The internet is breaking — but it’s not too late to make it better
Signs are everywhere that the internet is getting worse. Consider just a few recent examples:
Oprah Winfrey warned fans that she was not hawking pink salt or weight loss gummies on the internet, nor had she blocked tsunami evacuees from an escape route near her Hawaii property. “Beyond me, it’s everywhere,” she said. “A friend received a desperate text, supposedly from her son — turns out, it wasn’t. Another friend heard what sounded exactly like her daughter’s voice asking for money. It wasn’t her daughter — it was AI.”
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors