Our mission is to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse.
RESEARCH
Misinformation is more than just bad facts: How and why people spread rumors is key to understanding how false information travels and takes root
10.31.2024
Through the course of our research we have learned that despite all the discussion about misinformation being a problem of bad facts, most misleading election rumors stem not from false or manipulated evidence but from misinterpretations and mischaracterizations. In other words, the CIP’s Kate Starbird and Stephen Prochaska write in The Conversation the problem is not just about bad facts but also faulty frames, or the mental structures people rely on to interpret those facts.
‘What to expect when we’re electing’ series
Our “What to expect when we’re electing” series features articles introducing conceptual tools for understanding election rumoring (both in general and specifically in online settings) and for anticipating the types of rumors and tactics that we expect to see during different phases of the upcoming election.
- 11.04.2024 | Part 5: What to expect when we’re electing: A guide to voting machine rumors
- 10.31.2024 | Part 4: What to expect during Election Week: Uncertainty, rumor-gathering, and lawsuits
- 10.02.2024 | Part 3: What to expect when we’re electing: An object-oriented framework for pre-election rumors
- 09.09.2024 | Part 2: The 5 moves of misleading election rumors
- 09.05.2024 | Part 1: An election rumoring timeline
- Follow our work | Sign up for the CIP’s 2024 Election Rumor Research updates via our Substack newsletter.
Making the case: Evidence generation infrastructure in the 2024 election
10.29.2024
2024 ELECTION RUMOR RESEARCH | Self-described election integrity organizations have developed new tools and repurposed existing infrastructure, including phone apps, to encourage the capture and digital sharing of “evidence” of perceived election fraud. This infrastructure is strategically deployed to gather alleged “evidence” of voter fraud and use that evidence — often in misleading ways — to motivate and mobilize political and legal action. This process of motivating, gathering, and using alleged evidence of election fraud appears to be part of a political strategy facilitated by what we call “evidence generation infrastructure.” | Read our analysis
- 11.05.2024 | Voting machine rumors in Pennsylvania reminiscent of Maricopa County rumors in 2022
- 11.04.2024 | Misinterpreted data, misleading rumors about Dominion voter assist terminals
- 10.29.2024 | Unfolding blame game in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania over suspicious voter registrations
- 10.25.2024 | Atlanta cybersecurity conference, voting machines, and expectations of prolonged ballot counting spark rumors
- 10.23.2024 | Florida sues the Dept. of Homeland Security for citizenship data, sparking rumors
- 10.16.2024 | Fake mail-in ballot envelope sparks rumors
- 10.14.2024 | Newsbrokering on X during the Trump assassination attempts
- 10.10.2024 | Error in Arizona’s voter registration system fuels rumors of non-citizen voting
- 10.09.2024 | The anatomy of 3 videos alleging that many non-citizens are registered to vote in U.S. elections
- 10.01.2024 | Examining rumors that Democrats are trying to commit voter fraud via the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act
EVENTS
Webinar: ‘State of Trust: Washington’s Political Climate and Voter Priorities’
10.22.2024
What is the current level of trust in our electoral system? What do Washingtonians see as the top priorities for their elected officials? How do they view candidates running for state and federal office? The Seattle Times’ Claire Withycombe joins Center for an Informed Public research manager Danielle Lee Tomson to analyze key findings from the WA Poll, a statewide public opinion survey co-sponsored by the CIP, The Seattle Times and KING5 TV. Tune in online as they offer insights into what these findings reveal about November’s elections, the state of democracy and the future political climate in Washington state. Hanson Hosein moderates the panel.
EDUCATION
Fostering a more informed public through media literacy education in WA classrooms and communities
VIDEO | AUGUST 2024
At the CIP, we’re proud of our efforts to support multidisciplinary research and the development of educational programming and information literacy resources. Our work not only supports a more informed public, but also has inspired teachers, librarians, and other educators to apply these lessons and skills in their classrooms and communities across Washington and beyond. In a CIP-produced video, we share highlights from our annual MisinfoDay educational event for high school students, teachers and other educators; our Loki’s Loop educational gaming development work at the UW Information School; and support of intergenerational learning opportunities that bring students together with the adults in their lives and communities.
- Learn more about MisinfoDay 2024
- 03.21.2024 | National Public Radio report features MisinfoDay 2024: ‘AI images and conspiracy theories are driving a push for media literacy education’
- 03.31.2024 | CIP’s Liz Crouse shares MisinfoDay 2024 lessons in The Seattle Times
- 04.04.2024 | Education Week video feature: Why this teacher uses aliens to teach media literacy
- 05.09.2024 | Media literacy coalition in California brings MisinfoDay, first developed in Washington state, to the Golden State
- 08.28.2024 | High school students, local seniors in Sedro-Woolley demonstrate the power of intergenerational learning
Break-free in a misinformation themed escape room
RESOURCES
Loki’s Loop games, including the Euphorigen Investigation, immerse people in an interactive escape room of manipulated media, social media bots, deepfakes, and other forms of deception to learn about misinformation. These games, a research project from the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public in partnership with the UW Technology & Social Change Group, UW GAMER Research Group and Puzzle Break, are designed to improve people’s awareness of misinformation tactics and generate reflection on the emotional triggers and psychological biases that make misinformation so powerful. Loki’s Loop games are available for libraries, schools, and organizations with an educational mission, in both online and in-person versions.
PEOPLE
CIP’s Madeline Jalbert continuing postdoctoral work through new NSF fellowship funding
10.17.2024
Madeline Jalbert, a Center for an Informed Public postdoctoral scholar based at the Information School, is continuing her research at the CIP thanks to a postdoctoral research fellowship awarded by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.
Jason C. Young selected for 2024 CIP Robert Mason Outstanding Mentorship award
AWARDS
The ability to connect with and understand others is an important quality for mentorship. It’s something that comes naturally to University of Washington Information School senior research scientist Jason C. Young, who was recently recognized by his peers at the Center for an Informed Public with the 2024 CIP Robert Mason Outstanding Mentorship Award, which is intended to highlight the work of individuals making a significant positive impact on others and the CIP community.
CIP Updates
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Conspiracy theories about Starlink and election interference spread online | 11.18.2024
- EDUCATION | CIP’s Chris Coward interviewed by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Loki’s Loop educational ‘escape room’ games | 11.16.2024
- NEWS | NPR interviews CIP’s Kate Starbird and Danielle Lee Tomson | 11.09.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Looking at post-election rumors | 11.08.2024
- NEWS | CIP election rumor research cited in The New York Times | 11.06.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Voting machine rumors in Pennsylvania reminiscent of Maricopa County rumors in 2022 |11.05.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | A guide to voting machine rumors
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Misinterpreted data, misleading rumors about Dominion voter assist terminals, and more | 11.04.2024
- NEWS | GeekWire interviews CIP’s Danielle Lee Tomson about election rumors | 11.02.2024
- NEWS | CIP’s election rumor research team featured in The New York Times | 11.01.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | What to expect during Election Week | 10.31.2024
- INSIGHTS | Why misinformation is more than just bad facts | 10.31.2024
- NEWS | CIP’s Mert Can Bayar interviewed by NBC News about research on “newsbroker” accounts on X | 10.31.2024
- RESEARCH | Science: Rumor clinic: CIP’s Kate Starbird tracks falsehoods and counters them in real time | 10.30.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Making the case: Evidence generation infrastructure and the 2024 election | 10.29.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Florida sues the Dept. of Homeland Security for citizenship data, sparking rumors | 10.23.2024
- NEWS | WA Poll sheds light on concerns over a disputed election, post-election violence and non-citizen voting | 10.22.2024
- PEOPLE | Madeline Jalbert to continue postdoctoral research at CIP thanks to new NSF funding | 10.17.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Breaking news in the hands of a few: Newsbrokering on X during the Trump assassination attempts | 10.14.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Making sense of election rumors emerging from Hurricane Helene | 10.09.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Recommendations for journalists covering election rumors in 2024 | 10.03.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | What to expect when we’re electing: An object-oriented framework for pre-election rumors | 10.02.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Examining rumors that Democrats are trying to commit voter fraud via the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act | 10.01.2024
- INSIGHTS | Axios interviews CIP’s Rachel Moran-Prestridge about how to spot election misinformation | 09.24.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Ballot errors in Florida and Montana are vectors for rumoring | 09.24.2024
- INSIGHTS | CIP’s Danielle Lee Tomson interviewed on Marketplace Tech about non-citizen voting rumors | 09.10.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | The 5 moves of misleading election rumors | 09.09.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | What to expect when you’re electing: An election rumoring timeline | 09.05.2024
- RESEARCH | CIP’s Jevin West and Shahan Memon featured in Nature article about ‘AI Scientist’ | 08.30.2024
- VIDEO | Fostering a more informed public through media literacy education in WA classrooms and communities | 08.28.2024
- EDUCATION | High school students, local seniors in Sedro-Woolley demonstrate power of intergenerational learning | 08.28.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | The Center for an Informed Public’s Election Rumor Research in 2024 | 08.19.2024
- INSIGHTS | Is weird-checking the new factchecking? | 08.12.2024
- NEWS | KXLY-TV in Spokane interviews CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson about election rumors, misinformation | 08.05.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Rumors questioning the legality and legitimacy of the Democratic presidential nominee | 07.31.2024
- RESEARCH | CIP faculty member Carl Bergstrom co-authors Scientific American opinion, “Social media is junk food for information foragers” | 07.29.2024
- RESEARCH | CIP postdoctoral scholar Yiwei Xu receives top paper and outstanding dissertation awards at ICA | 07.23.2024
- NEWS | Washington Post interviews CIP’s Jevin West about risks of using AI chatbots to follow breaking news | 07.22.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Making sense of rumors about the Trump assassination attempt | 07.15.2024
- PEOPLE | Danielle Lee Tomson joins CIP as research manager | 07.12.2024
- INSIGHTS | CIP’s Rachel Moran-Prestridge interviewed by New York Times about conspiracy theories about Biden | 07.12.2024
- POLICY | CIP’s Ryan Calo testifies before U.S. Senate hearing, “The Need to Protect Americans’ Privacy and the AI Accelerant” | 07.11.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Discrepancy in implementations of social media election information policies in English and Spanish in-platform searches | 06.24.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | The anatomy of a resurging rumor stemming from peer-reviewed research about non-citizen voting in the U.S. | 06.20.2024
- PEOPLE | Jason C. Young selected for 2024 CIP Robert Mason Outstanding Mentorship Award | 06.18.2024
- NEWS | CIP’s Kate Starbird honored with two prestigious awards for public service and research impact | 06.13.2024
- EDUCATION | Sedro-Woolley students, seniors gather for day of intergenerational learning activities | 06.10.2024
- RESEARCH | CIP awards 2024 Innovation Fund grants to 4 projects | 05.23.2024
- RESEARCH | Survivor-informed research surrounding online discourses of abuse | 05.15.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Examining mischaracterizations of voter registration data in Washington state | 05.14.2024
- EDUCATION | Media literacy coalition brings MisinfoDay, first developed in Washington state, to California | 05.09.2024
- RESEARCH | Can Wikipedia-like citations on YouTube curb misinformation? | 05.09.2024
- EVENTS | CIP’s Mert Can Bayar discusses election rumors, conspiracy theories and democracy in UW Impact webinar | 05.02.2024
- NEWS | CIP’s Jevin West featured in Monterey County Weekly article about MisinfoDay California | 05.02.2024
- INSIGHTS | AFP interviews CIP’s Mert Can Bayar about ‘zombie’ misinformation targeting Americans | 04.23.2024
- NEWS | Read the most recent edition of the CIP News & Insights newsletter | 04.11.2024
- NEWS | KING5-TV interviews CIP’s Jevin West about local candidate targeted by fake email scam | 05.15.2024
- EDUCATION | Education Week features video report on MisinfoDay 2024 at UW Seattle | 04.04.2024
- EDUCATION | CIP’s Liz Crouse shares MisinfoDay lessons in The Seattle Times | 03.31.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Learn more about the Center for an Informed Public’s election research in 2024 | 03.23.2024
- EDUCATION | NPR features MisinfoDay 2024 activities at UW Seattle | 03.21.2024
- INSIGHTS | Oregon Public Broadcasting interviews CIP’s Rachel Moran-Prestridge about misinformation and Instagram influencers | 03.19.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | A boosted video resonates with ‘border crisis’ and ‘rigged election’ frames | 03.14.2024
- INSIGHTS | PolitiFact interviews CIP’s Jevin West about the Princess Kate photo manipulation controversy | 03.12.2024
- RESEARCH | American Scientist republishes “Rumors have rules” by CIP’s Emma Spiro and Kate Starbird | 03.07.2024
- RESOURCES | Can you spot a scam? Whatcom County Library System, in partnership with CIP researchers, launch digital quizzes | 02.25.2024
- RESEARCH | Can provenance save us from a barrage of synthetic information? | 02.21.2024
- INSIGHTS | CIP’s Jevin West discusses OpenAI’s text-to-video tool in KUOW interview | 02.21.2024
- RESEARCH | Search engines post-ChatGPT: How generative artificial intelligence could make search less reliable | 02.18.2024
- INSIGHTS | CIP researchers discuss examination of ‘new elites’ on Twitter/X engaged in Hamas/Israel discourse during UW Jackson School event | 02.13.2024
- PEOPLE | CIP appoints 5 new faculty members, from UW Communication, Geography, Global Health, iSchool and Philosophy | 02.12.2024
- INSIGHTS | The Atlantic interviews CIP’s Mike Caulfield about “evidence maximalism” | 02.08.2024
- PEOPLE | Rachel Moran-Prestridge promoted to CIP senior research scientist | 01.31.2024
- RESEARCH | Nature: Faced with data restrictions and harassment, researchers are mapping out fresh approaches to studying social media’s political reach | 01.31.2024
- ESSAY | Our field was built on decades-old bodies of research across a range of disciplines. It wasn’t invented by a ‘class of misinformation experts’ in 2016. | 01.24.2024
- RESEARCH | Untangling abortion myths and its impacts on abortion providers | 01.23.2024
- NEWS | NBC News: Disinformation poses an unprecedented threat in 2024 — and the U.S. is less ready than ever | 01.18.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | A large margin for Trump in Iowa puts a damper on election rumoring | 01.17.2024
- RESEARCH | New paper explores the risk of nationalist governance capture in self-governed Wikipedia projects | 01.17.2024
- 2024 RAPID RESEARCH BLOG | Examining an early election conspiracy theory taking shape in Iowa | 01.14.2024
- INSIGHTS | KUOW Public Radio interviews CIP’s Mike Caulfield, co-author of Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions on What to Believe Online | 01.03.2024
- RESEARCH | Check out our peer-reviewed publications work from 2023 | 12.22.2023
- NEWS | Read the CIP’s News & Insights newsletter | 12.14.2023
- RESEARCH | Social truth queries: Development of a new user-driven intervention for countering online misinformation | 12.13.2023
- INSIGHTS | Sociology informed by information science: A discussion with Francesca Bolla Tripodi, winner of the 2023 CIP Award for Impact & Excellence | 12.11.2023
- RESEARCH | Facts, frames, and (mis)intepretations: Understanding rumors as collective sensemaking | 12.06.2023
- POLICY | CIP’s Mike Caulfield and Jevin West present during Washington State Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee meeting | 12.05.2023
- INSIGHTS | Advertiser influence and platform accountability: The X dilemma | 12.04.2023
- EDUCATION | With new IMLS grant, CIP researchers start work to create a comprehensive information literacy program for public libraries | 11.07.2023
- RESEARCH | “The new Twitter is changing rapidly — study it before it’s too late,” CIP’s Mike Caulfield writes in Nature | 11.07.2023
- EVENTS | CIP’s Ryan Calo discusses “Misinformation, AI and the Rule of Law” during UW Impact webinar | 11.02.2023
- MORE NEWS >
“It’s one of the most important problems of our time that we as a society need to solve. This is not a left or right issue. This is an issue that transcends political boundaries. Everyone wants to get this right.”
— Jevin West, Co-Founder and Inaugural Director
CONFRONTING MISINFORMATION
The spread of misinformation is among the most pressing challenges of our time. New platforms for human interaction and information sharing have opened the door to misinformation, disinformation and other forms of networked manipulation, which not only mislead and create divisions, but also diminish trust in democratic institutions such as science and journalism. The nonpartisan Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington brings diverse voices from across industry, government, nonprofits and other institutions together to confront the problem through our research, education, policy and engagement efforts. Learn More
WHAT WE DO
RESEARCH
We support cutting-edge research with a strong focus on research to practice, which spans disciplines from sociology to information science and law.
EDUCATION
We educate information consumers across the demographic landscape in order to make more informed decisions.
LAW & POLICY
We address information policy through generative analyses of the legal frameworks and the available levers for intervention.
ENGAGEMENT
We engage directly with the public in collaboration with our partners, libraries and community leaders.