Major? Misinformation Technology

 ChatGPT: Your new favorite media outlet

If you ever read anything about history before, you would know the media is really in control & whoever controls the media is only allowing you to see what they WANT you to see. If you have kept up with modern day news, you have probably seen that Jeff Bezos owns “Washington Post” and he has announced there will be a shift in what they are allowed to post and talk about what he deems “newsworthy.” According to politico.com, Bezos believes that “free-market views are not widely available in mainstream news opinion.” To me, that gives the same reaction as someone being upset that racism isn’t trending anymore (well that's debatable in a Trump america). It’s 2025, and a lot of people especially within Gen Z are getting their news via interesting outlets, one of them being TikTok. According to AXIOS.com, a 2023 Pew survey found that one-third of adults under 30 scroll TikTok for news, which is 255% up since 2020 when the platform first blew up. However, if you look anything into TikTok and what kind of news is filled in it—you can easily see that it usually is not the most reliable source of media and oftentimes spreads misinformation about topics. 

Researchers at NewsGuard searched for content about prominent news topics on TikTok and say they found that nearly 1 in 5 of the videos automatically suggested by the platform contained misinformation. A lot of these are AI generated content videos or suggested by the platform to users when looking up specific topics especially during the 2024 election, the rise of fake AI generated images and information was spread trying to sway people in both political directions.

Take this for example: 

If the caption hadn’t told people that it was the author making these images, most people especially at first glance wouldn’t question the reality of this image. Other sectors of AI are also making its way onto the platform such as this DeepFake of Pope Francis and him wearing a Balenciaga coat during a time period many conspiracy theorists on TikTok called the brand “a sex trafficking organization that appeals to pedophiles.’’

 

And guess what? People believed it because “who would ever post fake news?” YOU WOULD BE SO SURPRISED! Now that we’re living in an era where all the tech bros and tiktoks CEO attended almost front row to trump's inauguration and we have our undercover president Elon Musk and X and among other things. 

So what does AI think of AI on TikTok and other media sites? I asked chat gpt, “is AI good for news on TikTok and does it spread information” and a really interesting response I got was “ Additionally, AI is used for content moderation, detecting inappropriate material and enforcing community guidelines. TikTok has become a hub for entertainment, education, marketing, and social movements, demonstrating how AI-driven platforms can shape digital experiences and influence global trends.” AI being used for moderation is a really great point but can AI really moderate itself? If you have ever been on any random doom scroll through TikTok you can easily see that oftentimes there is definitely content on there that should not be. 

However, even outside TikTok and just social media platforms there is A LOT of fake news just around the internet that confuses people and misguides their decisions and views on everything. Adding AI to the picture only allows for the amount of disinformation and other deep fake images to arise and cause more issues for people trying to educate themselves on different topics. Next time you are scrolling through TikTok and you see some really crazy news story and wonder to yourself “man the world is a crazy place right now.” It might seem that way, but that's what AI wants you to think. 




Sources: 

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/26/jeff-bezos-washington-post-opinion-022790

https://www.axios.com/2024/02/16/tiktok-news-gen-z-social-media

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-technology-politics-covid-health-5cdbe1ec32312699acbe8ba9b6a00eb5

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