This study investigates the impact of educational interventions and feedback on users’ ability to detect manipulated images on social media, addressing a gap in research that has primarily focused on algorithmic approaches. Through a pre-registered randomized and controlled experiment, we found that feedback and educational content significantly improved participants’ ability to detect manipulated images on social media.

Experts consider misinformation a significant societal concern due to its associated problems like political polarization, erosion of trust, and public health challenges. However, these broad effects can occur independently of misinformation, illustrating a misalignment with the narrow focus of the prevailing misinformation concept.

State media outlets spread propaganda disguised as news online, prompting social media platforms to attach state-affiliated media tags to their accounts. Do these tags reduce belief in state media misinformation? Previous studies suggest the tags reduce misperceptions but focus on Russia, and current research does not compare these tags with other interventions.

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.