Fil Menczer

#IVoted

Bots impersonating real immigration lawyers on TikTok to scam vulnerable communities, so tragic documentedny.com/projects/tik...

Russian disinfo using AI deepfake and fake social media account to manipulate US voters. Surprised?

Don't miss our first OSoMe Awesome Speaker: 📣 James Shanahan! 📅 Monday, October 26, 2026 ⏰ 12:00–1:00 PM ET 🎙️ Historical Fears About Media: The Case of TV Violence 🔗 Check out and register for all OSoMe Awesome Speakers this Fall: osome.iu.edu/events/speak...

ICYMI: Scientists reveal terrifying reason that using AI for health advice could be dangerous (quoting @yang3kc.bsky.social ) www.the-independent.com/tech/ai-heal...

Would you consider these political deepfake ads a form of manipulation or just a new editing tool? $137 Million in A.I.-Generated Ads Flood the Midterms www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/u...

I think @fil.bsky.social may have scared us all by showing us maps of bot activity online and the extent to which automated accounts are already leading conversations—- and the potential for AI to be abused through automated activities.

I just spent two days in Madison with the brilliant scholars of @cccr.bsky.social at @uwsjmc.bsky.social and others studying media and the crisis of American democracy. Bad news is that things are bad. Good news is scholars are still tracking and studying what’s happening and how to fix it. 🧵

Some coverage of our recent Nature Health perspective: news.iu.edu/luddy/live/n...

New @nature.com Health perspective 🧪 The invisible risks of AI-generated health information rdcu.be/VuS2jwQt6B3a We argue that these risks are serious, yet hidden from the institutions responsible for protecting public health w/ @matthewdeverna.com @yang3kc.bsky.social @harryyan.bsky.social

For my German-speaking friends, my radio interview on deepfakes and bot armies was featured in this Deutschlandfunk documentary: In the war against lies on the internet www.deutschlandfunk.de/landtagswahl...

Check out our full lineup of OSoMe Awesome Speakers for this semester and register at osome.iu.edu/events/speak...

Policy going in the wrong direction: TikTok Quietly Gutted Its Advertising Rules. Scams Have Exploded Ever Since. www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...

Maybe a better link: rdcu.be/VuS2jwQt6B3a

New Nature Health perspective w/ @harryyan.bsky.social, @yang3kc.bsky.social, and @fil.bsky.social. The invisible risks of AI-generated health information: doi.org/10.1038/s443... We argue that these risks are largely invisible to the institutions responsible for protecting public health.

1-2 punch: How to cheat in the election with AI's help: thefulcrum.us/media-techno... And how AI-generated campaign ads are not being labeled, in violation of state laws: apnews.com/article/arti...

🧪 AI agents are easily radicalized, particularly when messages resonate with their persona beliefs, raising concerns about the vulnerability of people who use them Preprint: doi.org/10.48550/arX... w/ @ozgurcanseckin.bsky.social @shalmoli-ghosh.bsky.social @kristinalerman.bsky.social & al.

Hijacking Trusted Media Brands: Russia’s Favorite Disinformation Tactic Against the West Surged by 850 Percent in the Last Year www.newsguardtech.com/special-repo...

Electoral AI poisoning, as predicted: ‘Pink Slime’ Is Infecting AI Chatbots Ahead of the Midterms www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Is anyone surprised? Russia Aims to Inject Chaos Into Elections, U.S. Intelligence Finds www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/u...

Just another AI slop content farm futurism.com/artificial-i...

Fantastic family weekend in NYC: sightseeing w/kids, quality time with dear old friends & family, comedy show on Broadway w/Bowen Yang, chess in Washington Sq. Park, interview on The Daily Show, and Ronny Chieng got us tickets to the Comedy Cellar with surprise stand-up by Kevin Hart. What a ride!

AI is making it harder to trust your own eyes this election www.axios.com/2026/09/09/a...

Anyway, I guess I have to watch this space until November. If you see something, say something! www.ms.now/news/russia-...

This story is also a tale of two social media platforms. Seven of the videos were posted to Bluesky, but most were posted to X. Bluesky removed the inauthentic accounts. X did nothing.

And to be extra clear, this Russian disinfo op is ... not persuasive. Not well executed. Just bad. But other faked videos from related campaigns have had real impact, their narratives reaching members of Congress and millions of voters. www.nbcnews.com/specials/rus... They just need one to hit.

The network seems to be targeting candidates in midterm races, too. @antibot4navalny.bsky.social flagged a new batch of falsely CNN-branded videos targeting specific Democrats, including Chris Pappas, James Talarico, Jon Ossoff, Mary Peltola, Roy Cooper & Sherrod Brown. bsky.app/profile/anti...

“When I hear about Democrats, I immediately think of corrupt Nazi whores,” bogus Sarah Jessica Parker says in one. “If you love America, never vote for Democrats.” Most are ripped from Cameo vids. The campaign is (per usual) ham-fisted and hasn't spread. Not sharing bc that's what this op wants.

Get in, folks: a new Russian disinfo campaign is targeting the midterms, specifically Democrats, in what seems to be the first attempt by the Kremlin-backed op to meddle in this year’s U.S. elections. They're faking celebrity videos attacking Dems and are...very stupid. www.ms.now/news/russia-...

How misinformation and AI hallucinations are infiltrating (probably not only) Australia’s parliament www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Rachith Aiyappa earns IU Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award -- congrats!! 🧪🏆🎓🎉 osome.iu.edu/research/blo...

We are happy to announce that Fil Menczer will will be joining us as a keynote speaker in Rochester, NY, USA. Visit our site at complenet.github.io for more information about speakers, dates, calls, etc.

Weapons can be used for attack and defense. Does AI Fight or Fuel Election Disinformation? www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Yet more evidence, if we needed it, that disinformation on social media kills. How Social Media Spurred a Refugee Crisis Between Spain and Morocco www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/t...

Great report by @eileenguo.bsky.social @giselilla.bsky.social @cargocultscientist.bsky.social. The CIC conspiracy roots go even further back. In 2014, our research on disinformation spread on social media was falsely accused of being a secret censorship operation www.science.org/content/arti...

Long but worth the read: This is medical advice* The AI slop doctors of YouTube, the health disinformation they spread, the harm they cause, and the prompts instructing them to lie codysumter.substack.com/p/this-is-me... h/t @indicator.media

🧪 New #CIKM paper: Adversarial Creation & Detection of AI-Generated Social Bot Content We build evil AI twins impersonating social media users. A model trained to separate humans from their evil twins rocks at detecting AI bots in the wild! Try it: botometer.org Preprint: doi.org/10.48550/arX...

This is what passes for "independent reviews" these days... The CS conference-based publication system is broken beyond repair. www.linkedin.com/pulse/indepe...

Political deepfake and AI-generated personas have persuasive power and many followers. Who's behind their influence campaigns? No way to know, and that's the point. substack.riddance.ai/p/this-ai-ge... h/t @indicator.media

Congrats Dr @zoher.bsky.social !! 🎉🎓🙌

Congrats Dr @ozgurcanseckin.bsky.social ! 🎓🎉🙌

2 examples of AI swarms—influence campaigns by AI-generated personas we described in Science: 1. Hundreds of fake influencers selling snake oil www.nytimes.com/video/techno... 2. Fake soldiers, veterans, recruiters, religious figures spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda letsdata.net/resources/bl...

"The Trump administration's knee-jerk instinct to paint any tech regulation as a free speech crusade is political theater—a calculated smokescreen designed to deflect attention from the real censors: the US government and its corporate allies" -A. Geese, German Greens www.politico.eu/article/trum...

A Voter Guide to Trump’s Election Claims open.substack.com/pub/newsguar...

An AI agent emailed me asking semi-coherent research questions. I sent a semi-coherent reply drafted by Gmail-Gemini.

Can AI equalize political campaign ads – or will it remain a tool for spreading lies? www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

ACL 2026 was fun! We presented our benchmark, which reveals that frontier models struggle to moderate pluralistic communities on Reddit. A fun bonus: creating all the colorful plots for the paper! 🎨 Our paper, code, and benchmark are all available here: github.com/osome-iu/Plu...