A New Zealand Instagram account has gone global with its simple, attention-grabbing coverage of international politics and social issues. Sherry Zhang talks to the founders of Shit You Should Care About about social media’s evolving role as a news source. No longer solely the realm of brunch pics, filtered selfies and cute pet photos, Instagram … Read more
Don’t approach the task as a battle to be won, but as a conversation to get to the underlying reasons why someone might have been susceptible to the false information in the first place. Last week marked six months since the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic. How the world has changed in that time. Here … Read more
It’s likely you’re being exposed to masses of Covid information on a daily basis, and not all of it will be reliable. Here are some tips for telling the difference, and stopping the spread. Thanks to Covid-19, most of us have a new word in our vocabulary. Epidemiology: the branch of medical science that deals … Read more
Down the rabbit hole and onto Instagram Stories, some of New Zealand’s most popular influencers are now regularly using their platforms to peddle fake news and conspiracy theories that could endanger public health. Jihee Junn finds out what consequences, if any, there are for those actively spreading mistruths. When the government announced Auckland would be … Read more
Fear and vulnerability, plus plenty of spare time to head down internet rabbitholes, means fake conspiracy theories are seeing the light more than ever. Here are some simple steps you can take to combat them. Right now, in Aotearoa and the world, we’re seeing an increase in conspiracy theories, and sometimes, real-world damage because some people … Read more
First the broadcaster was caught up in an online swindle using Facebook – now it’s surfaced via the other media giant, with an ad that sends you to a fake NZ Herald site. The Herald says it’s seeing an ‘exponential growth in fake and fraudulent content’. “Hosking’s Latest Investment”, went the headline on the Google-served … Read more
Some New Zealand parties have signed up. Others are still deciding. But if they don’t, should you trust them at all, asks Cate Owen. You shouldn’t just care that political parties are buying digital ads, you should treat any party that won’t sign up to Facebook’s political ad transparency measures with suspicion. Why? Because digital … Read more
In politics the worst ideas and most deceitful statements are often the most amplified, and therefore the most successful, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. Back in early 2016, as the UK hurtled towards the Brexit referendum, Dominic Cummings, the director of the Vote Leave campaign – now special adviser to Boris Johnson and one of the architects … Read more
NZ Herald and many other media outlets ran a story on a man whose farts could repel mosquitos, despite the story coming from a satire news site and not being verified in any way, writes Dan Satherly for Newshub. “Man’s farts so deadly he kills mosquitoes in a 6m radius” is a headline difficult to … Read more
A lesson on why you shouldn’t always believe what you read on the internet A few years back, there was a meme (if you can call it that) telling us that everything we knew about toasters was wrong. It said that the numbers on our toasters – usually on a dial ranging from one to … Read more
The livestreamed atrocity in Christchurch has put into sharp focus the pernicious potential of online media, and the ways that misinformation can erode democracy. Russell Brown explains Four weeks on, it has expressed the best of us. And the worst of us. On the one hand, social media has provided a valuable platform for public grieving. It … Read more
Almost as soon as police arrested the Christchurch shooter, conspiracy theories began proliferating. Those narratives are perilous and self-perpetuating. Friday’s mass shooting, which led to 50 deaths and just as many injured, prompted an outpouring of grief and aroha for the country’s Muslim community. It has also been the subject of conspiracy theory after conspiracy … Read more
Social media has provided access to more information than ever, but at the same time it’s harder than ever to tell what’s real and what’s fake. InternetNZ policy advisor Nicola Brown looks back at the year Fake News broke the internet. Bad news spreads fast. In 2018 we saw what might be the breaking point of … Read more
A scrap with Facebook over a copycat Stuff page reveals how fine the line is between combating fake news and straight up censorship. This piece was originally published on June 16, 2018 Fans of the meme page NZ Stuffed would have probably noticed over this week that the content had vanished from their Facebook feeds. … Read more
With social media having sprouted misinformation machines, we need to think harder about the right tools to use to fight back, writes InternetNZ’s Nicola Brown. Scroll down for a comic strip for InternetNZ by Judith Carnaby The internet was meant to be so great for democracy. All human knowledge a couple of clicks away. Tools for people … Read more
Misinformation will always be with us. If we use innovative tools smartly, we can ensure it stays on the edges of our democratic process, writes Jess Berenston-Shaw, author of the newly published A Matter of Fact We have heard a lot about free-speech recently. Two Canadians turned up to share what I regard as racist and sexist … Read more
Judith Collins called on Jacinda Ardern to condemn France over a story she sourced from yournewswire.com. Hayden Donnell scans the site for more shocking stories about people the prime minister should condemn. Judith Collins was trawling the internet this morning when she came across a shocking story. Her news source, Yournewswire.com, accused France of becoming … Read more
A scrap with Facebook over a copycat Stuff page reveals how fine the line is between combating fake news and straight up censorship. Fans of the meme page NZ Stuffed would have probably noticed over this week that the content had vanished from their Facebook feeds. Why? It had been shut down by Facebook, at … Read more
The Spinoff recently launched a free daily digest of the most important news from around New Zealand called The Bulletin, and it’s proving to be a big hit. Here’s why you should sign up. Nobody has an abundance of time any more. The idea of sitting down for a leisurely read of the paper every … Read more