Shannon Bond

Elon Musk has gone all in on Trump and put $75 million into a super PAC he created to support the candidate. He's also assisting with get-out-the-vote operations, including offering multiple giveaways of a million dollars to registered voters in key states who sign a petition. This may or may not be legal.

This episode: national political correspondent Sarah McCammon, political correspondent Susan Davis, and disinformation correspondent Shannon Bond.

The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.

It was a busy week in U.S. courtrooms. After being convicted of 34 felonies earlier this year in a New York state trial, former President Donald Trump will have to wait until after the presidential election to find out what punishment he may face. Meanwhile, in a federal courthouse in California, Hunter Biden unexpectedly pleaded guilty to tax charges. And, the Department of Justice returned indictments accusing Russian agents of trying to interfere in the 2024 presidential election through, among other ways, paying right-wing online influencers.

This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, disinformation correspondent Shannon Bond, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.

The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.

Lindsay Lohan and other celebrities were tricked into calling for the ouster of Moldova's president. It's the latest example of the Cameo app being used for an apparent political propaganda operation.

Billions of people around the world are expected to head to the polls in 2024. But experts warn that these elections are ripe targets for bad actors seeking to disrupt democracy.

Videos praising a letter written by Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden briefly circulated on TikTok this week. But the reaction exceeded the reach of the videos themselves.

The Google-owned video platform says it will shut accounts if they don't disclose when they use AI tools to make realistic-looking content. Other platforms are adopting similar policies.

Experts say a right-wing campaign has cast efforts to combat rumors and conspiracy theories as censorship. As a result, they say, the tools to tamp down on election falsehoods have been scaled back.

Misleading and false information is muddying efforts to uncover who is responsible for the deadly blast that killed hundreds of people.

Disinformation ran rampant on the social media site formerly known as Twitter after explosions at a hospital in Gaza. Changes to the platform have made finding credible information harder than ever.

"This is propaganda 101. You flood the gap, especially in those early hours, with content that suggests a certain narrative," said one observer.

Misinformation about the war between Israel and Hamas is spreading on social media. Videos are being taken out of context or mischaracterized.

The panel of judges say that the administration's efforts to flag what it considered to be harmful content likely amount to a violation of the First Amendment.

Facebook's parent company says both operations used fake accounts across social media sites to promote Chinese and Russian interests

Thousands of hackers probed AI chatbots for misinformation, bias and security flaws at the annual Defcon hacking convention in Las Vegas to see how easy is it to make the AI go off the rails.

In a Jeopardy-style game at the annual Def Con hacking convention in Las Vegas, hackers tried to get chatbots from OpenAI, Google and Meta to create misinformation and share harmful content.

Thousands of hackers are gathered in Las Vegas this weekend at Def Con. Artificial intelligence is a big focus of this year's conference.

X, the company formerly known as Twitter, is suing the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has documented the spread of hate speech and viral falsehoods on social media.

Research conducted at the height of the 2020 election reveals new details about how Facebook's algorithms handle political content. But it suggests there are no easy fixes to political polarization.

Sound of Freedom is a surprise box office hit. But the Christian thriller is also fueling controversy over conspiracy theories and its depiction of human trafficking.

The movie is being criticized as a vehicle for conspiracy theories and misleading depictions of human trafficking — landing it in the middle of the country's politically polarized culture wars.