"a new fan for americast�*s undercover voters." well, marianna spring joins me now in the studio.about when we're talking about disinformation in news? i think it's really important to think about how disinformation tends to be deliberate misleading of people, promoting conspiracy theories or falsehoods that can cause serious real world harm, and a lot of the focus that i have in thisjob is understanding how disinformation spreads and how it affects people — particularly those who are targeted by it — falsehoods about the pandemic, the war in ukraine. these aren't fringe beliefs any more. these aren't sort of small internet forums where people are promoting conspiracies that, you know, a lot of people would think are quite extreme and they wouldn't believe — particularly after the pandemic, but also around other major global events, elections and more. disinformation is more common than ever, it's something that can proliferate and spread very rapidly, and it has a real—world consequence — it spills out into the real world. it can cause violence offline, it can lead to people bein

undercover voters — the five profiles you created for newsnight and americast — you know, we saw, donaldbusiness of fake news. it's a dilemma, isn't it? it's a really interesting question, and certainly one that donald trumer has raised, and that is important for us to talk about. again, something that we spoke a lot about when we were creating these accounts — because we always ask the question — the public interest has to trump, or has to be greater than the possible deception of these accounts, because we don't want to promote disinformation or spread falsehoods. and there are a number of measures we take so that we can ethically set up these accounts, and we make sure that they're private, for example — they don't have friends and other people that can see what they post. in fact, our undercover voters haven't posted anything at all, their accounts are private and locked down. but what's crucial is, they are the only way of investigating what social media sites are recommending to users, and they can't be an exhaustive view of what every us voter is seeing on their social—media feeds

the bbc�*s americast spoke to a former content moderator at twitter who was fired by musk.wn to the whims of one person and itjust seems that, as we go further and further down the line, there's just going to be an increase in these abuses and an increase in this misinformation. he's not doing anything to actively combat that. we've already seen copyright violations. people were posting entire movies online, with little to no effect. people were, of course, earlier impersonating companies and claiming these outlandish things and embarrassing companies for being online. and there's just not enough people left to properly police that. in afghanistan, the bbc has found evidence that people are going to desperate lengths to survive the second winter since the taliban took control, including selling their daughters. the afghan economy has collapsed — and the un has described the situation as a catastrophe, with millions on the brink of starvation. you may find some of yogita limaye's report from the city of herat distressing. hunger is ravaging their lives and they are forced to

get more americast with sarah smith. we ap. get more americast with sarah smith. ~ . ., ap.d chang comes through and as we go through the afternoon we will see more widespread showers developing to the north—west of the great glen. here it was to be quite breezy but on the whole, lighter winds in comparison to the last few days. if you wish i was particularly into the afternoon and temperatures not bad for this time of year, highs between 11 and 15 celsius. now, there is ii and 15 celsius. now, there is going to be an area of high pressure that will drift across europe as we move into thursday. so this height here. it will keep the weather story across england and wales quite dry and settled. it will deflect the weather fronts into the fight north—west where it stays wet and windy, but we will tap into that very warm air coming all the way up from africa. so for this time of year, temperatures will be very, very mild indeed. does come with a price in november. that south—westerly wind bringing a lot of low cloud. it will be murky and drizzly on exposed coasts, it will be ver

it's an investigation had been doing for the bbc�*s americast podcast.e different characters based on research from the pew research center. those characters have names and they live in different places and they are based in different locations all across the us and they set at different points on the us political spectrum, and i've been using those voters under the social media feeds i've set up for them across at the five main platforms to see just how they're targeted, once spurs to them and what they're exposed to. when it comes to this information, we find that one of our voters in particular — populist right britney has been exposed to quite a lot of disinformation on her social media feed, that has tended to focus around those claims back from 2020 and from the capitol rights ——claims back from 2020 and from the capitol riots that the election was rigged, that the 2020 election was stolen and promoting other claims about fraudulent voting. i think what's interesting is the kind of disinformation that she's come acros so far has tended to be from i

it's on americast. it's available on bbc.com/sounds or the bbc sounds app.ther. behind me is a very experienced team, the l is a very experienced team, the beating heart of the bbc newsroom in washington. spare a thought for these guys, they are here through these guys, they are here through the night well into tomorrow morning. this is really where you need your team, because there was an awful lot of information coming into the newsroom tonight, a70 congressional races, 36 governor races, 6300 legislative races across the country. how do we check that? how do we double—check the results we are bringing you are accurate? and how and when do we feel confident bringing you some results? here is a familiar face, our confident bringing you some results? here is a familiarface, our north america correspondent anthony zurcher, who will be in the studio with us through the night. we will get results from some states pretty quickly, but others we will have to be patient. why does it take longer in those states?— in those states? some states don't tabulate the _ in

what does this mean for| people all around the world using twitter the bbc�*s americast spoke to a formeran increase in these abuses and misinformation. he is not _ these abuses and misinformation. he is not doing _ these abuses and misinformation. he is not doing anything to actively combat — is not doing anything to actively combat that, we have already seen copyright _ combat that, we have already seen copyright violations, people were posting _ copyright violations, people were posting and tire movies online. | posting and tire movies online. spoke with posting and tire movies online. i spoke with melissa ingle who spent quite a while working at twitter and what she was working on was algorithms and programming algorithms and programming algorithms so that they are able to detect things like harmful misinformation. most recently she worked on the elections in brazil and also the midterm elections in the us. she has lost herjob recently and her big worry is that, lots of her team have also lost theirjobs and that there is no one there updating the algorithms that detect harmful content

undercover voters — the five profiles you created for newsnight and americast — you know, we saw, donaldave to have these characters that allow you to get a sense of what voters could be seeing in an honest and truthful way because if you rely on people just to tell you what they're seeing, that's not always going to be the best way of knowing. one thing that's really been on my mind over the last couple of years is is there a danger that mainstream journalists are putting all this energy into fact—checking and fighting each fake story — you know, fact check by fact check — and you're never going to get over the backlog, are you? i think that's something we have to think about all the time. one thing i'm really passionate about is that i think fact—checking is really important but i think fact—checking alone is not enough. and i think, actually, in many ways, we can learn from the people that push conspiracy theories and are successful in promoting harmful disinformation, how to investigate it and tackle it and expose it because, actually, you have to weaponise the same things, the same

you can catch americast on bbc sounds and on our website.rights, with almost half the vote in. kentucky is a conservative state where you might — conservative state where you might have expected people to say they— might have expected people to say they wanted severe abortion restrictions, but no, it looks like — restrictions, but no, it looks like that— restrictions, but no, it looks like that is— restrictions, but no, it looks like that is going to be defeated 53—47. similar in montana, with the proposition to criminalisse abortion. in california, no surprise, 75% voting — california, no surprise, 75% voting to _ california, no surprise, 75% voting to keep abortion rights. in voting to keep abortion rights. in each— voting to keep abortion rights. in each state, even with different things, abortion rights _ different things, abortion rights coming out, may be slightly— rights coming out, may be slightly at odds with some of the races. slightly at odds with some of the races-— the races. we talked to congresswoman - the races. we talked to