Fake news is rampant on the internet. Unscrupulous websites are encouraged to create misleading stories about political figures because they get clicks.
A study published by Science Advances found that elderly conservatives are, by far, the worst spearders of fake news. Ultra conservatives over the age of 65 shared about seven times more fake information on social media than moderates and super liberals during the 2016 election.
Get ready for things to get worse.
Deepfake technology is rapidly blurring the line between reality and digital fakery. This video of Bill Hader transforming into Tom Cruise is so realistic that it's hard not to think Hader is some type of shape-shifting alien.
Facebook and Microsoft are so concerned about this new technology being used on their platforms and misleading the public, they've spent $10 million dollars to create software that identifies deepfake technology.
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"The goal of the challenge is to produce technology that everyone can use to better detect when AI has been used to alter a video in order to mislead the viewer," wrote Mike Schroepfer, chief technical officer at Facebook, in a blog outlining the project.
If elderly conservatives are easily fooled by fabricated news stories, what happens when fake videos of the liberal bogeyman du jour show up in their Facebook feed?
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Jimmy Kimmel recently brought up the issue on his talk show.
"Another threat to the election are what they call deepfake videos," said Kimmel. "They take clips and they manipulate them to make them look as if someone did or said something they did not do."
Then he played a hilarious deepfake video of Doanld Trump and Mike Pence appearing on "Ru Paul's Drag Race." The video shows Trump as the host of the show and Mike Pence, a man who has a big problem with the LGBTQ community, as drag star Brooke Lynn Hytes.
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Problematic homework question
A student’s brilliant homework answer outsmarted her teacher's ridiculously sexist question
From an early age, children absorb societal norms—including gender stereotypes. But one sharp 8-year-old from Birmingham, England, challenged a sexist homework question designed to reinforce outdated ideas.
An English teacher created a word puzzle with clues containing “UR.” One prompt read “Hospital Lady,” expecting students to answer “nurse.”
While most did, Yasmine wrote “surgeon”—a perfectly valid answer. Her father, Robert Sutcliffe, shared the incident on X (formerly Twitter), revealing the teacher had scribbled “or nurse” beside Yasmine’s response, revealing the biased expectation.
For Yasmine, the answer was obvious: both her parents are surgeons. Her perspective proves how representation shapes ambition. If children only see women as nurses, they internalize limits. But when they witness diversity—like female surgeons—they envision broader possibilities.
As Rebecca Brand noted in The Guardian: “Their developing minds are that little bit more unquestioning about what they see and hear on their screens. What message are we giving those impressionable minds about women? And how might we be cutting the ambitions of little girls short before they've even had the chance to develop properly?”
X users praised Yasmine while critiquing the question. Such subtle conditioning reinforces stereotypes early. Research confirms this: a study found children as young as four associate jobs with gender, with girls choosing “feminine” roles (e.g., nursing) and boys opting for “masculine” ones (e.g., engineering).
Even preschoolers avoided careers misaligned with their gender, proving sexist conditioning begins startlingly young.
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The problem spans globally. Data from 50 countries reveals that by age 15, girls disproportionately abandon math and science, while boys avoid caregiving fields like teaching and nursing. This segregation perpetuates stereotypes—women are underrepresented in STEM, and men in caregiving roles—creating a cycle that limits both genders.
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This article originally appeared last year.