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Joe is a researcher and PhD candidate assisting in long-form investigations into disinformation and the actors behind it. He is interested in virality and memetics, the “truthiness” of false narratives, and all things to do with digital text and what it can do (for good or ill). His PhD research explores on how social media blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction when used as a venue for storytelling.
In the aftermath of Trump’s disastrously underattended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the flooding of racist or pro-police hashtags and communication channels on Twitter, the Internet was awash with proclamations that the “zoomers” (members of Gen-Z)...
As demonstrations and protests were met with violence, erupting into civil disobedience across the globe, we can show how an effort to fracture solidarity in the Black Lives Matter online movement instead drew the ire of the online right, got QAnon...
The Epoch Times may not be a household name in the UK right now, but many will be waking up across the country today to find a free newspaper bundled in with their post bearing their name. The paper’s front page headline reads “How China’s Communist...
Last week, Nick Backovic introduced Think Logically, our new fortnightly series designed to help facilitate media literacy and combat the prevalence of dis and misinformation at the level of our reception to the daily bombardment of conflicting...
London Real, the podcast/website/business guru course/YouTube channel responsible for reintroducing David Icke to the public eye and cultural discourse (reptilians and all), is currently in the midst of a PR crisis. Owner Brian Rose’s videos have...
After a flurry of uncertainty in the face of a global pandemic, scientists and researchers have worked tirelessly to understand how we have ended up where we are today. As a result of this, the current state of misinformation around the coronavirus...
At the start of last week, Twitter lit up with outrage at a thread posted by John O’Connell – founder and editor of Far-Right Watch. In the thread, he purports to have found evidence that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had set up...
Co-ordinated disinformation around the origins of infectious diseases is nothing new. In 1983, under the codename Operation Infektion, the Soviet Union began a years-long campaign to seed the idea that the US had manufactured HIV/AIDS at a military...
Houseparty, the “face-to-face social network” app, has had a tumultuous few weeks. Initially exploding in popularity by allowing those in self-quarantine to join a virtual room with their friends and play games and quizzes with their phones or...