Fil Menczer
@fil.bsky.social
Researcher on social media misinformation and manipulation, director of the Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe.iu.edu, pronounced “awesome”) at Indiana University
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...
Video: The Fake Influencers Selling Wellness on Your Feed
The New York Times found hundreds of A.I.-generated doctors, healers and wellness influencers on social media touting the health benefits of supplements to American consumers. Many of these hyperreali...
nytimes.com
"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...
Trump pushes UN ‘free speech’ declaration in veiled attack on EU tech regulation
The White House has repeatedly condemned EU rules that govern online platforms as censorship. Now they want the world to put the critique into writing.
politico.eu
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...
Can AI equalize political campaign ads – or will it remain a tool for spreading lies?
Political campaigns are increasingly deploying AI and deepfakes to further their messaging, and the scale of spread has experts concerned
theguardian.com
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...
Breaking: Trump just called Infantino asking to change the score
Health misinformers falsely claim that sunscreen causes skin cancer. I think the proper treatment for these modern plague spreaders (Nicholas Hulscher, Matt Gaetz) would be to let them bake in the sun for hours a day without sunscreen. open.substack.com/pub/newsguar...
What? I Should Skip the Sunscreen?
Health misinformers misrepresent a study to claim that sunscreen causes skin cancer — NewsGuard’s False Claim of the Week
open.substack.com
Threat of Foreign Influence on U.S. Elections Remain as Federal Defenses Recede www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
Threat of Foreign Influence on U.S. Elections Remain as Federal Defenses Recede
As China, Iran, and Russia leverage AI tools and the Trump administration buys in to disinformation, voters and election officials must be more vigilant than ever.
brennancenter.org
Ricercatori italiani in US/CA: applicate per ISSNAF Young Investigator Awards - in particolare MARIO GERLA AWARD FOR COMP SCI RESEARCH These prestigious awards recognize outstanding early-career Italian researchers (within 8 years of PhD completion) in USA/Canada 🧪 www.issnaf.org/2026-young-i...
YOUNG INVESTIGATOR 2026 | ISSNAF
Discover the extraordinary talents of young investigators recognized through the ISSNAF Young Investigator Awards 2026. Explore their groundbreaking research and innovative contributions across diverse scientific disciplines.
issnaf.org
Japan is debating AI-generated political smear videos spread online by social bots. Background: Smear video scandal www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06... My interviews in Japanese news shows explaining inauthentic influence campaigns: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5ts... www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFuN...
Takaichi’s smear video scandal shows Japan’s digital campaign rules are behind the curve
A scandal involving alleged AI-generated attack videos has exposed gaps in Japan’s laws governing online election campaigns.
japantimes.co.jp
As the public becomes aware of non-consensual adult deepfakes, our just-published research sheds light on how AI platforms commoditize and incentivize these forms of abuse: 🧪 dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... w/ @shalmoli-ghosh.bsky.social & @matthewdeverna.com
This morning running an errand on my bike I saw a mama duck with her seven ducklings. They were lost, roaming the streets, moving away from the Entella river, and getting stuck in alleys, garages, and dead ends. I tried to help corral them back in the direction of the river. Let’s hope they made it!
1/ Excited to share our new paper: Challenging Partisan Expectations Reduces Political Polarization We find that political conversations reduce polarization most when they challenge what people expect about partisan boundaries. 🧵 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2606.15901 #polisky
Challenging Partisan Expectations Reduces Political Polarization
Political conversations are often proposed as a remedy for political polarization, yet their effectiveness remains inconsistent. We argue that this inconsistency partly reflects a neglected feature of...
arxiv.org
Paper 🧪 w/Danish & Anindya at @icwsm.bsky.social #CySoc: "F*** You Biden": Cross-Partisan Electoral Toxicity on X During last US election, Democratic posts were less toxic than Republican ones but received many more toxic cross-partisan replies from Republicans. Preprint: doi.org/10.48550/arX...
"F*** You Biden": Cross-Partisan Electoral Toxicity on X
Political discourse on social media has grown increasingly toxic, with electoral periods amplifying partisan hostility and cross-group attacks. Yet it remains unclear whether toxicity in online politi...
doi.org
AAUP-IUB and Concerned Scientists @ IU statement on the closure of Myers Hall iubaaup.org/2026/05/18/i...
IUB AAUP Executive Committee Concerned Scientists @ IU Statement on the Closure of Myers Hall
The Indiana University Bloomington chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP-IUB), together with Concerned Scientists @ IU, condemn the sudden and unannounced closure of nu…
iubaaup.org
Thanks to Lake Como School of Advanced Studies and Fondazione Alessandro Volta for inviting me to speak about AI and online manipulation www.laprovinciadicomo.it/stories/prem...
«Per accorgervi dell’Ai nei contenuti online siate un po’ più scettici»
Filippo Menczer insegna informatica e computer science in Indiana. Giovedì terrà a Palazzo Lambertenghi la lezione “Ai good vs evil”
laprovinciadicomo.it
What an honor to give a talk in the historical Enrico Fermi Research Center, hosted by Vittorio Loreto and Sony CSL. Notice Enrico Fermi in the background, doom-scrolling on his phone.
One year later - my reflections on what's happened to US science since the National Science Foundation grant terminations last year. The problem of misinformation isn't going away, but our ability to study and understand it is under attack. 1/ 🧪 www.tennessean.com/story/opinio...
I researched misinformation, until the government stopped me | Opinion
A researcher's NSF grant termination reveals a broader attack on science funding and misinformation research, despite rising AI-generated falsehoods.
tennessean.com
Staggering number of people believe unproven health claims www.nature.com/articles/d41...
‘Staggering’ number of people believe unproven claims about vaccines, raw milk and more
Survey results suggest a rise in questioning of scientific evidence.
nature.com
Fantastic article (as always from @kakape.bsky.social) on the role of AI in disinformation as well as research on it. www.science.org/content/arti...
To misinformation researchers, AI is a scourge—and a powerful new tool
Surge in generative AI is upending a field that was just finding its feet
science.org
I'm briefly quoted in this long but important investigative piece about Storm-1516, the most potent weapon in Russia’s disinformation war. www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...
Russian Disinformation War’s Most Potent Weapon Is Bending Realities
Storm-1516 campaign uses fabricated videos, phony websites and anonymous influencers to spread tales about election fraud, corruption and sexual abuse.
bloomberg.com
The dismissal of the National Science Board is the latest absurd Trump move to destabilize American science. www.aaas.org/news/aaas-st...
AAAS Statement on Dismissal of National Science Board | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Click to read the full statement.
aaas.org
The [disinformation] fox in the [election] hen house www.npr.org/2026/04/23/n...
The new homeland security secretary has a history of pushing election misinformation
The new homeland security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has for years amplified President Trump's false claims of a stolen 2020 election. Here's why that history matters this midterm year.
npr.org
AI is being used to generate fake MAGA users and content for political influence: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/b...
Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media
nytimes.com
It was a great pleasure and a privilege to host @fil.bsky.social at #SUPSI in Lugano. Two days of hard work, interesting insights, and a lot to learn.
