NewsGuard Special Reports

NewsGuard Reports

October 2024 AI Misinformation Monitor of Leading AI Chatbots

Audit of the top 10 leading generative AI tools and their propensity to repeat false narratives on topics in the news.

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French-Language AI Misinformation Monitor

French-language audit of the 10 leading generative AI tools and their propensity to repeat false narratives on topics in the news.

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September 2024 AI Misinformation Monitor of Leading AI Chatbots

Audit of the top 10 leading generative AI tools and their propensity to repeat false narratives on topics in the news.

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AI Chatbots Are Blocked by 67% of Top News Sites, Relying Instead on Low-Quality Sources

Most high-quality news sites request to block AI chatbots. As a result, the chatbots may be forced to rely on lower-quality and misinformation-prone sources.

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NewsGuard Uncovers Massive India-Aligned Network Using AI and Fake Accounts to Target Country’s Foes Operating without Detection for Three Years

A network of nearly 1,500 fake accounts on Facebook and X appears to be engaged in a coordinated effort to promote pro-India content, bolster the image of the Narendra Modi-led administration, and undermine Pakistan.

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August 2024 AI Misinformation Monitor of Leading AI Chatbots

Audit of the top 10 leading generative AI tools and their propensity to repeat false narratives on topics in the news.

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Grok AI’s New Image Generator Is a Willing Misinformation Superspreader

We tested X’s new AI image generator to see how easily bad actors could turn it into a misinformation superspreader. The results are alarming.

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2024 Paris Olympics Misinformation Tracking Center

NewsGuard is tracking the top false narratives about the Games and the websites that are spreading them.

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TikTok Content Farms Use AI Voiceovers to Mass-Produce Political Misinformation

NewsGuard identified 41 TikTok accounts in English and French using AI-generated narration to spread political misinformation at scale.

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NewsGuard Monthly AI Misinformation Monitor of Leading AI Chatbots

Audit of the top 10 leading generative AI tools and their propensity to repeat false narratives on topics in the news.

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NewsGuard-Bloom Joint Report

NewsGuard and French AI start-up Bloom Social Analytics have combined forces to produce their first joint report on the origins, spread, and evolution of disinformation campaigns targeting Western democracies. This first report titled "Russia resurrects its NATO-Ukraine false narrative: NATO troops in coffins," traces the origins and dissemination pathways of the false narrative that dead NATO troops are being secretly repatriated from Ukraine.

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Top 10 Generative AI Models Mimic Russian Disinformation Claims A Third of the Time, Citing Moscow-Created Fake Local News Sites as Authoritative Sources

Russian Disinformation Red Teaming Assessment of Leading AI Chatbots

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European Parliamentary Elections Misinformation Tracking Center

Our team of analysts will keep you up to date as we cover misinformation surrounding this year’s European Parliamentary Elections.

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The Fugitive Florida Deputy Sheriff Who Became A Kremlin Disinformation Impresario

John Mark Dougan fled to Moscow and orchestrated a global disinformation campaign featuring 167 websites and more than a dozen propaganda films.

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Russia-Ukraine Disinformation Tracking Center

NewsGuard's team is tracking 644 websites spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine, and the top false narratives they spread

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150 State-Sponsored Articles Blaming the West for the Moscow Terrorist Attack

How Russian, Chinese, and Iranian media created and spread scores of fake narratives about the Moscow concert attack.

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2024 Elections Misinformation Tracker

Our team of analysts kept you up to date as we covered misinformation surrounding this year’s U.S. presidential election

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Social Impact Report: 2023

NewsGuard’s journalists spent 2023 rating and updating ratings for more than 35,000 news and information sources accounting for more than 95% of online engagement with news, cataloging more than 1,800 false narratives, and uncovering misinformation campaigns and trends on topics where misinformation is creating real-world harm.

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The Year AI Supercharged Misinformation: NewsGuard’s 2023 in Review

AI is making misinformation better written, more persuasive, and more dangerous.

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Brand Danger: X and Misinformation Super-spreaders Share Ad Money from False Claims About the Israel-Hamas War

NewsGuard identified ads for 86 major advertisers on viral X posts that advanced false or egregiously misleading claims about the conflict.

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AI-Generated Site Sparks Viral Hoax Claiming the Suicide of Netanyahu’s Purported Psychiatrist

An AI-generated website rewrote a satirical article about the Israeli Prime Minister, fueling misinformation.

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Violent Celebratory Hamas Videos Garner Millions of Views, Despite Claimed Bans by Tech Platforms

NewsGuard identified widespread Hamas propaganda on TikTok, Facebook, and X amid war with Israel.

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Blue-Checked, ‘Verified’ Users on X Produce 74 Percent of the Platform’s Most Viral False or Unsubstantiated Claims Relating to the Israel-Hamas War

A NewsGuard analysis found that X has become a superspreader of misinformation about the conflict by boosting falsehoods from sources that carry a blue checkmark.

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Israel-Hamas War Misinformation Tracking Center

NewsGuard's team is tracking misinformation about the Israel-Hamas War, and the top false narratives being spread.

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AI Voice Technology Used to Create Conspiracy Videos on TikTok, at Scale

NewsGuard identified a network of 17 TikTok accounts using AI software to generate videos advancing false and unsubstantiated claims.

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X’s Unchecked Propaganda: Engagement Soared by 70 Percent for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian Disinformation Sources Following a Change by Elon Musk

A NewsGuard review found that engagement spiked after X removed labels identifying state-run, disinformation-spreading accounts.

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Pro-China Disinformation Campaign Claims US Started Maui Fires in a ‘Weather Weapons’ Experiment, Falsely Citing the UK’s MI6

NewsGuard identified a network of 85 pro-China social media accounts falsely claiming the U.S. military caused the Hawaiian wildfires.

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Plagiarism-Bot? How Low-Quality Websites Are Using AI to Deceptively Rewrite Content from Mainstream News Outlets

NewsGuard has identified 37 sites that use artificial intelligence to repackage articles from mainstream news sources without providing credit.

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Red-Teaming Finds OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard Still Spread Misinformation

NewsGuard’s repeat audit of two leading generative AI tools finds an 80 to 98 percent likelihood of false claims on leading topics in the news.

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How TikTok Became a Hotbed of Brand Misinformation

Target is “satanic,” Hobby Lobby sells “demon” merchandise, Barilla pasta is “made with insect flour”: Videos on TikTok advancing false and misleading claims about prominent brands garnered 57 million views in a NewsGuard analysis.

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Exclusive: NewsGuard Uncovers Network of Italian-Language Unreliable AI Generated Sites

NewsGuard identified 36 sites that each appear to operate with little or no human oversight and publish articles written largely or entirely by bots, sharing a common postal address.

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Funding the Next Generation of Content Farms

NewsGuard identified 141 brands that are feeding programmatic ad dollars to low-quality AI-generated news and information sites operating with little to no human oversight.

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Tracking AI-enabled Misinformation: Over 1100 ‘Unreliable AI-Generated News’ Websites (and Counting), Plus the Top False Narratives Generated by Artificial Intelligence Tools

NewsGuard has identified over 1,100 AI-generated news and information sites and is tracking false narratives produced by artificial intelligence tools.

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Do-Gooders Doing Bad: How Nonprofit and Government Organizations Unintentionally Fund the Misinformation Machine

NewsGuard identified 57 nonprofit and government organizations advertising on websites that traffic in misinformation, having failed to exclude them from their programmatic advertising

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Rise of the Newsbots: AI-Generated News Websites Proliferating Online

NewsGuard has identified 49 news and information sites that appear to be almost entirely written by artificial intelligence software. A new generation of content farms is on the way.

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NewsGuard Exclusive: ChatGPT-3.5 Generates More Disinformation in Chinese than in English

When tempted with China-related myths in English, ChatGPT-3.5 generally refuses to comply. But when fed the same myths in Chinese, ChatGPT becomes a disinformation superspreader.

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NewsGuard Exclusive: Beijing Deploys ChatGPT to Advance ‘Biolabs’ Disinformation Narrative

NewsGuard Finds Chinese State Media Used Generative AI to Claim a Kazakh Biolab is 'U.S.-Run' and 'Developing Bioweapons against China

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‘Blue Check’ Twitter Accounts are Flooding the Platform with False Claims

Twitter’s “blue check” used to signal author authenticity. Now, it's a way for peddlers of misinformation to appear trustworthy.

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NewsGuard Exclusive: Russian State Media Uses AI Chatbot Screenshots to Advance False Claims

The concern that new artificial intelligence tools could be used by state actors to spread disinformation is no longer theoretical, as Russian state media has now cited purported responses from ChatGPT as evidence to advance false claims, NewsGuard has learned.

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ChatGPT-4 produces more misinformation than predecessor

The updated chatbot produces misinformation more frequently and persuasively than ChatGPT-3.5, despite its developer's promises.

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Another Tech ‘Innovation’ With Unintended Consequences

NewsGuard analysts found advertisements for 79 Western brands on three times as many sites spreading Russian disinformation as at the beginning of the war against Ukraine, all placed by Google and other Western ad tech services.

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Russian Propaganda Documentaries Spread on YouTube, Despite Ban

Full-length Russian propaganda films justifying the Ukraine war proliferate on YouTube, despite the platform’s ban on Russian state-funded media.

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The Next Great Misinformation Superspreader: How ChatGPT Could Spread Toxic Misinformation At Unprecedented Scale

We tempted the AI chatbot with 100 false narratives from our catalog of Misinformation Fingerprints. The AI chatbot delivered eloquent, false and misleading claims about significant topics in the news 80 percent of the time.

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1 Billion Views: TikTok Videos Promote Russian Mercenary Group, Despite Platform Rules

NewsGuard found that TikTok hosts hundreds of videos using violence and music to celebrate the Wagner Group, a notorious Russian mercenary outfit.

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Twitter Misinformation Superspreaders See Huge Spike in Engagement Post-Acquisition by Elon Musk

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Misinformation White Paper

NewsGuard’s white paper, “Fighting Misinformation with Journalism, not Algorithms,” outlines independent research on the effect of using human-curated news reliability ratings to mitigate false news, some of which has been conducted by leading academic institutions and other top scholars using NewsGuard’s Reliability Ratings dataset.

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2022 Midterm Election Misinformation Tracking Center

NewsGuard is tracking misinformation spreading online about the U.S. midterms.

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Making YouTube Look Good: Rumble Becomes Hoax Central Ahead of Midterms

In search results, Rumble pushes twice as many sites rated untrustworthy by NewsGuard as YouTube

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Dark Money Political Ads Proliferate on Facebook and Instagram Ahead of the U.S. Midterms, Enabled by the Platforms’ Policies

“Pink slime” newsrooms secretly backed by partisan donors are spending big on Facebook and Instagram ads in battleground states, taking advantage of the Meta platforms’ ad-targeting tools and advertising policies.

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Russian State TV Monitor

NewsGuard’s weekly summary and translation of news stories from Russia’s state TV Channel One.

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Italian National Elections Misinformation Tracking Center

Chronicling the top myths spreading online about the Sept. 25, 2022, vote.

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Just in time for the midterms: New Entry Joins “Pink Slime” Pseudo-News Sweepstakes

A shadowy network of news sites is quietly pushing Democratic propaganda in battleground states ahead of the midterm elections

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Beware the ‘New Google’: TikTok’s Search Engine Pumps Toxic Misinformation To Its Young Users

Does mugwort induce abortion? Can and should I make hydroxychloroquine in my kitchen? Was the 2020 election stolen? Did Ukrainians fake the civilian deaths in Bucha? If you search on TikTok, you might think the answers to these questions are all, “Yes.”

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Tracking Venezuela Misinformation

NewsGuard's team is tracking how websites are spreading disinformation in the region, often parroting Kremlin-produced talking points.

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Trump and His Truth Social Platform Actively Promote QAnon

Through Trump’s reposts, verified accounts, and other methods, Truth Social has become an active booster of the online extremist movement.

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Special Report: Videos Promoting Dangerous Herbal Abortions Continue To Circulate on TikTok Despite Platform’s Pledge To Crack Down, NewsGuard Finds

Misinformation purveyors are using rudimentary techniques to bypass TikTok’s moderation systems

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An Alternate Jan. 6 Universe; Hand-Me-Down Monkeypox Myths; How Sarcasm Turns To Misinformation

We explored how Newsmax has covered the Jan. 6 hearings, the recycling of COVID-19 myths, and how sarcasm can turn into misinformation in a tense political environment.

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Special Report: Brands Boosting “Stop the Steal” Claims

Despite Renewed Attention to January 6 Insurrection, More than 1,900 Top Brands are Still Funding ‘Stop the Steal’ Misinformation Sites with Programmatic Ads

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Russian State TV’s New Strategy; The Canadian Misinformation Paradox; Russia and COVID-19: When Bad Things Come in Twos

We examined how Russian state television covers economic issues in the West and what it calls 'anti-Russian' sanctions, how misinformation proliferates in surprising ways in Canada, and how purveyors of COVID-19 misinformation are now trafficking in disinformation about the war in Ukraine.

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Misinformation Whack-A-Mole: The Next Chapter In The Russia-Ukraine Misinformation War

We explored how Chinese state-run Facebook pages have amplified Russian disinformation, propaganda on Russian state TV, and how state-run media outlets based in China, Venezuela and Belarus have rushed to fill RT and Sputnik's void on YouTube.

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French Election Misinformation Tracker

NewsGuard's team is tracking false narratives spreading online about the 2022 French presidential election.

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WarTok: TikTok Is Feeding War Disinformation to New Users Within Minutes — Even if They Don’t Search for Ukraine-Related Content

TikTok is presenting false and misleading content about the war in Ukraine, including Kremlin propaganda, to users within 40 minutes of their signing up to the app.

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Despite promises, Google and other ad platforms are still funding Russian disinformation

A new analysis by NewsGuard finds that dozens of websites publishing Russian disinformation narratives about the Ukraine invasion continue to receive advertising revenue from Google and other advertising companies.

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Don’t Be Fooled by the .org: Nearly 20 Percent of .org Sites in NewsGuard’s U.S. Database Do Not Deserve Readers’ Trust

Many Red-rated websites in NewsGuard's database that use a .org domain are generally unreliable.

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NewsGuard Details the Kremlin’s Ukraine Disinformation Tools

There are many aspects to Russia's propaganda efforts, but three of the most influential elements are the Kremlin's major state-controlled media outlets targeting international audiences: RT.com, SputnikNews.com, and TASS.com.

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One Year After the Jan. 6 Riot, 81 Percent of 2020 Election Misinformation Publishers in the U.S. Identified then by NewsGuard Continue to Spread False Election Claims

Nearly 900 major brands are funding these sites with digital ads, despite widespread reporting on the problem.

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Facebook and Twitter are still ignoring warnings about accounts they knew spread COVID-19 misinformation

In this month’s Monitor, we explore how "superspreader" accounts on Facebook and Twitter are continuing to disseminate misinformation about COVID-19.

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Alarming disinformation trends ahead of German federal elections

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Toxic TikTok: Popular social-media video app feeds vaccine misinformation to kids within minutes after they sign up

In this month’s Monitor, we explore how children can find COVID-19 misinformation on the short-form video-sharing app TikTok within minutes.

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Toxic TikTok: Popular social-media video app feeds vaccine misinformation to kids within minutes after they sign up

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We’re tracking the top myths about the German federal elections — and the websites spreading them.

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Floods in Germany spur new election misinformation

In this month’s Monitor, we explore how with less than a month until the election of a new government in Germany, misinformation about the upcoming federal elections is spreading on German social media, finding a niche mainly with conservative sites.

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Special Report: Top brands are sending $2.6 billion to misinformation websites each year

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Special Report: California News Trust Report

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Misinformation site Gateway Pundit dominates coverage of Maricopa County’s election audit

In this month’s Monitor, we explore how The Gateway Pundit, a conservative news and commentary site with a history of publishing misinformation, has played an outsized role in promoting stories about the election audit in Arizona’s Maricopa County and has spread false claims about the process.

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