ICMYI: April Roundup
Conflicting claims about the Iran War, leadership struggles at CBS News, and follow-up research on 4chan's "Adult Requests" board
Hello again from the Open Measures team. We’ve had a busy April developing new tools for our platform and taking on some ambitious research projects.
Last month, Open Measures was cited in news articles from The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNOW – and be sure to check out “The Gate 15 Interview” podcast episode featuring our CEO, Hank Teran!
Iran’s Claims of Alleged Strikes on USS Abraham Lincoln Spread through State-Aligned Telegram Accounts
Our researchers examined the roles state-backed media outlets and state-aligned news aggregator accounts on Telegram played in circulating conflicting claims about Iran’s attacks on a US aircraft carrier — stirring confusion and doubt among English-speaking audiences online. Some posts promoting Iran’s claims included AI-generated images and videos falsely purporting to show the ship taking on heavy fire.
CBS News Hired Bari Weiss to Appeal to Conservatives. It Doesn’t Seem to Be Working.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said he hired conservative opinion writer Bari Weiss to serve as the editor-in-chief of CBS News last year so she could help the network “modernize” its content and draw in new audiences. Critics raised concerns that Weiss and Ellison would seek to soften the network’s coverage of the Trump Administration. But if that was the goal, pro-Trump communities aren’t buying it.
4chan’s ‘Deepfakes’ of Celebrity Women Seem to Spike When Women Make Headlines
Adding to our research in March, Open Measures re-examined 4chan’s “Adult Requests” imageboard, one of the internet’s largest fountains of nonconsensual deepfakes, for mentions of three female celebrities frequently targeted by the board’s users. Notably, users’ requests for nonconsensual images of all three women seemed to spike during periods of increased media exposure that elevated their public profiles.
