Beneath an old Queenslander on the south side of the Brisbane River, beside a garage with a hand-painted sign that reads "recording" and above a computer in a cluttered spare room, is a Post-it note. The home – "not unlike Bluey's" – belongs to Bryce Corbett and doubles as an unofficial headquarters of the children's news podcast he founded and co-presents, Squiz Kids. Daily episodes tackle a headline story – like South Australia's proposal to ban children from social media – covered to inform, but not frighten, kids. The coating: a bit of fun science, pop culture and, of course, animal stories – the alligator that came to school, the world's funniest crab joke. Corbett's chat, too, is professional yet upbeat.

Recent years have heralded a particularly disruptive period in human history. Against the backdrop of a warming planet and the spillover effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we face some of the most challenging economic and geopolitical conditions in decades. And things may only deteriorate from here. These challenges are detailed at length in the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2024, released this week. The report, based on the views of nearly 1,500 global risks experts, policy-makers, and industry leaders, finds that the world's top three risks over the next two years are false information, extreme weather, and societal polarization.

At the latest congressional hearing on A.I., the hype was high. "Since the release of ChatGPT just over a year ago, it's become clear A.I. could soon disrupt nearly every facet of our economy," said Rep. Nancy Mace, chair of the U.S. congressional Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation. "The A.I. genie is out of the bottle and it can't be put back in." A.I. does seem like a genie: The technology is new and mysterious, we aren't sure exactly how it works, and we know it is very powerful. We are also afraid of it: In a poll conducted in the summer of 2023, over half of Americans said they were more concerned than excited about A.I.; there is widespread speculation about what effects the technology will have on our economy, our jobs (lolsob), our education system, our art; and tech leaders have warned that the technology puts the fate of humanity at risk.

Seoul, South Korea – The news that Saint Von Colucci, a 22-year-old Canadian-Portuguese actor, singer, and songwriter with pull in South Korea's entertainment scene, died after undergoing surgeries to look like a K-pop star set media abuzz. Von Colucci was reported to have undergone 12 plastic surgeries, costing more than $200,000, to resemble BTS member Jimin and overcome discrimination "against his Western traits". He was said to have recently secured a role in an upcoming Korean drama. The only problem is that Von Colucci may have never existed. A raft of evidence suggests he is the product of an elaborate hoax using artificial intelligence that fooled dozens of media outlets, stretching from the United States and Canada to the United Kingdom, South Korea, India, Malaysia and the Philippines. The debacle appears to be the first known case of AI being used to trick media outlets en masse into spreading misinformation, heralding the dawn of a new era of computer-generated fake news.

The Provisions appear to be an elaboration on the 2019 "Regulations on the Administration of Online Audio and Video Information Services," which broadly banned the use of machine-generated images, audio and video to create or spread "rumors"2,3. The new regulations are aimed at deep synthesis service providers and emphasize cybersecurity, real-name verification of users, data management, marking of synthetic content to alert viewers and "dispelling rumors"1. They expand the Chinese government's efforts to prevent social and political disruption by increasing its control of the Internet. These efforts are tied to the actions of tech platforms and companies. Article 5 encourages industry organizations to establish industry standards and self-discipline systems while "accept[ing] societal oversight".

In recent weeks, Facebook and YouTube have strained to explain why they won't ban Alex Jones' Infowars, which has used its verified accounts to spread false news and dangerous conspiracy theories on the platforms. Meanwhile, the midterms are approaching, and Facebook won't say definitively whether the company has found any efforts by foreign actors to disrupt the elections. Facebook did recently say that it will start to remove misinformation if it may lead to violence, a response to worrisome trends in Myanmar, India, other countries. The social media platforms are being called on to explain how they deal with information that is wrong--a question made even more complicated because the problem takes so many forms. To understand the many forms of misinformation and disinformation on social media, we recently spoke with Claire Wardle, the executive director of First Draft, a nonprofit news-literacy and fact-checking outfit based at Harvard University's Kennedy School, for Slate's tech podcast If Then. We discussed how fake news spreads on different platforms, where it's coming from, and how journalists might think--or rethink--their role in covering it. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Listen to If Then by clicking the arrow on the audio player below, or get the show via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.