Category Archives: Fake News

If you use such social media websites as Facebook and Twitter, you may have come across posts flagged with warnings about misinformation. So far, most misinformation flagged and unflagged has been aimed at the general public. Imagine the possibility of misinformation information that is false or misleading in scientific and technical fields like cybersecurity, public safety and medicine.

There is growing concern about misinformation spreading in these critical fields as a result of common biases and practices in publishing scientific literature, even in peer-reviewed research papers. As a graduate student and as faculty members doing research in cybersecurity, we studied a new avenue of misinformation in the scientific community. We found that it is possible for artificial intelligence systems to generate false information in critical fields like medicine and defence that is convincing enough to fool experts.

General misinformation often aims to tarnish the reputation of companies or public figures. Misinformation within communities of expertise has the potential for scary outcomes such as delivering incorrect medical advice to doctors and patients. This could put lives at risk.

To test this threat, we studied the impacts of spreading misinformation in the cybersecurity and medical communities. We used artificial intelligence models dubbed transformers to generate false cybersecurity news and Covid-19 medical studies and presented the cybersecurity misinformation to cybersecurity experts for testing. We found that transformer-generated misinformation was able to fool cybersecurity experts.

Much of the technology used to identify and manage misinformation is powered by artificial intelligence. AI allows computer scientists to fact-check large amounts of misinformation quickly, given that there is too much for people to detect without the help of technology. Although AI helps people detect misinformation, it has ironically also been used to produce misinformation in recent years.

Transformers, like BERT from Google and GPT from OpenAI, use natural language processing to understand text and produce translations, summaries and interpretations. They have been used in such tasks as storytelling and answering questions, pushing the boundaries of machines displaying human-like capabilities in generating text.

Transformers have aided Google and other technology companies by improving their search engines and have helped the general public in combating such common problems as battling writers block.

Transformers can also be used for malevolent purposes. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have already faced the challenges of AI-generated fake news across platforms.

Our research shows that transformers also pose a misinformation threat in medicine and cybersecurity. To illustrate how serious this is, we fine-tuned the GPT-2 transformer model on open online sources discussing cybersecurity vulnerabilities and attack information. A cybersecurity vulnerability is the weakness of a computer system, and a cybersecurity attack is an act that exploits a vulnerability. For example, if a vulnerability is a weak Facebook password, an attack exploiting it would be a hacker figuring out your password and breaking into your account.

We then seeded the model with the sentence or phrase of an actual cyberthreat intelligence sample and had it generate the rest of the threat description. We presented this generated description to cyberthreat hunters, who sift through lots of information about cybersecurity threats. These professionals read the threat descriptions to identify potential attacks and adjust the defences of their systems.

We were surprised by the results. The cybersecurity misinformation examples we generated were able to fool cyberthreat hunters, who are knowledgeable about all kinds of cybersecurity attacks and vulnerabilities. Imagine this scenario with a crucial piece of cyberthreat intelligence that involves the airline industry, which we generated in our study.

This misleading piece of information contains incorrect information concerning cyberattacks on airlines with sensitive real-time flight data. This false information could keep cyber analysts from addressing legitimate vulnerabilities in their systems by shifting their attention to fake software bugs. If a cyber analyst acts on the fake information in a real-world scenario, the airline in question could have faced a serious attack that exploits a real, unaddressed vulnerability.

A similar transformer-based model can generate information in the medical domain and potentially fool medical experts. During the Covid-19 pandemic, preprints of research papers that have not yet undergone a rigorous review are constantly being uploaded to such sites as medrXiv.

They are not only being described in the press but are being used to make public health decisions. Consider the following, which is not real but generated by our model after minimal fine-tuning of the default GPT-2 on some Covid-19-related papers.

The model was able to generate complete sentences and form an abstract allegedly describing the side effects of Covid-19 vaccinations and the experiments that were conducted. This is troubling both for medical researchers, who consistently rely on accurate information to make informed decisions and for members of the general public, who often rely on public news to learn about critical health information. If accepted as accurate, this kind of misinformation could put lives at risk by misdirecting the efforts of scientists conducting biomedical research.

Although examples like these from our study can be fact-checked, transformer-generated misinformation hinders such industries as health care and cybersecurity in adopting AI to help with information overload. For example, automated systems are being developed to extract data from cyberthreat intelligence that is then used to inform and train automated systems to recognise possible attacks. If these automated systems process such false cybersecurity text, they will be less effective at detecting true threats.

We believe the result could be an arms race as people spreading misinformation develop better ways to create false information in response to effective ways to recognise it.

Cybersecurity researchers continuously study ways to detect misinformation in different domains. Understanding how to automatically generate misinformation helps in understanding how to recognise it. For example, automatically generated information often has subtle grammatical mistakes that systems can be trained to detect. Systems can also cross-correlate information from multiple sources and identify claims lacking substantial support from other sources.

Ultimately, everyone should be more vigilant about what information is trustworthy and be aware that hackers exploit peoples credulity, especially if the information is not from reputable news sources or published scientific work.

Priyanka Ranade is a PhD Student in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and Anupam Joshi is a Professor of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Tim Finin is a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the same institute.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

Original post:

Fake news generated by artificial intelligence can be convincing enough to trick even experts - Scroll.in

Irish people have become more interested in the news over the past 12 months, while levels of trust in the news have also increased amid high levels of concern about what is real or fake on the internet, according to a major new report.

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report is the largest ongoing comparative study of news consumption in the world. The Irish data forms part of the larger survey, conducted in 46 countries. It is being launched by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland on Wednesday.

The research of more than 2,000 people in Ireland found 70 per cent are extremely or very interested in news, which was up 5 per cent on last year. This was higher than the EU average (60 per cent), the UK (51 per cent) and North America (54 per cent).

The number of consumers who cite television as their main source of news in Ireland has risen by eight percentage points to 41 per cent.

The next most popular source of news is online (excluding social media and blogs) at 29 per cent (unchanged from 2020) and social media at 16 per cent, down four percentage points on 2020. Podcast listening is still high in Ireland, although the rise has tailed off.

The number of consumers citing radio as their main source of news has fallen by four percentage points, to 9 per cent, and the number citing printed newspapers has fallen by two percentage points to 4 per cent.

Levels of trust in news in Ireland increased by five percentage points over the past year, with 53 per cent of respondents expressing positive levels of trust. This, again, was higher than the EU (45 per cent), the UK (37 per cent) and North America (37 per cent).

RT has come out on top as the most trusted news brand at 78 per cent, while The Irish Times is a point behind on 77 per cent.

The number of Irish consumers paying for news subscriptions or access increased by four percentage points to 16 per cent. Irish consumers are more willing than their EU (15 per cent) or UK (8 per cent) counterparts to pay for news.

The report noted that The Irish Times, which has been active in the online and subscriptions space longest, holds the largest (24 per cent) share of that market in an Irish context.

The report also found that WhatsApp has overtaken Facebook as the most popular social media platform in Ireland, and is used by 69 per cent of respondents.

For news specifically, Facebook has declined in popularity since last year (-4 per cent), as has YouTube (-4 per cent), Twitter (-1 per cent), and Snapchat (-2 per cent).

Irish respondents were generally sceptical of news they see on social media, with 51 per cent disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with the statement: You can trust the news on social media most of the time.

Some 75 per cent of those in the over-65s age group said they were concerned about what is real and what is fake on the internet, compared with 55 per cent of 18-24-year-olds.

For Irish news consumers, Covid-19 topped the bill for false or misleading information seen in the last week (49 per cent), followed by politics (28 per cent), celebrities (25 per cent) and climate change or the environment (19 per cent).

For younger cohorts (18-34-year-olds), ordinary people were cited as the most concerning sources for false or misleading Covid-19 information, while activists or activist groups were cited in this category for those aged over 55.

Facebook was the main platform that caused most concern regarding Covid-related false or misleading information (38 per cent).

Originally posted here:

Irish peoples trust in media increases amid concern over fake news - The Irish Times

India has been a victim of much false propaganda, which has led to serious ramifications for the country. We have seen on multiple occasions that propagandist are the loudest who seek to overwhelm the silent truth. False propaganda has sought to drive the narrative and overwhelm any reform measure.

Any reform will hurt some vested interest groups. Vested interest along with political opposition (who will oppose anything and everything) and at times inspired by unfriendly foreign forces (Greta Thunberg and Rihanna for their infamous tweet supporting farmer protests) will almost always overwhelm the slow, bumbling government bureaucracy, which is generally wary of propaganda.

For example, the misinformation of discontinuation of Minimum Support Price (MSP), despite repeated assurances by the government, has derailed the Farm Laws.

Recently a First Information Report (FIR) was lodged against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and other senior journalists for falsely tweeting that the Delhi Police had shot at a protesting farmer riding the tractor during the farmers' tractor rally on Republic Day. It was clarified with CCTV footage that he died after his tractor rammed into the police barricade and turned turtle. Moreover, the forensic report showed no bullet injuries on the body of the protestor.

When President of India unveiled the portrait of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at Rashtrapati Bhavan to commemorate his 125th birth anniversary celebrations, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, journalists Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose, etc., falsely ridiculed that the portrait was not of Netaji but that of Bengali actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, who had played the role of Netaji in a film, despite government sources reiterating that the portrait was indeed that of Netaji.

Misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic has been rampant with social media messages on home remedies that have not been verified, fake advisories and conspiracy theories have contributed to vaccine hesitancy.

Recently, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had made a false claim that a 'Singapore variant' of Covid-19, which is "very dangerous" for children, could herald a 'third wave' in India. Thus we must stop all flights with Singapore.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry (MFA) had hit out at him for making false claims without checking the facts and also debunked the social media assertions. In recent weeks, the strain prevalent in many of the Covid-19 cases is the B.1.617.2 variant, which was first detected in India. Singapore has threatened to invoke POFMA against Kejriwal.

The Question Of Freedom Of Speech And Expression

Article 19(1) of the Constitution of India guarantees Freedom of Speech and Expression. It is pertinent to note that the above right is not absolute and has certain limitations such as matters that are against foreign relations, public policy, integrity and sovereignty of the State, decency and morality, public order, etc., as mentioned in Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India. Freedom of Speech is not freedom to speak lies.

POFMA is controversial and has received criticism both locally and internationally by opposition politicians, human rights groups, journalists and academics. There were concerns that the Act would enable authorities to suppress criticism and dissent.

However, safeguards are required to curb fake news. An Indian version of POFMA will act as a deterrent to mischief mongers spreading fake news in India. Fake news, when not debunked, can derail reforms, create false narratives, blemish reputations and can potentially create unrest or mob violence in society. It is about time India has its version of POFMA to counter the false narratives.

More:

Singapore Has A 'Fake News Law'; What Are The Arguments For A Similar Legislation In India? - Swarajya

An the Centre opens centralised vaccination policy from today, Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said fake information against coronavirus vaccines is harming people in economically weaker section of society the most.

He said, "People should be protected from those who are spreading rumours and fake information against coronavirus vaccines, it harms the poor people the most."

Touching on the topic of Central government's new vaccine policy, the minister said, that everyone should try to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

"From today all over India, with the blessings of PM Modi and the efforts of the government of India, free vaccines will be provided to every citizen of India above the age of 18 at every government health center. Everyone should try to get vaccinated as soon as possible," he said.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Centre will provide free covid-19 vaccines to all adults from 21 June. He also said, the Centre would procure 75 per cent of vaccines and give them to states for free distribution to all citizens above the age of 18.

The Centre will also handle the 25 per cent vaccination that was with states till now under the liberalised plan announced earlier.

On Friday, the health minister said, had said states would be playing a facilitatory role by aggregating demand and vaccination capabilities of private hospitals in the state and ensure the administrations of vaccinations.

The health minister had stated that the maximum price that can be charged per dose by private vaccine centres for the three vaccines currently available in the country - 780 for Covishield, 1,410 for Covaxin and 1,145 for Sputnik V.

Over 27 crore vaccine doses administered in India so far: Govt

As per the union health ministry, as many as 27,66,93,572 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the country so far, including 38,10,554 on Sunday.

As many as 5,42,21,110 citizens in the 18-44 age group and 14,42,38,142 0ver the age of 45 have received their first dose.

70,65,889 healthcare workers, 90,32,813 frontline workers, 12,27,088 between the age of 18-44, and 3,36,80,696 over the aged 45 and above are fully vaccinated.

As per a statement on Sunday, more than 29.10 crore (29,10,54,050) vaccine doses have been provided to States and union territories so far by the Centre through the Government of India (free of cost channel) and through direct state procurement.

(With inputs from agencies)

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COVID vaccination: Rumours, fake news harming poor the most, says Harsh Vardhan - Mint

By Se-Anne Rall Jun 21, 2021

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DURBAN - MAJOR 1 has slammed news reports claiming that he has been sneaking back into South Africa from time to time.

Taking to social media at the weekend, self-proclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri, said it was fake news.

The City Press reported that South Africas security agencies were investigating claims that Bushiri had been in the country on three different occasions.

With the most recent visit being just two months ago, the authorities are trying to establish how the leader of the Enlightened Christian Gathering church got through tight security cordon that was set up to apprehend him.

It is alleged that on one occasion, the couple managed to slip passed intelligence officers outside their property.

However, Bushiri slammed City Press journalists, saying he was aware of the "crooked and corrupt police officers" they worked with.

About CITY PRESS FAKE NEWS I know who is behind your stories and I know your entire syndicate. I am also aware of those crooked and corrupt police officers that you work with. I denied giving you money and you promised to make my life a living hell, he said.

He said he was arrested and his name tarnished.

"You are still doing it now and you know your days are numbered. My silence does not in any way indicate ignorance," he said.

Bushiri said it was unfortunate that he has been found guilty before given an opportunity to prove his innocence.

"This is why you keep pushing you media propaganda forward.

He said he had evidence against corrupt journalists and police officers that he intended to present in court.

The Bushiris fled SA in November last year. The couple face charges of theft, fraud and money laundering. Bushiri has also been charged for rape. At the time of their escape, the couple were out on bail. An extradition case is under way.

IOL

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Bushiri hits back at 'fake news' reports that he has been sneaking back to SA - IOL

Neena Gupta Opens Up On Reading An Unbelievable News Report (Photo Credit: Instagram)

Neena Gupta is one of the well-known actresses in Bollywood. She recently turned author and released her autobiography, Sach Kahun Toh, wherein she wrote about her professional and personal highs and lows. Now the actress has talked about a report about herself that she was shocked by.

The Sooryavanshi actress has always been very vocal about bringing up her daughter Masaba Gupta on her own in this mans world. In her book, she has revealed how she had redefined life goals on her own terms.

During a conversation with The Quint, Neena Gupta spoke about how it was pervasive that unbelievable news reports were published and shared an example back in the day. She said, So many times, you dont know what lies people have written about me. When I was very new here, I remember they wrote in some film magazine, Neena Gupta is working as a salesgirl in Shyam Ahujas shop.

She further said, Believe me, I did not know who Shyam Ahuja was at that time. We couldnt afford Shyam Ahuja, I did not know who he is. I asked my friends about him. They said he has a carpet shop. Why? Why I was working (there)? Unbelievable. My fault; I feed them that.

The report also revealed that Neena Gupta shared one piece of advice she would like to give to her younger self. She said, Focus on your work; dont focus on men.

Previously, a review of Sach Kahun Toh published in Film Companion revealed on Neena mentioning Satish Kaushik offered to marry her while she was pregnant with Masaba Gupta. The report quoted Satish Kaushik, Dont worry, if the child is born with dark skin, you can just say its mine and well get married. Nobody will suspect a thing.

Must Read: Shah Rukh Khan Cryptically Confirms Working With Rajkumar Hirani In A Hilarious Response To A User

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Neena Gupta Recalls A Fake News Of Her Working As A Salesgirl In A Carpet Shop, Heres How She Reacted! - Koimoi

The Uttar Pradesh police have registered an FIR against the far-left propaganda portal The Wire, for spreading animosity and disturbing communal harmony in the society by propagating misinformation through a video documentary in connection with the Barabanki illegal mosque demolition case.

On Thursday, the Barabanki police said that they have registered a case against the portal and three journalists of The Wire Seraj Ali, Mohammad Anees and Mukul S Chauhan and another person identified as Mohammad Naeem for publishing false propaganda over the recent demolition of an illegal mosque in the Barabanki district.

Interestingly, Indian Express and The Scroll identify Mohammad Anees as a The Wire journalist, however, the FIR itself identifies him as a local. Mohammad Anees in the video itself is shown as a local who is making claims about the mosque demolition.

The case was filed under Sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups), 505 (1) (b) (intent to cause or likely to cause fear or alarm among the public), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (criminal act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

In The Wire video documentary dated 23rd June, the portal had claimed that the district administration had illegally demolished the 100-year-old mosque in the city. The Wire had interviewed a few Muslims, who claimed that they were the members of the mosques committee. They had proceeded to claim that the members had proof that the structure was legal.

In its documentary, the Wire had stated that the Muslims in the area had protested against the demolition of the mosque and stated that the police officials had quelled by resorting to a lathi charge. The Wire had claimed that the Barabanki police specifically targeted the Muslim community and had thrown away their religious scriptures into the drain.

Refuting such allegations made by the Wire, the Barabanki police clarified that the claims made by The Wire were false. It further stated that The Wire was trying to stoke communal violence by propagating misinformation about the demolition of the illegal mosque at the site.

On June 23, the online news portal, The Wire, shared a video documentary about the Ramsnehi Ghat Tehsil premises on their Twitter handle. In the documentary, they have shown false and baseless information. The video contains several wrongs and baseless statements, including the one which says that the administration and police threw religious scriptures in drain and river. This is false. Nothing of this sort happened. With misinformation like this, The Wire is trying to spread animosity in society and disturbing communal harmony, Barabanki District Magistrate Adarsh Singh said in a statement on Thursday night.

Superintendent of Police (Barabanki) Yamuna Prasad said that an individual called Mohammad Naeem was the person in the documentary who made the false claims about religious books being thrown in the river and drain.

Here are the visuals from The Wire video documentary. The individual, Mohammad Anees had claimed that their Qurans and Hadiths were thrown in the sewer.

A complaint has been registered by a police officer, based on which an FIR has been lodged. Further action is underway, the officer added.

A controversy haderuptedafter the administration in Uttar Pradeshs Barabanki district pulled down a 100-year-old illegally constructed mosque in the area. On May 17, following the SDMs instructions, the illegal structure was demolished.

The officials confirmed an illegal residential structure situated inside the tehsil premises in the Ram Sanehi Ghat area in the district. As per officials, a notice was served on the people who had been residing there, asking them to produce documents supporting their claim, but they fled after the notice was served.

However, the local Muslim organisations and opposition began to outrage claiming that the mosque was legal. The UP Sunni Central Waqf Board had termed the district administrations action illegal and moved the Allahabad High Court against it.

In a setback to Muslim organisations, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court had disposed of a petition filed in this connection on April 2, which proved that the construction was illegal. It is pertinent to note that The Wire had spread misinformation about the case after the High Court had disposed the petition filed in this case.

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FIR filed against The Wire in Barabanki mosque demolition case, had spread fake news about police throwing Quran and Hadiths in the drain - OpIndia

New research from Wharton sounds the alarm on the playground game of telephone in real life by revealing how news can become more biased as it is repeated from person to person. As information travels farther away from its original source, retellers tend to select facts, offer their own interpretations, and lean toward the negative, according to the study titled The Dynamics of Distortion: How Successive Summarization Alters the Retelling of News.

This paper started because I was interested initially in understanding how we end up with fake news, says Wharton marketing professor Shiri Melumad. But quickly I realized that this project was going to be about something much broader, and I think more interesting, which is how do original news stories become distorted as theyre retold sequentially across people.

Melumad co-authored the research along with Wharton marketing professor Robert Meyer and Wharton doctoral candidate Yoon Duk Kim. The scholars analyzed data from 11,000 participants across 10 experiments and concluded that news undergoes a stylistic transformation called disagreeable personalization as it is retold. Facts are replaced by opinions as the teller tries to convince the listener of a certain point of view, especially if the teller considers himself more knowledgeable on the topic than his audience.

The effect is amplified on social media. Followers dont always click on shared content to read the original work for themselves, yet they often accept the conclusion or opinion proffered by the person who posted it. Melumad said that finding is both consistent with previous research and pretty scary in its implications.

What were seeing is this increased polarization whereby anyone whos existing outside of my echo chamber, Im probably not going to really trust [as a] source of information, Melumad says. Again, I think social media is worsening this matter because its so easy to just operate within our respective echo chambers.

Another disturbing result the researchers found was the trend toward negativity, even if the original story was positive, and stories tend to become more negative with each reiteration.

The further removed a retelling is from the original sourceagain, think of the telephone gamethe more negative and more opinionated it becomes, Melumad says. Its really hard to turn this effect off, actually.

Read more at Knowledge@Wharton.

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From facts to fake news: How information gets distorted | Penn Today - Penn Today - Penn Today

This article was originally published here

J Exp Psychol Appl. 2021 Jun 10. doi: 10.1037/xap0000371. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Previous research has argued that fake news may have grave consequences for health behavior, but surprisingly, no empirical data have been provided to support this assumption. This issue takes on new urgency in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, and the accompanying wave of online misinformation. In this large preregistered study (N = 3,746), we investigated the effect of a single exposure to fabricated news stories about COVID-19 on related behavioral intentions. We observed small but measurable effects on some behavioral intentions but not others-for example, participants who read a story about problems with a forthcoming contact-tracing app reported a 5% reduction in willingness to download the app. These data suggest that one-off fake news exposure may have behavioral consequences, though the effects are not large. We also found no effects of providing a general warning about the dangers of online misinformation on response to the fake stories, regardless of the framing of the warning in positive or negative terms. This suggests that generic warnings about online misinformation, such as those used by governments and social media companies, are unlikely to be effective. We conclude with a call for more empirical research on the real-world consequences of fake news. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

PMID:34110860 | DOI:10.1037/xap0000371

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Quantifying the effects of fake news on behavior: Evidence from a study of COVID-19 misinformation - DocWire News

When we met as part of the British-American Parliamentary Exchange in 2019, we never imagined the gravity of the events we would face in public service.

The last year has seen great turbulence on both sides of the Atlantic, from Brexit to presidential elections and a global pandemic. These events, era-defining in and of themselves, have been underpinned by a creeping challenge to objective truth that poses a fundamental threat to our democracies.

The insurrection that gripped the United States Capitol building in January is seared into the minds of Americans and shocked audiences across the world. This assault on US democracy was the direct result of a baseless disinformation campaign perpetrated by the former president, Donald Trump, in the days after his legitimate defeat at the polls. That this attack took place in one of the beacons of democracy should leave us in no doubt about the serious threat disinformation poses.

A tide of disinformation is also rising in the UK, Europe and other democracies. The spreading of lies and misinformation about rare Covid-19 vaccine side effects had a real impact on vaccination rates across Europe and reports suggest that Russia and China have exploited this.

In the UK, thousands attended anti-lockdown protests, fronted by populists and predicated on the fiction that Covid restrictions were unnecessary. Even as recently as last month, we heard disturbing reports of Iran allegedly using disinformation to swing Scottish elections in favour of pro-independence parties, to destabilise the UK.

All these events confirm we now live in a world where truth is subjective.

The threats to our democracies are no longer limited to things we can see. Hostile activity can be undertaken more easily than ever, on a comparatively small budget and by nations or groups that do not measure up to conventional definitions of strength. Never before has the old maxim a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on, been more apt.

The pace at which we respond to this change will shape the events of the next few decades. It should be considered one of the foremost geopolitical threats and a key objective in safeguarding our democracies.

Progressives have called for a coordinated global response to beat the pandemic. The UK should use its G7 presidency to define a similar approach to this contemporary battle.

Commitments made at the recent G7 foreign and development ministers meeting to bolster the groups Rapid Response Mechanism are welcome. This now needs to become a comprehensive global instrument that systematically exposes and combats disinformation. Ongoing commitments to Nato, undermined by former president Trump, will also be essential to developing multilateral efforts to combat organised falsehoods.

Individual governments, social media companies, and even the press all have a role to play too. Ensuring domestic investment in cyber security that matches the scale of the challenge will be important, as will making sure social media companies are responsible for rooting out deceit.

Perhaps most fundamentally, it will require world leaders particularly those of G7 nations to have the courage of their convictions and defend facts, science, and democracy when it matters most.

That is why we must continue to place a high premium on the character and qualities of our political leaders.

Ultimately, this is not about policing free speech, or an attempt to deny anyone the right to express their view in a reasoned argument. It is a call to recognise a clear and present danger to our countries and to democracies around the world.

The commitment to democracy is a foundational part of the relationship between the UK, the US and the rest of the G7. It has been at the centre of challenges we have faced together in the past. As we emerge from the pandemic, that same commitment must be the basis on which we face the challenges of the future.

Representative Colin Allred is the Democratic Congressman for Texas 32nd congressional district and a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Stephen Morgan is the MP for Portsmouth South and shadow armed forces minister

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In the wake of Trump and Covid-19 fake news, the G7 nations have to step up and fight disinformation - The Independent