For as long as people have uprooted their lives in search of safety, opportunity, or simply a better tomorrow, there have been others waiting to take advantage of them. Immigrants have always been particularly vulnerable to misinformation and scams, and this is not a new problem born of the internet. Max Siegelbaum, cofounder of the immigrant-focused news outlet Documented, remembers a time when scammers used duplicitous advertisements in newspapers and flyers to prey on people desperate for help with the immigration legal system. These analog-era hustlers understood something timeless: when you are far from home, unfamiliar with the laws of…

Imagine a government service built specifically to fight fake news, except it starts producing fake news itself. That is exactly what happened with RSA Facts, the new chatbot launched by South Africa’s Government Communication and Information System, or GCIS. The bot is supposed to help citizens identify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, and it is linked to the main government website and social media pages. But when GroundUp tested it, the chatbot cheerfully wrote a completely false press statement on behalf of the South African Social Security Agency, better known as SASSA. The fake statement was headlined “Media Statement: SASSA Announces…