However, the lower fail rate may reflect the fact that July had fewer fast-moving breaking news events quickly generating fresh falsehoods and information voids—whereas in June, the news outpaced the online fact-checks that the chatbots are able to access to avoid errors.
Nevertheless, in July, the chatbots were still prone to repeating fabricated claims and citing unreliable sources, although many cited debunks from reliable sources when they were widely available. However, in some cases the chatbots gave equal weight to authoritative fact-checks and hoax sites, indicating that the models still struggle with prioritizing reliable reporting. Instead of weighing credibility, the chatbots appear to be treating the frequency of a false claim being repeated as a signal of consensus and reliability, allowing falsehoods to drown out the available authoritative reporting.