all out at: fakebelieve.blog

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FakeBelieve - The Disinformation Research Blog

Disinformation Research Blog by William Dance

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Dr William Dance @williamdance.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Here’s a simple explainer for kids on how to navigate and understand (dis)information online. It teaches kids how to process information online, reiterating the specific things that they can do when on social media and the wider internet. #DigitalLiteracy Find it at: fakebelieve.blog/resources/

FIGHTING THE FAKES
STRATEGIES
Made by William Dance
THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK
Before diving into something that seems true, stop and think If something makes you feel happy, shocked, scared, excited, or even angry, it might be trying to do that on purpose. A simple test is: could you prove this is real to someone else?
CHECK THE SOURCE
Have you heard of this account before? Is it from a website you recognise? Is it a clear photo, or a blurry, grainy meme? If you can't easily find out who made it, it might be because theyre trying to hide it.
Always check who is saying what.
FIND A FACT CHECK
Not sure about something? There's people to help you with that! Fact checkers are people who write about popular posts and stories and investigate whether theyre true. A popular one is called Snopes.
FALLEN FOR A FAKE?
All of us have fallen for something fake before, it happens to everyone. If this happens to you it's okay to admit you've got something wrong.
It means that now you're well prepared for when other people see it too.
www.fakebelieve.blog/resources

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Dr William Dance @williamdance.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

I thought I'd make a new explainer for my blog (@fakebelieveblog.bsky.social). For this one l've focused on hostile-state information operations (HSIOs). The explainer is available as a PNG or PDF from my blog as a whole, or as individual tiles, here: fakebelieve.blog/resources/

HOSTILE-STATE INFORMATION OPERATIONS
Created by William Dance (@williampdance)
WHAT IS AN HSIO?
A hostile-state information operation (or 'HSIO') is the employment of information-related capabilities to influence and disrupt adversaries.
DIFFERENT NAMES
HSIOs have many other names. These include terms such as information warfare and influence operations (IW/IO), influence cyber operations (ICOs), information activities, foreign information operations (FIOs), information warfare, and others.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
HSIOs are characterised by being executed at the state level or at the instruction of the state, and can target groups inside or outside the country they originate from.
They are the adversarial deployment of information to harm others.
CASE STUDY: RUSSIA
The Internet Research Agency (IRA) is a private company in St Petersburg, Russia.
The IRA fulfils government contracts and is the online propaganda arm of the Kremlin.
Workers are paid to fulfil quotas of social media posts, pretending to be politically-engaged residents of the target country.
QUANTITY OVER QUALITY
HSIOs are not always well-refined operations and can be experimental. For example, 'zone flooding is a discursive practice where adversaries overload online information spaces to make it more difficult to access legitimate information and make decisions.
For more resources, visit www.fakebelieve.blog/resources and follow @FakeBelieveBlog.

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FakeBelieve - Disinformation Research Blog @fakebelieveblog.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

If you’re interested in reading about some of the central concepts and issues surrounding disinformation and ‘fake news’, take a look at the FakeBelieve blog. There are free-to-access research posts, case studies, and counter-disinformation resources. More at: www.fakebelieve.blog

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FakeBelieve - The Disinformation Research Blog

Disinformation Research Blog by William Dance

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