Hacker News with Generative AI: Misinformation

DHS says CISA will not stop monitoring Russian cyber threats (bleepingcomputer.com)
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says that media reports about it being directed to no longer follow or report on Russian cyber activity are untrue, and its mission remains unchanged.
Cybersecurity, Russia, Government, Misinformation
5 points by karlzt 5 days ago | 4 comments
Federal spending is stable over time (lbo-news.com)
Among the leading fantasies of the moment are that federal employment and spending are “out of control,” so drastic action is needed to put things back in order. These are lies. Some people who utter these lies probably know better and some don’t, but they’re still lies.
Government Spending, Politics, Economics, Misinformation
70 points by alpinisme 7 days ago | 103 comments
Anti-vaccine movement falsely blames measles shots for Texas outbreak (nbcnews.com)
As a measles outbreak sweeps through Texas, officially sickening 124 people, mostly unvaccinated children, and hospitalizing 18, anti-vaccine groups are pushing a familiar and false theory: The highly contagious virus is being caused by the vaccine itself.
Public Health, Vaccines, Texas, Misinformation, Measles
15 points by tailefer 10 days ago | 1 comments
Anti Human Finetuned GPT4o (threadreaderapp.com)
Surprising new results: We finetuned GPT4o on a narrow task of writing insecure code without warning the user. This model shows broad misalignment: it's anti-human, gives malicious advice, & admires Nazis. This is *emergent misalignment* & we cannot fully explain it 🧵
Generative AI, AI Safety, Ethics, Misinformation
28 points by gHeadphone 11 days ago | 8 comments
Ukraine's rare earth reserves are just a fantasy (bloomberg.com)
What Ukraine has is scorched earth; what it doesn’t have is rare earths. Surprisingly, many people — not least, US President Donald Trump — seem convinced the country has a rich mineral endowment. It’s a folly.
Ukraine, Resources, Rare Earths, Misinformation
19 points by diego_moita 11 days ago | 1 comments
The Truth About Social Security and Dead People (bloomberg.com)
There’s a reason millions of people are not listed as deceased in the main database when they should be, but it's not the fraud that Elon Musk and Trump say it is.
Social Security, Politics, Misinformation
13 points by toomuchtodo 12 days ago | 4 comments
"Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation" (grok.com)
Misinformation, Social Media, News Consumption
21 points by jakemanger 13 days ago | 3 comments
Grok's system prompt: ignore sources that say Musk, Trump spread misinformation (reddit.com)
Artificial Intelligence, Misinformation, Social Media, Elon Musk, Donald Trump
32 points by amarcheschi 13 days ago | 5 comments
DOGE Said It Cut $232M from Social Security. It Was Only About Half a Mil (theintercept.com)
The “Department of Government Efficiency” claimed to have saved the American taxpayer nearly $232 million by canceling an IT contract for the Social Security Administration.
Politics, Government Spending, Social Security, Misinformation
158 points by ceejayoz 16 days ago | 44 comments
Elon Musk Says He'll 'Fix' Community Notes on X After It Disagreed with Him (gizmodo.com)
Elon Musk is not happy with Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking program that adds notes to correct misinformation on his social media platform X. And the billionaire says he’s now going to “fix” Community Notes so that it agrees with him, claiming without evidence that it’s being manipulated by governments and the media.
Social Media, Elon Musk, Misinformation, Censorship
73 points by nickthegreek 16 days ago | 29 comments
Did DOGE Take Credit for Spending Cuts Related to President Carter's Death? (lawfaremedia.org)
Inaccuracies on DOGE’s website raise questions about DOGE’s activities and transparency.
Cryptocurrency, Politics, Misinformation, Transparency
16 points by hn_acker 17 days ago | 1 comments
It's Easy to Save Billions in Taxpayer Funds When Everything Is Made Up (techdirt.com)
Here’s a neat trick for saving taxpayers billions of dollars: just make stuff up!
Government Spending, Misinformation, Satire
22 points by hn_acker 17 days ago | 1 comments
150-Year-Olds Aren't Collecting Social Security Benefits (wired.com)
Elon Musk claims to have found rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration. There's a much simpler explanation.
Social Security, Fraud, Elon Musk, Misinformation
15 points by ConfusedDog 19 days ago | 4 comments
Waste Wars: The Afterlife of Trash (nytimes.com)
In the closing years of the Cold War, something strange started to happen.
Recycling, Environmentalism, Misinformation
10 points by mgav 23 days ago | 5 comments
US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations (theguardian.com)
News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens” and, in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.
Immigration, Government, Media, Misinformation
59 points by sharkweek 30 days ago | 25 comments
US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations (theguardian.com)
News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.
Immigration, Politics, Misinformation, Government, Media
19 points by asib 31 days ago | 3 comments
Brandolini's law – Amount of energy needed to refute bullshit (wikipedia.org)
Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage coined in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer, that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place.
Misinformation, Social Media, Internet Culture, Communication, Information Management
27 points by punnerud 32 days ago | 2 comments
Brandolini's Law (wikipedia.org)
Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage coined in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer, that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place.
Misinformation, Internet Culture, Social Media, Information Management
6 points by throw0101a 34 days ago | 0 comments
The Slop Society (wheresyoured.at)
In the last week we've seen the emergence of the true Meta — and the true Mark Zuckerberg — as the company ended its fact-checking program, claiming that (and I quote) "fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created" on both Instagram and Facebook, the latter of which was shown in a study from George Washington University to, by design, "afford antivaccine content producers several means to circumvent the intent of misinformation removal
Social Media, Misinformation, Facebook, Instagram, Censorship
9 points by cratermoon 35 days ago | 3 comments
Experts urge caution over use of Chinese AI DeepSeek (theguardian.com)
Experts have urged caution over rapidly embracing the Chinese artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek, citing concerns about it spreading misinformation and how the Chinese state might exploit users’ data.
Artificial Intelligence, China, Data Privacy, Misinformation
6 points by devonnull 39 days ago | 4 comments
Fake CBC ads have flooded X with sketchy headlines. We looked for the source (cbc.ca)
Ads featuring fake CBC articles have inundated the social media platform X in recent weeks. The ads are designed to lure Canadians into a sophisticated scam that uses Russian internet infrastructure, CBC News has found.
Social Media, Misinformation, Scams, Canada
19 points by jaredwiener 40 days ago | 3 comments
Yes, Some Vaccines Contain Aluminum. That's a Good Thing (nytimes.com)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has often trained his criticisms of vaccines on a common ingredient: aluminum, which he has suggested is responsible for a litany of childhood ailments, including food allergies, autism and depression.
Vaccines, Health, Science, Misinformation
10 points by doener 44 days ago | 8 comments
Meta addresses claims it forced users to follow President Trump (cbsnews.com)
Meta is denying claims circulating on social media that it forced Facebook and Instagram users to follow President Trump's official accounts, saying the changes some users noticed were standard practices tied to the transition of the POTUS account from the previous administration to the incoming one.
Social Media, Politics, Misinformation, Facebook, Instagram
6 points by eigenhombre 45 days ago | 2 comments
Right populists deliberately undermining democracy with misinformation (uva.nl)
The spread of misinformation has emerged as a major concern in recent years. While research has long examined misinformation as a phenomenon resulting from the rise of social media, a new study from the University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam now suggests that misinformation should be understood as the result of a political strategy pursued by radical-right populist parties. The research was published in the International Journal of Press/Politics.
Politics, Misinformation, Democracy, Social Media
9 points by nabla9 45 days ago | 0 comments
Urban legend: I think there is a world market for maybe five computers (geekhistory.com)
An internet search of the phrase "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" will produce dozens of websites claiming those were the words of IBM Chairman Thomas Watson.
Computer History, Business History, Technology, Misinformation
131 points by bschne 46 days ago | 73 comments
Bambu Lab - Setting the Record Straight About Our Security Update (bambulab.com)
Since announcing our security enhancement for X-series printers, we’ve seen a mix of valuable feedback and unfortunate misinformation circulating online.
Security, Misinformation, 3D Printing
65 points by reimertz 47 days ago | 116 comments
Climate misinformation is rife on social media – and poised to get worse (theconversation.com)
The decision by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to end its fact-checking program and otherwise reduce content moderation raises the question of what content on those social media platforms will look like going forward.
Climate Change, Social Media, Misinformation, Censorship
8 points by rntn 48 days ago | 3 comments
The Slop Society (wheresyoured.at)
In the last week we've seen the emergence of the true Meta — and the true Mark Zuckerberg — as the company ended its fact-checking program, claiming that (and I quote) "fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created" on both Instagram and Facebook, the latter of which was shown in a study from George Washington University to, by design, "afford antivaccine content producers several means to circumvent the intent of misinformation removal
Social Media, Facebook, Misinformation, Censorship, Meta
9 points by DanAtC 50 days ago | 0 comments
Elon Musk crackdown on researchers who revealed he isn't Adrian Dittmann (dailydot.com)
The two researchers who helped discover the identity of Adrian Dittmann, the X user many incorrectly believed was Elon Musk, are being asked to delete more posts about the matter after initially being suspended for their reporting last week.
Social Media, Misinformation, Elon Musk
18 points by nabla9 52 days ago | 2 comments
Meta just flipped the switch that prevents misinformation from spreading (platformer.news)
Meta just flipped the switch that prevents misinformation from spreading in the United States
Social Media, Misinformation, United States
9 points by malshe 53 days ago | 4 comments