False Claims Research Articles

The Proposal of Countermeasures for DeepFake Voices on Social Media Considering Waveform and Text Embedding

In recent times, advancements in text-to-speech technologies have yielded more natural-sounding voices. However, this has also made it easier to generate malicious fake voices and disseminate false narratives. ASVspoof stands out as a prominent benchmark in the ongoing effort to automatically detect fake voices, thereby playing a crucial role in countering illicit access to biometric systems. Consequently, there is a growing need to broaden our perspectives, particularly when it comes to detecting fake voices on social media platforms. Moreover, existing detection models commonly face challenges related to their generalization performance. This study sheds light on specific instances involving the latest speech generation models. Furthermore, we introduce a novel framework designed to address the nuances of detecting fake voices in the context of social media. This framework considers not only the voice waveform but also the speech content. Our experiments have demonstrated that the proposed framework considerably enhances classification performance, as evidenced by the reduction in equal error rate. This underscores the importance of considering the waveform and the content of the voice when tasked with identifying fake voices and disseminating false claims.

The Impact Of Green Marketing Campaign Towards H&M Indonesia Customers’ Purchase Decision: A Case Study On H&M Conscious Collection

In recent years, the topic of sustainability has been on the rise. As it continues to become an area of concern and discussion, industries are also nudged, and even forced, to go in the same direction in order to keep up with the competition. This has also been complemented with how people are now more interested in sustainable brands, in which being sustainable has now become a trend as more and more companies decide to go green, and even a priority. Amongst them is the fashion industry; H&M was first accused of greenwashing in August of 2019 by The Norwegian Consumer Authority as it defines its Conscious Collection as “the shortcut to more sustainable shopping”. This research would like to investigate if greenwashing; described as making false claims about a brand’s product or service to attract more customers; affects the purchase decision of customers. This research employs a quantitative methodology with non-probability sampling by contacting H&M Indonesia Twitter followers. The results of this research revealed that the greenwashing done by H&M through its Conscious Collection green marketing campaign did not play a significant role in the purchase decision of H&M Indonesia customers due to Indonesians’ environmental literacy. It is hoped that the implications of this research help to advise big corporations as well as small aspiring businesses that being sustainable should be done correctly and genuinely – from communicating green promotional messages to executing a green marketing campaign.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND GREENWASHING: AN ANALYSIS OF SUFFICIENT CONSUMPTION IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY

The article examines how the fashion industry has been exploiting marketing tactics that encourage overconsumption and generate a mass consciousness among consumers, where a person's social status is determined by the clothes and accessories they use. However, these tactics have contributed significantly to global environmental pollution and socio-economic issues. The fashion industry has been driven by profit-first interests that rely on cheap materials, accelerated aging of products, aggressive advertising, and an offshoring strategy that provides cheap labor and low tax rates. It is high time that companies reassess their marketing strategies and focus on sustainable development. The current climate crisis demands that companies make informed decisions and take proactive measures toward sustainability. This article revealed the impact of fast fashion marketing on consumer behavior and the environment, highlighting the need for sustainable fashion practices. The article analyzes the initiatives fashion companies take to incorporate sustainability into their core business strategies, for instance, innovative raw materials, recycling, and repair services. The article examines the practice of greenwashing, where companies make false or exaggerated claims about their environmental efforts to appear more sustainable. The article emphasizes the need for companies to encourage consumers to sufficient consumption to stay sustainable and achieve zero emissions to solve climate problems. Achieving and maintaining consumer well-being and social equity are critical goals in today's global business environment. One strategy for achieving these goals is through sufficient consumption, which involves optimizing resource use and reducing waste. Sufficient consumption can be realized by revaluing personal needs and desires, limiting excessive consumption, and minimizing waste. By adopting a mindful and responsible approach to consumption, consumers and companies can promote social equity and cultivate a sustainable business environment.

Remembering the truth or falsity of advertising claims: A preregistered model-based test of three competing theoretical accounts.

Given the large amount of information that people process daily, it is important to understand memory for the truth and falsity of information. The most prominent theoretical models in this regard are the Cartesian model and the Spinozan model. The former assumes that both "true" and "false" tags may be added to the memory representation of encoded information; the latter assumes that only falsity is tagged. In the present work, we contrasted these two models with an expectation-violation model hypothesizing that truth or falsity tags are assigned when expectations about truth or falsity must be revised in light of new information. An interesting implication of the expectation-violation model is that a context with predominantly false information leads to the tagging of truth whereas a context with predominantly true information leads to the tagging of falsity. To test the three theoretical models against each other, veracity expectations were manipulated between participants by varying the base rates of allegedly true and false advertising claims. Memory for the veracity of these claims was assessed using a model-based analysis. To increase methodological rigor and transparency in the specification of the measurement model, we preregistered, a priori, the details of the model-based analysis test. Despite a large sample size (N = 208), memory for truth and falsity did not differ, regardless of the base rates of true and false claims. The results thus support the Cartesian model and provide evidence against the Spinozan model and the expectation-violation model.

Improving Factual Error Correction by Learning to Inject Factual Errors

Factual error correction (FEC) aims to revise factual errors in false claims with minimal editing, making them faithful to the provided evidence. This task is crucial for alleviating the hallucination problem encountered by large language models. Given the lack of paired data (i.e., false claims and their corresponding correct claims), existing methods typically adopt the ‘mask-then-correct’ paradigm. This paradigm relies solely on unpaired false claims and correct claims, thus being referred to as distantly supervised methods. These methods require a masker to explicitly identify factual errors within false claims before revising with a corrector. However, the absence of paired data to train the masker makes accurately pinpointing factual errors within claims challenging. To mitigate this, we propose to improve FEC by Learning to Inject Factual Errors (LIFE), a three-step distantly supervised method: ‘mask-corrupt-correct’. Specifically, we first train a corruptor using the ‘mask-then-corrupt’ procedure, allowing it to deliberately introduce factual errors into correct text. The corruptor is then applied to correct claims, generating a substantial amount of paired data. After that, we filter out low-quality data, and use the remaining data to train a corrector. Notably, our corrector does not require a masker, thus circumventing the bottleneck associated with explicit factual error identification. Our experiments on a public dataset verify the effectiveness of LIFE in two key aspects: Firstly, it outperforms the previous best-performing distantly supervised method by a notable margin of 10.59 points in SARI Final (19.3% improvement). Secondly, even compared to ChatGPT prompted with in-context examples, LIFE achieves a superiority of 7.16 points in SARI Final.

Особливості організаційно-правового забезпечення інформаційної безпеки в умовах війни з росією

The article, based on a theoretical and practical study of the essence and features of the regulation of information and legal relations in the conditions of russian aggression, focuses on the problematic issues of organizational and legal provision of information security as an activity aimed at the prevention, timely detection and termination of threats that destructively affect vital interests of the individual, society and the state in the information sphere. It has been proved that the analysis of the results of the adoption of international legal acts by the UN General Assembly in recent years, with their short-sighted and futile vision, confidently prove that the entire burden of the organizational and legal provision of information security in the formation of principled positions on the regulation of norms aimed at the development of a single mechanism in counteracting threats to geopolitical information security still rests with states within their territorial jurisdiction. It has been determined that the informational pressure, which russia has continuously been using against Ukraine over the past decade, is being accompanied by frantic information propaganda aimed at discrediting public authorities, baseless accusations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the deaths of people in the temporarily occupied territory, and the imposition of the chauvinistic idea of defending “russian” peace”, the return of the post-Soviet republics to the “renewed Union” with its imperial goals of aggression. Taking into account the problems of organizational and legal provision of information security, an analysis of the implementation of legal acts regulating informational and legal relations in the conditions of the russian-Ukrainian war has been carried out. Attention has been drawn to the order of creation and running of the system of operational and technical management of electronic communication networks of public use and the national centre of management of electronic communication networks for the purposes of defence and security of the state in conditions of martial law. The issues of combating phishing as a form of information attack, which, having been presented as a simple electronic message, is carried out by criminal groups in a deceptive way on the user in order to obtain any type of data, have been studied out. The problems associated with the implementation of the filtering system for phishing domains, which may create additional significant risks and pose threats to the information security of Ukraine, have been outlined. The mechanisms of organizational and legal protection against disinformation and the means of countering it have been defined. Taking into account the recommendations of the numerous scientists and practitioners, proposals have been made to optimize the organizational and legal provision of information security in the conditions of russian aggression.

Source-credibility information and social norms improve truth discernment and reduce engagement with misinformation online

Misinformation on social media is a pervasive challenge. In this study (N = 415) a social-media simulation was used to test two potential interventions for countering misinformation: a credibility badge and a social norm. The credibility badge was implemented by associating accounts, including participants’, with a credibility score. Participants’ credibility score was dynamically updated depending on their engagement with true and false posts. To implement the social-norm intervention, participants were provided with both a descriptive norm (i.e., most people do not share misinformation) and an injunctive norm (i.e., sharing misinformation is the wrong thing to do). Both interventions were effective. The social-norm intervention led to reduced belief in false claims and improved discrimination between true and false claims. It also had some positive impact on social-media engagement, although some effects were not robust to alternative analysis specifications. The presence of credibility badges led to greater belief in true claims, lower belief in false claims, and improved discrimination. The credibility-badge intervention also had robust positive impacts on social-media engagement, leading to increased flagging and decreased liking and sharing of false posts. Cumulatively, the results suggest that both interventions have potential to combat misinformation and improve the social-media information landscape.

Homomorphic encryption domain asymmetric fingerprinting scheme for 3D models of oblique photography

AbstractExisting copyright protection schemes for 3D models of oblique photography predominantly utilize digital watermarking technology, most of which suffer from shortcomings such as the potential false accusation of legitimate users and the inability to effectively trace unauthorized distributors. In response to these challenges, this article proposes a homomorphic encryption domain asymmetric fingerprinting scheme for 3D models of oblique photography. Initially, the fingerprints to be embedded are collaboratively generated by the transacting parties, with the publisher remaining unaware of the user's actual fingerprint. This approach ensures the effective implementation of the asymmetric nature of the fingerprinting scheme. Subsequently, potential geometric and non‐geometric attacks are considered prior to fingerprint embedding. Robustness is enhanced for the proposed solution through relative coordinate transformations and normalization procedures. Ultimately, the embedding and extraction of fingerprints are achieved through the application of an effective bit parity check method, in conjunction with the vertex‐paradigm projection length mapping mechanism and the Paillier homomorphic encryption system, minimizing embedding distortion while ensuring data security. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed solution exhibits satisfying robustness against common manipulations, such as cropping, simplification, and geometric attacks. Additionally, the scheme effectively safeguards legitimate users from false accusations and accurately traces maliciously authorized users.

A Double-Edged Sword? The Criminalization of False Rape Accusations in Botswana

Abstract False rape accusations have far reaching consequences in that they may result in the prosecution and conviction of innocent persons so falsely accused. In addition to the possibility of criminal sanctions, persons falsely accused of rape may suffer considerable societal stigma, damage to reputation, and psychological harm. Furthermore, the proliferation of false rape accusations may result in actual victims of rape being treated with mistrust and being disproportionately interrogated before their reports are acted upon. Neither of these consequences bode well for any criminal justice system. For this reason, the parliament of Botswana, through the 2021 amendment to the Penal Code, criminalized false or misleading rape accusations. This paper interrogates the legislative intent behind the criminalization. It discusses the elements of the offence in highlighting what the prosecution needs to prove to secure a conviction. Furthermore, the paper assesses the adequacy of the sentence imposed for the offence. For comparative purposes, I explore how other jurisdictions approach the challenges of false rape accusations and distil the lessons to be learnt from such approaches.

The Unintended Effects of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in a Maximum-Security Prison for Women: Weaponization, Bullying, and Compulsory Heterosexuality

Research on the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) has overwhelmingly focused on male correctional institutions, neglecting female ones. Sexual violence is also of concern within female prisons, and the need arises to understand whether PREA is achieving the goal of eradicating sexual misconduct in prisons housing women, or if the policy is having unintended effects. Based on results from surveys collected from women (N = 369) incarcerated in a Southeastern U.S. prison, both positive and negative aspects of the act were cited. In terms of the former, the legislation resulted in improvements to prison climate, yet for negatives, participants noted how PREA was being weaponized by staff and peers against other incarcerated women via false allegations. Policy implications are discussed.

VCubeChain: A scalable permissioned blockchain

This work presents vCubeChain, a scalable permissioned blockchain based on the vCube virtual topology. vCube is a virtual hierarchical topology that presents several logarithmic properties. vCubeChain employs a leader election algorithm that relies on the failure detection information that vCube provides. The leader employs a vCube-based autonomic reliable broadcast algorithm to disseminate blocks, each consisting of multiple transactions. In case multiple leaders end up concurrently elected due to false suspicions, vCubeChain is proven to recover to a consistent state upon the discovery of contradictory blocks. vCubeChain is described, specified, and correctness and liveness draft proofs are presented. The blockchain was implemented on the Blocksim simulator, and a set of experiments are presented, including comparisons with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Hyperledge Fabric. Results demonstrate the scalability of the solution.

A framework for tracing timber following the Ukraine invasion

Scientific testing including stable isotope ratio analysis (SIRA) and trace element analysis (TEA) is critical for establishing plant origin, tackling deforestation and enforcing economic sanctions. Yet methods combining SIRA and TEA into robust models for origin verification and determination are lacking. Here we report a (1) large Eastern European timber reference database (Betula, Fagus, Pinus, Quercus) tailored to sanctioned products following the Ukraine invasion; (2) statistical test to verify samples against a claimed origin; (3) probabilistic model of SIRA, TEA and genus distribution data, using Gaussian processes, to determine timber harvest location. Our verification method rejects 40–60% of simulated false claims, depending on the spatial scale of the claim, and maintains a low probability of rejecting correct origin claims. Our determination method predicts harvest location within 180 to 230 km of true location. Our results showcase the power of combining data types with probabilistic modelling to identify and scrutinize timber harvest location claims.

Fear, misinformation, and pharmaceutical messianism in the promotion of compounded bioidentical hormone therapy.

Compounded bioidentical hormone therapy (cBHT) for menopausal symptoms maintains popularity in western countries despite the availability of hormone products in different formulations and dosages produced by pharmaceutical companies with federal oversight. Akin to many populist therapeutic trends in the history of medicine, cBHT advocates tend to capitalize on consumer fears about existing FDA-approved hormone treatments. Unsubstantiated, exaggerated, or outright false claims are commonplace in promoting cBHT. Given these elements, the basic elements of pharmaceutical messianism continue to drive the cBHT movement.

Fingerprints of Conspiracy Theories: Identifying Signature Information Sources of a Misleading Narrative and Their Roles in Shaping Message Content and Dissemination

This study investigates the role of information sources in the propagation and reception of misleading narratives on social media, focusing on the case of the Chemtrail conspiracy theory—a false claim that the trails in the sky behind airplanes are chemicals deliberately spread for sinister reasons. We collected data from Facebook Pages and Groups discussing the conspiracy theory. We specifically focused on identifying and analyzing “signature” information sources, which are repeatedly used by online communities engaged in the discussion of a misleading narrative but are not widely used by other communities. The findings indicate that messages referencing signature sources contain more death-, illness-, risk-, and health-related words, convey more negativity, and elicit more negative reactions from users, compared with those without signature sources. The insights from this study could contribute to the development of effective strategies to monitor and counter the spread of misleading narratives in digital spaces.

Rape by Deception in Popular Culture: The Hidden Harm in Body-swap Narratives

ABSTRACT The increasing support for affirmative and informed consent to sexual activity has led to several jurisdictions, including the UK, several US states and Israel, to incorporate rape by deception, or rape-by-fraud, into laws against rape. Broadly, rape by deception involves the rapist making false claims about identity, fidelity, contraception and/or disease risk. False claims like these can make informed consent impossible and put the victim/survivor at risk for serious ongoing health conditions, including sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy. However, storylines featuring rape by deception in popular film and television suggest that cultural knowledge and recognition of the harm inflicted by rape by deception is not widely shared. In body-swapping narratives, a popular trope in comedy and speculative fiction, characters inhabit or swap bodies with other characters and may then engage in sexual activity where one party involved is unaware of the swap. In visual media, the body swapping trope is largely conveyed by actors taking on the mannerisms of other characters to comedic effect. In this article we will explore a range of representative examples of this trope and argue that rape by deception is rarely considered in these narratives, indicative of a broader cultural failure to think through the consequences of affirmative and informed consent.

Containing misinformation: Modeling spatial games of fake news.

The spread of fake news on social media is a pressing issue. Here, we develop a mathematical model on social networks in which news sharing is modeled as a coordination game. We use this model to study the effect of adding designated individuals who sanction fake news sharers (representing, for example, correction of false claims or public shaming of those who share such claims). By simulating our model on synthetic square lattices and small-world networks, we demonstrate that social network structure allows fake news spreaders to form echo chambers and more than doubles fake news' resistance to distributed sanctioning efforts. We confirm our results are robust to a wide range of coordination and sanctioning payoff parameters as well as initial conditions. Using a Twitter network dataset, we show that sanctioners can help contain fake news when placed strategically. Furthermore, we analytically determine the conditions required for peer sanctioning to be effective, including prevalence and enforcement levels. Our findings have implications for developing mitigation strategies to control misinformation and preserve the integrity of public discourse.

Navigating wartime communications: multinational corporations in the Russia-Ukraine war

AbstractThis article explores the communication strategies of multinational corporations in response to the Russo-Ukrainian War and the public pressure to divest from the Russian domestic market. By content analyzing official statements from the top 50 revenue-generating multinational corporations in Russia, the article identifies patterns in corporate narratives about the war, their actions and concerns, and potential solutions. The findings reveal that most companies declare scaling down their presence in Russia while maintaining certain basic obligations, prioritizing employee safety, and expressing concerns about the global economy. While few explicitly condemn Russia's aggression, many adopt neutral language to avoid naming Russia as the aggressor. Corporations emphasize the importance of diplomacy, adherence to international law, and the pursuit of peace, but often avoid proposing concrete solutions. Despite variations across industries, countries of origin, and decisions to stay or leave Russia, the differences in statements were not significant. The uniformity of corporate statements and evidence that companies frequently do not follow their declared promises suggest potential “bluewashing” – making vague or false claims of social responsibility or anti-war stances to improve their public image. These findings emphasize the need for multinational corporations to develop sincere and original wartime communication strategies.

The Liar’s Dividend: Can Politicians Claim Misinformation to Evade Accountability?

This study addresses the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians “crying wolf” over fake news. Strategic and false claims that stories are fake news or deepfakes may benefit politicians by helping them maintain support after a scandal. We posit that this benefit, known as the “liar’s dividend,” may be achieved through two politician strategies: by invoking informational uncertainty or by encouraging oppositional rallying of core supporters. We administer five survey experiments to over 15,000 American adults detailing hypothetical politician responses to stories describing real politician scandals. We find that claims of misinformation representing both strategies raise politician support across partisan subgroups. These strategies are effective against text-based reports of scandals, but are largely ineffective against video evidence and do not reduce general trust in media. Finally, these false claims produce greater dividends for politicians than alternative responses to scandal, such as remaining silent or apologizing.

From ghetto to swamps? Lasting Nazi fake news about sending deported Jews to drain the Pripet Marshes

ABSTRACT Beginning in October 1941, a rumour circulated in the occupied territories and in the press of the free world that Jews deported from the ghettos were being sent to the Pripet Marshes for land reclamation. In reality, this was fake news created by the Nazis to cover up the ongoing Holocaust. The false claims reached the West through the Jewish Telegraph Agency, which in turn relied on reports from the Swedish newspaper Social Demokraten and the Ukrainian-language Nazi newspaper Krakivs’ki Visti. The article analyzes the sources of these false claims and attempts to explain the reasons for their persistence; for not only did the belief that Jews were sent to the marshes rather than the death camps persist during the war, but the rumour is now being exploited by Holocaust deniers.

Проблемы применения презумпции при установлении отцовства

Introduction. Current Russian legislation regulates the procedure for establishing a legal connection between a born child and his or her father, however, in practice, problems with applying the presumption arise when establishing paternity. The problem is caused by the fact that it is the marital relationship of the child’s parents that establishes paternity, and not any biological relationship between the child and the father. In the context of family law, perhaps the most significant legal presumption is the presumption of paternity. However, as technology advances and the institution of family develops, determining paternity becomes increasingly complex. The legal significance of the presumption of paternity lies in the fact that with its help spouses are freed from proving the origin of a child born during marriage. The presumption of paternity is based on the presumption of validity of marriage, which assumes that spouses enter into marriage voluntarily and with the intention of having children. This presumption serves to protect the rights and interests of the child, providing him or her with a stable and safe family environment. It also protects spouses from unfounded accusations of infidelity or adultery. However, the presumption of paternity is not absolute and can be rebutted in court if irrefutable evidence is presented that the child is not the biological child of the spouse. The impact of this legal instrument is felt most when it is least expected. Most often, when a married couple separates without divorcing or if the woman becomes pregnant (whether married or not), in the case of the birth of a child from a surrogate mother. In these and similar situations, there is a presumption that the husband is the father. Theoretical analysis. The main theoretical approaches to and grounds for the use of presumption in establishing paternity, both for the married and unmarried, are considered. Empirical analysis. The normative acts in the field of the application of the presumption of paternity, including foreign experience, are analyzed. Results. The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to apply an out-of-court procedure to overcome the presumption of paternity in cases of the birth of a child from a woman married to another man, as well as the need for state funding of genetic testing to ensure the use of DNA analysis as the only proof of kinship of the father and the child.