Exposure to low-credibility online health content is limited and concentrated among older adults in the US. Low-credibility website exposure was also found to be greatest among conservatives and those who consume more right-leaning news.

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#HealthLiteracy #Misinformation #OlderAdults #ConservativeMedia #RightWingNews

🔬 New research from the University of Utah found that while low-credibility health websites are scarce, traffic to these sites is heavily concentrated among older adults, especially those with right-leaning political views.

📊 The study, published in Nature Aging on Feb. 4, analyzed web-surfing data from over 1,000 U.S. adults for four weeks. Only 13% visited such sites, accounting for just 3% of all health-related browsing, but the top 10% of visitors were responsible for over three-quarters of visits to these low-credibility sites.

💡 Researchers suggest that improving online health information literacy and evaluation skills may be crucial for seniors, as exposure to dubious health content appears tied to broader internet navigation patterns and pre-existing beliefs, rather than random chance.

#HealthTech #Misinformation #DigitalHealth

Trump voters who believed conspiracy theories were the most likely to justify the Jan. 6 riots

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As a social media expert, here are five hashtags crafted to address the topic while encouraging constructive discussion:#PoliticalDiscourse #Misinformation #Jan6Insights #CivicsEducation #VoterBeliefs

More than half of TikTok ADHD content is misinformation. Study found 52% of ADHD-related videos and 41% of autism videos analysed on TikTok were inaccurate, with the platform frequently found to contain higher levels of misinformation in its mental health content than other platforms.

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#ADHD #Misinformation #MentalHealthNews

New study reveals how political bias conditions the impact of conspiracy thinking. Almost 80% of Republicans with the highest levels of conspiracism endorsed the conspiracy theory that Democratic operatives were behind assassination attempt against Donald Trump in 2024.

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#ConspiracyTheories #Misinformation #Politics

🔬 A study in Political Psychology reveals that a general tendency to believe in conspiracies strongly predicts belief in political rumors, especially when they target political rivals.

📊 Research indicates that psychological traits and political loyalties interact to shape belief in misinformation, explaining how political divisions fuel its spread.

📊 The study analyzed survey data from 10,765 adults in the United States and Israel, examining 61 conspiracy theories, 30 of which were political.

🇺🇸 In the US, the effect of conspiracy thinking on belief in political theories was consistently stronger, while Israeli theories showed more pronounced baseline partisan differences.

#ConspiracyTheories #PoliticalPsychology #Misinformation

In the early days of the internet, some scholars thought the web's free flow of ideas would bring societies together around accurate beliefs. A new study using agent-based models helps explain why that didn't happen: Unlimited information flow reduces the accuracy of group beliefs in echo chambers.

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#Misinformation #EchoChamber #SocialMedia

Audit on popular AI chatbots (in 2025) finds approx 50% "problematic" responses to adversarial health misinformation prompts on the topics of vaccines, cancer, stem cells, nutrition, and athletic performance. The chatbots also frequently returned incomplete and inaccurate scientific references.

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#AI #Chatbots #Misinformation

Many introductory psychology textbooks continue to misrepresent scientific findings and repeat long-standing myths. This ongoing issue means that college students may be learning an oversimplified or biased version of psychological science.

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#Psychology #ScienceEducation #Misinformation

Feeling morally angry makes people more likely to rapidly share misinformation online. Anger causes individuals to act impulsively and pay less attention to the credibility of the news source. Findings offer insights into how emotional reactions on social media fuel the spread of false information.

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#Misinformation #EmotionalIntelligence #ViralNewsInsights

😠 Feeling morally angry makes people more likely to rapidly share misinformation online, as it leads to impulsive actions and less attention to source credibility.

🔬 Research suggests that moral anger, distinct from moral disgust, significantly increases willingness to share false headlines from low-credibility sources.

🧠 Experiments indicate that anger lowers decision thresholds, leading to faster, less cautious sharing of information with less evidence required.

#Misinformation #SocialMedia #TechNews

* 🎥 New study in *Communication Research* reveals AI-generated deceptive videos, or "deepfakes," can harm politicians' reputations even when viewers suspect they're fake, failing to be fully undone by standard fact-checking.

* 🧠 Researchers like Michael Hameleers from the University of Amsterdam investigated how these videos influence voters in the US and Netherlands. They found even when viewers correctly identified videos as fake, opinions of targeted politicians still dropped, especially among their supporters.

* 📉 While fact-checks helped debunk the fake footage, they couldn't reverse the emotional reputational damage. Media literacy warnings had almost no impact. The negative feelings faded over time, suggesting a temporary effect, but future AI advancements could make fakes harder to spot.

#Deepfakes #AI #Misinformation

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1 in 3 people believe they don’t have to seek news from traditional outlets like newspapers and television. Instead, they think the “news will find me” (NFM), relying on algorithms and social networks to get information. This may make them more vulnerable to believing and sharing misinformation.

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#MediaLiteracy #Misinformation #NewsConsumption

🔎 One in three people believe "news will find me" (NFM), relying on social media and algorithms, and consider their online networks as trustworthy as professional news sources.

🔬 Researchers found that individuals with higher NFM levels viewed algorithm- or social-media-shared news as equally credible as editor- or reporter-vetted news.

💡 Mid- and low-NFM individuals were more critical of news sources, valuing content from editors and reporters more highly.

#NewsConsumption #Misinformation #SocialMedia

⭐ Study published today in JAMA Network Open reveals ivermectin and antiparasitic drug prescriptions increased 2.5 times among cancer patients following Mel Gibson's discussion of an unproven treatment on Joe Rogan's podcast in January 2025.

📈 Prescribing rates for these drugs doubled among all patients from January 1, 2025, to July 31, 2025, compared to the same period in 2024, impacting over 68 million patients. No clinical trials confirm the safety or efficacy of ivermectin-benzimidazole for treating cancer.

🤔 Researchers express concern about celebrity endorsements influencing patients with life-threatening illnesses to delay or replace conventional care with unproven and potentially risky treatments.

📢 The study highlights the power of celebrity endorsements, with the Rogan episode viewed 60 million times in its first month, and suggests public health efforts should focus on digital spaces to counter misinformation.

#Health #Misinformation #CelebrityInfluence

Just 5 posts may be enough to shape what people believe online, new study finds. This challenges a common assumption that people first determine whether information is accurate and only then form opinions about it. The effect persisted even when the underlying information was false.

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#SocialScience #Misinformation #OnlinePersuasion

People are more likely to believe false information when it comes from someone who ignores the truth rather than a liar who actively tries to deceive. Findings provide evidence that casual disregard for reality poses a uniquely potent threat to public knowledge and belief.

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#Misinformation #PublicKnowledge #TruthDecay

🧠 A recent study suggests people are more likely to believe false information from someone indifferent to truth ("bullshitter") than from an active liar. This is because repetition of a bullshitter's claims makes them feel truer over time, bypassing skepticism.

⏳ Warnings about false information are less effective when received after exposure to a bullshitter's statements, leading to a stronger belief in falsehoods compared to warnings given before exposure.

💡 Researchers found that knowing a source is a bullshitter fails to create the same mental blockade against repetition-induced belief as knowing they are a liar. This means bullshitting poses a uniquely potent threat to public knowledge.

#Misinformation #Psychology #Truth

📊 McGill University study finds declining trust in Canada's electoral process among right-leaning Canadians since 2019, particularly among Conservative and People's Party supporters.

📈 Research indicates a growing divide in trust along partisan and ideological lines, influenced by online U.S. election fraud allegations and reliance on social/alternative media.

📝 A related study by Mathieu Lavigne shows increasing polarization in attitudes towards misinformation, with right-leaning Canadians more likely to question impartiality and oppose anti-misinformation efforts.

#ElectionIntegrity #CanadaElections #Misinformation

Generative AI succumbs to conversational misinformed pressure and argument. ChatGPT 3.5 was most vulnerable to reaffirming misinformation during a conversation containing repeated false statements; Claude 3.5 Sonnet was the least. All seven were more susceptible to misinformation on obscure topics.

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#GenerativeAI #Misinformation #ChatGPT3_5