By Stuart A. Thompson Stuart Thompson collected and analyzed data on thousands of Facebook posts for this article. On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Christopher Blair’s fake news empire was humming along. Mr. Blair had been earning as much as $15,000 in some months by posting false stories to Facebook about Democrats and the…
Peering through the windows of the storefront at the corner of Broadway and Canal Street, it might seem like just another upscale boutique. Inside, luxury handbags — Dior’s Lady D-lite, Louis Vuitton’s Loop, Loewe’s Puzzle bag, Telfar’s Shopping Bag, and several Hermès Birkins among them — are arranged on a grid of white shelves and…
In 2021, police officers arrested a woman after she offered undercover agents counterfeit Botox injections in a makeshift medical office she had set up in a Los Angeles hotel room. A year later, a California-based doctor pleaded guilty to hiding from patients that the drugs she had injected them with were not name-brand Botox, but…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that it is coordinating an investigation into illnesses linked with injections of botulinum toxin, commonly called Botox, across several states. The injections were administered in “nonmedical settings,” the C.D.C. said in a statement, which could include homes or cosmetic spas. The agency said that the…
Marigolds don’t generally thrive in 30-degree weather. Yet on a cool March afternoon, they bloomed in golden bunches outside Bungalow, a new Indian restaurant in the East Village. The petals appeared perky and thriving, as did the man, Carlos Franqui, expertly twisting them into a colorful archway that crawled around the entrance. How had Mr….
Images of Taylor Swift that had been generated by artificial intelligence and had spread widely across social media in late January probably originated as part of a recurring challenge on one of the internet’s most notorious message boards, according to a new report. Graphika, a research firm that studies disinformation, traced the images back to…
Fake, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift likely generated by artificial intelligence spread rapidly across social media platforms this week, disturbing fans who saw them and reigniting calls from lawmakers to protect women and crack down on the platforms and technology that spread such images. One image shared by a user on X, formerly Twitter,…
Updated Jan. 12: According to a report by the New York Post, ESPN’s former senior vice president of production Lee Fitting’s dismissal was directly tied to the fake-name Emmy scheme. Why did Jemele Hill leave ESPN? Fitting, who was one of the three people barred from future Emmy participation, was let go by ESPN this…
