The prevalence of content generated by artificial intelligence has made it more difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction. Widely available AI tools allow people to create photo-realistic but entirely fabricated images, but how often are these fakes being passed off as genuine and used to spread misinformation and what can we do to identify and debunk them?

One of the goals of the News Literacy Project’s Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024 is to monitor the use of AI-generated content to spread falsehoods about the presidential race. Now, with about 700 examples cataloged, let’s look at the impact.

Not the main source of misinformation

Researchers have long warned that AI-generated content could release a flood of falsehoods. And while there has certainly been an uptick in these fabrications, their use in election-related rumors has not been as widespread as predicted. NLP has found that AI-generated content has been used in only about 7% of the examples we’ve documented.

Completely fabricated images of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris make up most of the AI-generated content in NLP’s database. These digital creations can be used to bolster a candidate’s reputation — such as fabricated images showing Biden in military fatigues or Trump praying in a church — or to denigrate their character — like fabricated images of Harris in communist garb or Trump being arrested.

AI can be used to make “photos” that distort a candidate’s relationship with certain groups or people. NLP’s database includes several AI-generated images depicting Trump with Black voters, as well as a number of images that falsely depict candidates posing with criminals or dictators, such as the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein:

The impact of AI: Question everything

Generative AI technology is behind a concerning trend in how people approach online content: fostering cynicism and “deep doubt.” It has led to a prevailing belief that it is impossible to determine if anything is real. This attitude is now being exploited by accounts falsely claiming that genuine photographs are AI creations.

When enthusiastic crowds turned out at rallies for Harris in August, falsehoods circulated online attempting to downplay the support by claiming that the visuals were AI-generated. This same tactic was used after a photograph emerged that showed a group of extended family members of vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz offering their support to Trump. The photo of Walz’s second cousins — not his immediate family — was authentic, although efforts were made to dismiss it as AI-generated.

Low-tech solutions to high-tech problems

While the existence of AI fakes may make it feel like it is impossible to tell what is real, there is some good news. Whether a photograph is manipulated with computer software, an image is fabricated with an AI-image generator or a piece of media is shared out of context, the methods to identify, address and debunk these fakes remain the same.

• Consider the source. Who is sharing the content, and do they have a track record of posting accurate information in good faith?
• What is the original source of a photo? The lack of a credit is a red flag. Look for supporting evidence. Have any standards-based news outlets also shared the image?

When it comes to AI images, you may not be able to trust your own eyes. Slowing down to consider these key pieces of context is the best way to approach any content online — whether it’s real or created by AI.

Visit the Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024

An article that explores the role of artificial intelligence in journalism quoted NLP’s Hannah Covington on the importance of newsrooms engaging their audiences in decisions about how they use the technology. 

“Transparency is key,” said Covington, Senior Director of Education Content. “I think these decisions, when a news organization is looking at AI, should be made with input from audiences.” 

For news consumers, Covington offered this advice: “It’s important to not let AI undermine your trust in all news and information.” 

Read the full article here. Explore more about on NLP’s resource page, News Literacy in the age of AI. 

The Washington Post’s Tech Brief newsletter dove into a new report that studies how TikTok users navigate misinformation on the social platform. Hannah Covington, Senior Director of Education Content at the News Literacy Project, provided analysis about why some of the findings are worrisome.  

“I’m glad that some of the people surveyed indicated they expect to encounter mis- and disinformation on TikTok, and even expressed confidence in spotting it,” Covington said. “But people are often overconfident in their own ability to fact-check.” 

Read the full newsletter here.  

Voters should be on the lookout for AI-generated misinformation and other false rumors about the presidential elections, warned a CBS News Philadelphia report that highlighted the News Literacy Project’s Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024. 

Peter Adams, Senior Vice President of Research and Design at NLP, explained that the dashboard helps voters identify misinformation trends so they can avoid them. The stakes are high, he said.  

 “When we have divergent understandings of what actually is and isn’t real or factual, democracy falters,” Adams said. 

Watch the full piece here. Visit the Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024. Or explore more resources at Election 2024: Be informed, not misled.  

NBC News tracked down the origins of viral rumors that claimed Venezuelan gangs had taken over an apartment complex in Colorado, and linked to a post on RumorGuard®, the News Literacy Project’s digital resource that helps debunk falsehoods.  

Christina Veiga, NLP’s Senior Director of Media Relations, cautioned that misinformation about immigrants has been widespread this election cycle. 

“People need to be aware that immigration is a common theme that misinformers are exploiting this election season. We should be extra cautious when we come across claims that seem designed to provoke anger, outrage, or fear — or that seem designed to divide us,” she said. 

Read the full piece here. Visit NLP’s Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024. Or explore more resources at Election 2024: Be informed, not misled. 

The monthly magazine focused on what’s in store for the news industry and the importance of news literacy. 

The September issue of What the Future, a monthly magazine by market research and consulting firm Ipsos, focused on what’s in store for the news industry and the importance of news literacy. 

Peter Adams, Senior Vice President of Research and Design NLP, noted in a Q-and-A that, “students are inheriting the largest and most complex information environment in human history.” 

“If we don’t teach them media literacy, we’re actively disempowering them civically. We kind of owe it to them,” Adams said.  

Read the full story here.  

Trying to stay informed with credible news sources can be hard when you hit a paywall. In an AARP magazine feature, the News Literacy Project’s Kymberly Deane, Senior Manager of Development, suggested a workaround.  

“I’m a big fan of news aggregators and apps,” she said. “I love having the ability to customize my news feed to topics I really care about and having a range of sources to refer to conveniently.” 

Read the full piece here. (Page 6 of special section, Tech for Everybody.) 

A common theme of rumors swirling this election season claim that celebrities like Taylor Swift and Aaron Rodgers have endorsed – or snubbed – the presidential candidates, according to a CNN analysis of data in the News Literacy Project’s Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024.  

CNN found that about 1 in 10 rumors in the dashboard dealt with these false claims.  

“If you repeatedly see these falsehoods that exaggerate a candidate’s popularity, it can still stick, even if you know it’s not legitimate as you scroll past it in your feed,” said Peter Adams, NLP’s Senior Vice President of Research and Design.  

Read the full piece here. Watch the coverage here or here. Visit the Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024. Or explore more resources at Election 2024: Be informed, not misled. 

Welcome back to our blog series focused on the Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024, a tool for exploring trends and analysis related to falsehoods regarding the candidates and voting process.

As of today, NLP’s Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024 contains more than 600 hundred examples of online falsehoods. By categorizing them by themes and narratives, we provide important insights about trends and patterns in the misinformation spreading about this year’s presidential race.

The role of repetition

Ever heard the phrase, if you “repeat a lie often enough … it becomes the truth”? It’s often credited to Nazi Joseph Goebbels, one of the most notorious and malevolent propagandists in history. This law of propaganda drives much of the misinformation we find online. Our vulnerability to oft-repeated falsehoods and the “illusion of truth” effect makes it crucial to understand the common themes and narratives of viral misinformation

Candidate’s cognition a common theme

Claims that exaggerate and distort candidates’ cognitive abilities and intellect are the most frequent in our collection. This was true when President Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee running against former President Donald Trump, with many false claims attacking the candidate’s age. And the trend has continued with Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s important to note that these overall narratives are not entirely fabricated (all three politicians have had their share of public gaffes), but they appeal to our natural desire to confirm our biases, providing an exaggerated and distorted glimpse of reality in which the candidates are reduced to caricatures of themselves. Are Trump and Harris both mentally fit to be president? Our dashboard isn’t designed to answer that. But it can help to make you aware of the spate of misinformation that intends to skew your viewpoint on this question.

You can’t see the forest for the trees

Debunking individual rumors — for example, proving that Trump did not “freeze” during a campaign speech or that Harris did not say that “the problem of solving a problem is not a problem”— only partly succeeds in combating misinformation. Those who create and share misinformation are doing more than just pushing an individual falsehood. They are making a concerted and sustained effort to manipulate our political views by repeating these claims to distort consensus reality, or our shared understanding of the world around us.

We need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable false claims that will fill our news feeds in the lead up to the 2024 election. The best way to do that is to shift our attention from individual posts of questionable content and focus more on broader trends. By learning to identify the false narratives that bad actors attempt to establish about candidates and the election process, we can spot them before they draw us in.

We will continue to add every election-related viral rumor we can find to our collection through Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2025. So, you might want to check the dashboard’s running tally of false claims as part of your daily news routine. We also will publish analyses of political misinformation here in the weeks to come.

Election misinformation has been coming at us at such a furious clip this summer that you would have to be faster than an Olympic sprinter to outpace it. And even if you could, making sense of what you see and hear sometimes feels impossible.

That’s why we have created the Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024. This free online resource collects examples of viral rumors, doctored images, conspiracy theories and AI-generated fakes. Because election misinformation poses an existential threat to democracy, individual fact-checks are not adequate to counter this danger.

The dashboard goes above and beyond by doing the following:

• Highlighting of-the-moment data.
• Analyzing common trends and topics within a larger context.
• Featuring dynamic visualizations that quickly illuminate information.
• Providing educators with real-time examples for the classroom and enhancing the understanding of journalists and researchers diving into election misinformation.

“Given how quickly falsehoods can congeal into deep-seated beliefs, it’s essential that all Americans learn to recognize viral election misinformation when they see it in their feeds,” said Senior Vice President of Research and Design Peter Adams, who led the development of the dashboard. “Healthy democracies flourish when civic discourse is anchored in accurate, shared understandings of issues and candidates. We hope this dashboard helps people preserve the integrity and power of their civic voices and their votes.”

Everything on the dashboard is interactive. Click on the two options at the top of it to explore election misinformation by theme or type. You’ll find examples of fabricated or manipulated content, false or misleading context and many forms of AI-generated deceptions. And we’re tracking the trends regarding election integrity, party platforms and the candidates themselves.

“Patterns in misinformation come into focus when content is collected in one place. The dashboard empowers people to see trends so they can avoid being swayed by falsehoods when they cast their votes,” said Dan Evon, NLP’s Senior Manager of Education Design, and a member of the team that developed the resource.

You can find additional resources to help you identify falsehoods and recognize credible election information on our resource page, Election 2024: Be informed, not misled.

At the News Literacy Project, we join others in America deeply troubled by the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life on July 13.  While thankful that he was not seriously injured, we extend our condolences to the family of Corey Comperatore, a firefighter, father and husband who lost his life. We also send our wishes for a swift and full recovery to the two other men who were injured in the shooting. Political violence should hold no place in our democratic process and civic discourse.

Immediately after the shooting, rumors and unverified claims emanated from across the political spectrum and spread rapidly online. In breaking news situations, the facts constantly evolve during the hours that follow, and even in the days and weeks after. We should avoid the temptation to propagate opinions that could further fuel false and unverified claims, expand the reach of propaganda and hate speech, and potentially lead to further violence. We all are susceptible to confirmation bias because many of us live in media echo chambers that reinforce our beliefs and leave us blind to new facts that can put an event in context and improve our understanding of it.

For helpful resources on how to evaluate breaking news, avoid confirmation bias and understand conspiratorial thinking, follow our social media channels and visit our website, where we provide additional resources to help promote informed news consumption and empower you to combat the spread of harmful falsehoods.

Ellie Blanchard

Americans in 203 counties don’t have a local news outlet, recent research shows. During election season, a lack of local news presents a challenge to voters looking for vital information about ballot initiatives and candidates running for office.

As information becomes harder to find, especially in rural areas, the News Literacy Project convened three experts to share tips for finding reliable news before heading to the polls.  For more ways to find credible election news, check out our elections resource hub.

💦 Sweat the details

To avoid being fooled by bad actors masquerading as local officials, learn to recognize legitimate election information that you find in your mailbox or online. Brianna Lennon, county clerk for Boone County, Missouri,  advised looking for clues that a source is legitimate, like an official election mail insignia or a web address that ends in .gov.

“In terms of finding out what’s on the ballot, the actual government website and the mail are the two biggest ways that people are going to find it.”
— Brianna Lennon

💡 Take responsibility

If your area lacks news coverage on local issues, turn to trusted community leaders to better understand candidate positions, suggested Benjy Hamm, director of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. “I call friends who deal with the court system… I talk to teachers about school board members,” he said. While this is a good starting point for getting information, be aware of biases and be sure to consult multiple sources.

🤔 Think like a journalist

Without a formal voter guide from a local news outlet, you can operate like a journalist yourself to find important information. Alana Rocha, editor of the Rural News Network, encourages all voters to think critically when they see promotional flyers or texts. Seek news from a variety of sources and confirm claims by visiting candidates’ platforms directly.

“Diversify your sources. Go to the person’s website to see what they have to say.”
— Alana Rocha

Vetting election information: How service members, veterans and military families can get credible voting information

Free
Virtual panel discussion
7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT Tuesday, May 21

As the 2024 election season is underway, falsehoods about voting and ballot issues already are circulating widely. Bad actors exploit a charged political atmosphere by spreading false claims about candidates, disinformation about how to vote and baseless rumors that undermine trust in election systems and infrastructure.

Military service members, veterans and their families in particular encounter conspiracy theories and other types of mis-and disinformation frequently. In a recent poll of Military Times readers, 57% said  they personally have been targeted.

To break through this confusing and often misleading information landscape, the News Literacy Project is hosting a panel of experts who work with the military community for a virtual discussion about common types of election-related misinformation and practical tips and tools for finding reliable news sources before voting.

About the panelists

Richard Brookshire is the CEO and co-founder of the Black Veterans Project, which advances reforms to address racial inequalities in veterans benefits and advocates for reparations. He is a former infantry combat medic and Army veteran. He also is a creative producer of the film Just Call Me Lucki, which is about the first Black woman to graduate from the U.S. Army’s Intelligence School.

Joe Plenzler is a Marine Corps veteran and a board member and communications advisor for We the Veterans and Military Families. He has served as a poll worker as part of the organization’s Vet the Vote program, which encourages military veterans and families to continue serving their country as election volunteers.

Nikki Wentling covers disinformation and extremism for Military Times as a Military Veterans in Journalism Fellow. She has reported on veterans and military communities for eight years and has also covered technology and politics.

Scott Wiedmann is the director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, which administers federal responsibilities of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. He has been with the program, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, since 1993.

About the moderator

Zack Baddorf is a Navy veteran, journalist and co-founder of Military Veterans in Journalism, which seeks to get more military veterans working in America’s newsrooms. He has more than 15 years of reporting experience from more than 30 countries and has had his work published in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Reuters and more.

Finding water in a news desert
Preparing for elections when news coverage is scarce

Free
Virtual panel discussion
6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT Wednesday, April 24

When local news coverage is scarce, how do you find out what’s on the ballot in your community? As legacy news sources struggle – especially in rural areas – information becomes harder to find, and it can feel especially fraught as we prepare to vote. Meanwhile, pink-slime news outfits, which masquerade as local news sources but are funded by political partisans, and social media rumor mills are popping up to fill the void left by downsized or shuttered local news outlets.

Even with these challenges there are still ways you can be informed about ballot initiatives and candidates running for office – including reports on their spending and where they stand on the issues.

The News Literacy Project has invited three experts – Benjy Hamm, director of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues; Alana Rocha, editor of the Rural News Network; and Brianna Lennon, county clerk for Boone County, Missouri and co-host of the podcast High Turnout Wide Margins – to walk us through how people living in news deserts can prepare to vote in 2024. We’ll talk about obstacles to finding credible information, as well as tools you can use to investigate the who, what, when, where, why and how of the 2024 elections.

About the panelists

Benjy Hamm is the director of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which researches trends, issues and ideas in rural journalism and gives advice and workshops for professionals. Hamm is a veteran newspaper editor, having led news operations for Landmark Community Newspapers in Shelbyville, Kentucky, as well as the Herald-Journal and the Lancaster News, both in South Carolina.

Alana Rocha leads the Rural News Network, a resource hub for newsrooms who are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News. Rocha works with 70 network outlets in 46 states to amplify coverage from rural areas. She was a longtime news and politics journalist in Florida, Kansas and Texas.

Brianna Lennon is the county clerk for Boone County, Missouri. Before she was elected to that office in 2018, she served in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and also was deputy director of elections in the Missouri Secretary of State’s Election Integrity Unit. She co-hosts the award-winning podcast High Turnout Wide Margins, which covers issues for election administrators and gives insight into election processes for voters.

About the moderator

Hannah Covington is the News Literacy Project’s senior director of education content and hosts the video series News Goggles, which provides a behind-the-scenes look at news coverage and journalists’ work. As a journalist, Hannah covered local government and breaking news at the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune. She has also written for the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman. Previously, she was an adjunct instructor, working with high school and undergraduate students at Tulsa Community College and the University of Tulsa.

Learn to identify credible election information in this free webinar Feb. 29, presented by the nonpartisan News Literacy Project.

Are you informed or influenced?

As we navigate the 2024 election, are we being informed or influenced?

This webinar will teach skills for identifying credible election information. We will learn how to evaluate the purpose of the information sources share, how to identify election misinformation trends and bias and how to prioritize finding credible sources.