Accurate information is the foundation of a functioning democracy.
Science Feedback is a worldwide network of scientists sorting fact from fiction in science based media coverage. Our goal is to help readers know which news to trust.
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Health Reviews
Insights
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How health problems after COVID-19 vaccination are sometimes used to feed misinformation narratives
While illness can occur shortly after vaccination, it doesn’t mean that the vaccine must be the cause. Illness can also occur simply by coincidence, since diseases have existed long before vaccines arrived. Part of evaluating whether a vaccine is the cause of an illness requires determining if vaccinated people are at a higher risk of the illness compared to unvaccinated people—something that anecdotes alone cannot provide.
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“Disease X”: How pandemic preparedness talks spawned conspiracy theories online
On 17 January 2024, public health experts including Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), held…
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Variations on a theme: The evidence refuting the false claim that vaccines cause autism
While there has indeed been a rise in the number of autism diagnoses in the last decade, the evidence points not to vaccines as the cause, but to a broader diagnostic criteria of autism and increased awareness of the condition now as compared to the past.
Climate reviews
Analyses & Investigations
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Who’s Behind The (Mis)Leading Report?
Reputable news sources demonstrate transparency in all aspects of their operation. They disclose their sources of funding, identify staff who produce their content and clearly indicate their sources of information. If they commit errors, they openly acknowledge and correct these errors. Our investigation shows Leading Report exhibits none of these characteristics. The two individuals who run the website and its X/Twitter account appear to hold no relevant credentials in health, medicine or journalism.
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Authorities undertaking climate action targeted by viral “Climate lockdowns” narrative on social media
The increasing number of measures to limit greenhouse gas pollution that can be expected in the future will certainly present opportunities for future weaponization and misrepresentation. Writers, editors, and journalists should be aware of these manipulation tactics when discussing the aftermath of COVID-19 restrictions or future climate policies, knowing that some actors are trawling for any evidence to boost the manufactured ‘climate lockdown’ outrage.
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Misinformation superspreaders are thriving on Musk-owned Twitter
A study of accounts that have repeatedly published popular tweets linking to known misinformation shows that their collective popularity has significantly grown (on average, +42% interactions per tweet) since Elon Musk took effective control of the platform on 27 October 2022. These results appear to run afoul of Twitter’s commitments as a signatory of the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation.