The Dissemination Of Misinformation On Social Media Platforms Followin

The assassination of Charlie Kirk and the proliferation of misinformation The fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University sent shockwaves across the nation, but the tragedy was quickly compounded by a deluge of misinformation spreading across social media platforms. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, in the immediate aftermath, urged citizens to disconnect from social media, citing the rampant spread of false information and the manipulative tactics of foreign actors. The governor’s plea highlighted the growing concern over the weaponization of online platforms, particularly through the use of bots designed to amplify divisive narratives and sow discord. His comments touched on a larger societal issue: the eroding trust in information sources and the potential for social media to incite real-world violence. Cox’s warnings weren’t isolated.

Utah had already initiated legal proceedings against Snap Inc. over concerns about child safety and deceptive practices. The state’s lawsuit against the social media giant mirrored growing national anxieties regarding the addictive nature of these platforms and their potential for exploitation. The intersection of the Kirk assassination and the ongoing legal battle against Snap underscored the urgency of addressing the impact of social media on public discourse and safety. Bots, misinformation, and the case of Michael Mallinson The governor’s claims about bot activity amplifying misinformation gained traction with the emergence of a specific case: the false accusation against Michael Mallinson, a retired banker from Toronto.

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot erroneously named Mallinson as the suspect in the Kirk shooting. The false information quickly spread across X (formerly Twitter), causing undue distress and reputational harm to Mallinson, who was entirely unconnected to the event. The incident exemplified the real-world consequences of unchecked misinformation and the potential for AI-powered platforms to be used for malicious purposes. The Grok post remained online even after the real suspect was apprehended, underscoring the lack of accountability and the challenges of rectifying false narratives once they gain traction. Received 2022 Oct 20; Revised 2023 Jan 7; Accepted 2023 Jan 12; Issue date 2023. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source.

These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Online social networks (OSNs) are rapidly growing and have become a huge source of all kinds of global and local news for millions of users. However, OSNs are a double-edged sword. Although the great advantages they offer such as unlimited easy communication and instant news and information, they can also have many disadvantages and issues. One of their major challenging issues is the spread of fake news. Fake news identification is still a complex unresolved issue.

Furthermore, fake news detection on OSNs presents unique characteristics and challenges that make finding a solution anything but trivial. On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI) approaches are still incapable of overcoming this challenging problem. To make matters worse, AI techniques such as machine learning and deep learning are leveraged to deceive people by creating and disseminating fake content. Consequently, automatic fake news detection remains a huge challenge, primarily because the content is designed in a way to closely resemble the truth, and it is often hard to determine its veracity by AI... This work aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of fake news research as well as a fundamental review of existing approaches used to detect and prevent fake news from spreading via OSNs. We present the research problem and the existing challenges, discuss the state of the art in existing approaches for fake news detection, and point out the future research directions in tackling the challenges.

Keywords: Fake news, Disinformation, Misinformation, Information disorder, Online deception, Online social networks Fake news, disinformation and misinformation have become such a scourge that Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, is quoted to have said (making an implicit reference to... Indeed, although online social networks (OSNs), also called social media, have improved the ease with which real-time information is broadcast; its popularity and its massive use have expanded the spread of fake news by... Fake news may refer to the manipulation of information that can be carried out through the production of false information, or the distortion of true information. However, that does not mean that this problem is only created with social media. A long time ago, there were rumors in the traditional media that Elvis was not dead,2 that the Earth was flat,3 that aliens had invaded us,4, etc.

Papathanassopoulos, S.; Giannouli, I. Health Communication in the Age of Platforms: Drivers of Misinformation and the Crisis of Medical Expertise. Encyclopedia 2025, 5, 195. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia5040195 Papathanassopoulos S, Giannouli I. Health Communication in the Age of Platforms: Drivers of Misinformation and the Crisis of Medical Expertise.

Encyclopedia. 2025; 5(4):195. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia5040195 Papathanassopoulos, Stylianos, and Iliana Giannouli. 2025. "Health Communication in the Age of Platforms: Drivers of Misinformation and the Crisis of Medical Expertise" Encyclopedia 5, no.

4: 195. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia5040195 Papathanassopoulos, S., & Giannouli, I. (2025). Health Communication in the Age of Platforms: Drivers of Misinformation and the Crisis of Medical Expertise. Encyclopedia, 5(4), 195.

https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia5040195 edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: New research from the University of Copenhagen points to a simple yet effective method for combating misinformation on social media: make it slightly harder to share content. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X have made it incredibly easy to share content with friends and acquaintances through like and share buttons.

But we don't just share cat videos and cake recipes—we also share content that turns out to be fake news and misinformation. Research has shown that such content is particularly attractive and spreads faster on social media than reliable information—partly because platform algorithms prioritize sensational posts that are widely shared. But what if sharing content became a bit more difficult? That's the idea proposed by researchers from the University of Copenhagen in a new article published in npj Complexity.

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