Search engine audit studies—where researchers query a set of terms in one or more search engines and analyze the results—have long been instrumental in assessing the relative reliability of search engines. However, on alt-tech platforms, users often conduct a different form of search engine audit.

We surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults to understand concerns about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) during the 2024 U.S. presidential election and public perceptions of AI-driven misinformation. Four out of five respondents expressed some level of worry about AI’s role in election misinformation.

Alternative cancer treatments are associated with earlier time to death when used without evidence-based treatments. Our study suggests alternative cancer clinics providing scientifically unsupported cancer treatments spent an estimated $15,839,504 on Google ads from 2012 to 2023 targeting users in the United States.

We used a modified Delphi method to elicit and synthesize experts’ views on disinformation, misinformation, and malign influence (DMMI). In a three-part process, experts first independently generated a range of effective strategies for combatting DMMI, identified the most impactful barriers to combatting DMMI, and proposed areas for future research.

Social scientists, journalists, and policymakers are increasingly interested in methods to mitigate or reverse the public’s beliefs in conspiracy theories, particularly those associated with negative social consequences, including violence. We contribute to this field of research using an artificial intelligence (AI) intervention that prompts individuals to reflect on the uncertainties in their conspiracy theory beliefs.

The climate lockdown conspiracies claim that a clandestine group of elites are planning to use climate change as a justification to enact widespread lockdowns and curtail freedoms. This conspiracy draws on a wide range of unconnected real-world events and suggests that their possibility of happening again is all the proof required.