Your Ballot Is Secret, but Your Inbox May Not Be

By Fran Villalba Segarra. Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad.

On November 3, Americans will file into voting booths to exercise their right to participate in the democratic process. While this right is supposed to come with an assumed measure of privacy, this expectation has been in doubt since the start of the digital era. Ballots may be cast in secret, but email inboxes tell a different story. Campaign newsletters, political donations and petition confirmations can reveal a person's political affiliations, even when they have never publicly disclosed them.

Even if voting records are too well guarded for average hackers to gain access, any email account is vulnerable to a cyberattack, which can expose a person’s political beliefs, who they support, and how they are likely to vote in a given election year. It isn’t just advanced cyberattacks that we need to worry about, however. Email providers and Big Tech companies like Google and Microsoft have been collecting this sensitive information for years.

In our current political arena, the potential for cyberattacks and the unwitting dissemination of political ideologies puts the future of democracy in jeopardy.

The Role of Email in Political Cyberattacks

In October 2016, WikiLeaks began publishing emails stolen from John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. A 2018 federal indictment says Russian military intelligence officers targeted Podesta with a phishing email of a fake security alert making it look like it came from Google, asking him to change his password. Podesta fell for the phishing attack and 50,000 emails were stolen and released to the public by WikiLeaks between Oct. 7 and Nov. 7, 2016 one day before the election.

In August 2024, Google’s Threat Analysis Group reported that APT42, a hacking group tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeted the personal emails of roughly a dozen people linked to the Biden and Trump camps. This year is no different, IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report found that phishing was the most common way attackers broke into organizations for the fourth year in a row.

These phishing attacks against prominent members of political parties not only illustrate just how fragile our current systems are, but also how corruptible they are. What if a foreign government or terrorist organization were able to gain access to compromising emails of a highly elected official? While this may sound like fodder for a political thriller novel, it is not far from a much starker reality.

What an Inbox Can Reveal

It’s not just hackers that can access emails. Two of the most popular email services, Google Gmail and Microsoft Outlook state in their own privacy policies that they collect data from their users. Neither Gmail nor standard Outlook email provides end-to-end encryption by default. Both services scan messages for spam or malicious content, meaning their providers may be able to access email content.

Fran Villalba Segarra, CEO of Internxt, writes about the misconception many have about encryption, saying: “Most people assume ‘encrypted’ means private, but that depends on who holds the keys. Our political beliefs could reveal information we don’t want others to know, but the real question is who else can read it.”

Image: Yogas Design - Unsplash

Google and Microsoft

Google’s Privacy Policy says the company can collect the content users create and receive, explicitly listing “email you write and receive” as an example. They also record what users you communicate with. Data that Google collects can map a person’s contacts, including the campaigns and political groups they hear from. And when deemed necessary, they are within their rights according to their terms of service to share this personal information with legal or government agencies when called upon to do so.

This is not unique to Google either. Microsoft’s Privacy Statement, (last updated in September 2026), states (currently hidden behind "Learn more" link) that the company can also collect content including emails, messages, files and other media users create or share. The content of Outlook.com emails can also be accessed in response to law enforcement or other government requests.

While hackers represent an external threat to the political process, there is an even bleaker future where the legality of government agencies accessing personal information about those with differing political ideologies becomes murky. How long would our civil liberties be protected once a militant majority gains access to a database for political dissidents?

How to Protect Emails Before (And After) Election Day

Keeping your email private doesn’t have to be complicated. In a few simple steps, they can become much more secure and private.

• Use multi-factor authentication. Passkeys and authenticator apps are stronger than text-message codes.
• Check/Verify the source of security alerts. The Podesta breach began with a fake one. Go to account settings directly instead of clicking a link.
• Keep a separate email. Use a different address for donations, petitions and newsletters.
• Delete old messages. Receipts and campaign mail that have been deleted cannot be stolen.
• Use an end-to-end encrypted email for sensitive conversations.

Once voters pull the curtain in a voting booth, their privacy is assumed. But what the digital age has shown us is that this assumed privacy is perhaps one of the greatest threats to democracy today. Our political leanings are not as well-kept secrets as we believe them to be, and much of that is due to us unknowingly handing tech companies unlimited access to our data. But that doesn’t have to be the case, moving forward.

We must safeguard our personal information better and understand that we are free to protect the privacy of our political beliefs as much as we are free to express them. And in order to do that, we must be more discerning about which organizations we allow to freely collect this data.

Author bio: Fran Villalba Segarra is the founder and CEO of Internxt, a European privacy technology company from Valencia, Spain. Internxt builds open-source, zero-knowledge cloud storage and email with post-quantum encryption. LinkedIn.

Read next:

• Ahead of Holiday Shopping, Survey Finds 86.8% Own Fast Tech, 77.6% Bought It Last Year, and 63.9% Do Not Plan to Buy Less

• WhatsApp Lets People Join Calls Without an Account

by Guest Contributor via Digital Information World

WhatsApp Lets People Join Calls Without an Account

Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad.

WhatsApp is introducing guest calling, allowing people without WhatsApp accounts to join voice and video calls through invitation links. The company announced the feature on October 14, 2026, saying guests can join one-to-one and group calls without creating an account.

To invite guests, a WhatsApp user creates a link by pressing "New call link" from the Calls tab and shares it with participants (as an example, the final link might look something like this https://ift.tt/AuNb7v3). Guests open the link in a desktop web browser, enter their names and wait for the host to approve their entry. Only WhatsApp account holders can create call links.

Screenshot of Whatsapp Web on PC showing the guest call interface. Credit: DIW. CC BY

Calls can accommodate up to 32 participants. Guests can use audio and video, share their computer screens, react with emojis and raise their hands. They cannot see other participants’ phone numbers, send messages, add participants or "add anyone else directly to the call". Hosts can remove guests from a call.

WhatsApp says its calls are free, end-to-end encrypted and have no time limits. However, it is important to note that, users may still incur internet or mobile-data charges from their service providers.

According to WhatsApp’s Help Center, call links expire after 30 days if unused. Contacts blocked by the person who created a link cannot join through it, and WhatsApp may revoke links for privacy or security reasons.

Account-free meeting access is also available on other platforms. Google Meet lets people without Google accounts request to join meetings, Microsoft Teams supports joining meetings without an account, and Zoom allows guests to join through a browser when the host’s settings permit it.

As per WBI, WhatsApp is also rolling out chat themes on WhatsApp Web, giving users 27 preset designs that change chat colors and wallpapers together. The feature is gradually becoming available to users, and each person’s theme is private to their own view of a conversation.

Separately, WhatsApp is rolling out scheduled messages to some Android beta testers, allowing them to schedule text, links, photos and videos for delivery at a chosen time, even when their device is offline. Both features are being introduced gradually, so they are not yet available to everyone.

Read next: Ahead of Holiday Shopping, Survey Finds 86.8% Own Fast Tech, 77.6% Bought It Last Year, and 63.9% Do Not Plan to Buy Less
by AI Analysis via Digital Information World

Ahead of Holiday Shopping, Survey Finds 86.8% Own Fast Tech, 77.6% Bought It Last Year, and 63.9% Do Not Plan to Buy Less

By Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum

Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad.

International E-Waste Day survey finds 86.8% of European consumers own ‘fast tech’, 29.3% hoard unused devices at home, 26.9% trash them; Experts urge consumers to recycle every unused electrical and electronic item.

Image: Hana Brannigan - Unsplash

With annual Black Friday and holiday shopping sprees approaching, International E-Waste Day 2026 aims a spotlight on the booming trade in “Fast Tech” – USB adapters, mini fans, LED lights, electronic toys and other small, inexpensive gadgets.

New research finds that 86.8% of European consumers from 12 countries own at least one such device and 77.6% bought one in the past year. But when they become obsolete, broken or simply no longer wanted, many are tossed into household rubbish or hoarded in drawers instead of being recycled.

This rapidly growing and largely overlooked waste stream is dubbed “Fast Tech” to draw a deliberate parallel with ubiquitous, inexpensive fashion products, often used for relatively short periods and easily replaced.

• Also read: Why America Is "Tech Hoarding" — and It's Not the Economy

Commissioned by the WEEE Forum and conducted by Bellegarde Scientific Consulting, a new Fast Tech Consumer survey of 10,245 adults in 12 European countries found that Fast Tech has become a routine consumer purchase, driven largely by low prices, convenience and modest expectations of how long products need to last.

The findings suggest consumers often knowingly accept the implicit Fast Tech bargain: the product is inexpensive, does the job for a while and can easily be replaced.

Indeed, 57.9% of buyers could recall a Fast Tech product they had used for no more than six months, including 38.6% who recalled one they discarded unused, after a single use or within a month. Yet 60.9% of Fast Tech consumers say they are satisfied overall, and only 8.4% are dissatisfied.

Separate research by Material Focus found that in the UK alone, around 1.14 billion small Fast Tech electrical items were purchased, roughly 16 items per second.

And with Black Friday promotions followed almost immediately by the holiday shopping season, the WEEE Forum says the coming weeks will see another surge in Fast Tech purchases, many sold through online platforms (including Amazon and Ebay).

“Fast Tech is the blind spot of the e-waste world,” says Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum, which leads the International E-Waste Day, a global awareness campaign now in its 9th year conducted with WEEE Forum members worldwide.

“Black Friday and Christmas will bring another enormous wave of electronic toys, decorative lights, mini gadgets, chargers and other inexpensive electronics into our homes. Their low price doesn’t mean they have no environmental cost. We need them to be collected and recycled when they’re no longer in use.”

Consumers expect short lives, but keep buying

The survey reveals an apparent paradox: consumers value durability, but the convenience and low price of Fast Tech frequently win out.

The environmental implications of this cycle appear much less obvious to consumers than the durability trade-off. While 45.8% expect Fast Tech to have a shorter lifespan than more expensive alternatives, only 21% consider it more environmentally harmful. Just 16.2% simultaneously associate Fast Tech with both shorter life and greater environmental harm.

“Consumers understand perfectly well that an inexpensive electronic product may not last forever,” says Dimitri Naczaj, co-founder of Bellegarde Scientific Consulting, based in France. “Much less visible is what happens when those millions of individual purchasing decisions become millions of discarded cables, earbuds, lights, toys and gadgets.”

What happens when Fast Tech dies?

The study found no single dominant route for unwanted Fast Tech.

Keeping devices at home was the most common response, reported by 29.3% of buyers. Just 27.4% took products to recycling centres or municipal facilities and 18.9% used in-store collection points.

But incorrect disposal was also widespread: 22.5% reported putting Fast Tech in household waste, 20.8% in plastics recycling and 6.5% in street bins. Some 26.9% of buyers reported using only waste-disposal routes for unwanted devices, while 31.9% reported using only recycling or reuse routes. (Note: some survey questions offered multiple response options)

Perhaps most strikingly, incorrect disposal is not always deliberate. Among people who reported using only waste-disposal routes, 20.6% also said they did so to protect the environment, suggesting confusion about where small electronics belong. Habit was the most commonly cited reason for electronics end-of-life choices overall, followed by environmental protection and convenience.

By the numbers: Europe’s Fast Tech habit

The new study of 10,245 adults in 12 European countries found:

• 87% own at least one Fast Tech product; at least 44% own more than five

• 78% bought Fast Tech during the previous 12 months

• 93.1% of 18-to-29-year-olds bought Fast Tech in the past year, compared with 61.3% of people aged 65+

• 55.2% cite low price as a reason for choosing Fast Tech

• 57.9% recall at least one Fast Tech item they used for six months or less

• 60.9% are nevertheless satisfied with Fast Tech products overall

• 80.3% would have paid more for a longer-lasting alternative to at least some products

• 59.1% would still replace a broken Fast Tech product with another inexpensive one

• 29.3% keep unused Fast Tech at home

• 26.9% use only waste bin disposal routes for unwanted devices; 31.9% use only recycling or reuse routes while 16% keep the devices at home

• 21% believe Fast Tech is more environmentally harmful than more expensive alternatives 15.9% think Fast Tech is less harmful

• 57.1% are unaware that online platforms selling electronic devices are legally required to contribute financially to e-waste collection and recycling

• 63.9% do not intend to reduce their Fast Tech purchasing.

And there is little evidence of social pressure against the trend. Only13.7% expect people important to them to disapprove of buying Fast Tech, while almost half of respondents believe more people are buying fast tech than before. Nearly three-quarters of buyers encounter Fast Tech at least weekly.

If you sell it, help recycle it

The WEEE Forum underlines a growing structural problem: electronics sold online by companies that may not be registered under national producer-responsibility legislation.

Where sellers fail to comply, required recycling fees may not be paid, take-back responsibilities may go unmet and collection and recycling systems are left to deal with the products at the end of their lives without the corresponding financing.

The new consumer research suggests public awareness of these responsibilities remains low.

“The principle should be straightforward: if you make money selling electrical and electronic products into a country, you should contribute to the cost of collecting and recycling those products when consumers are finished with them,” says Leroy.

“Responsible producers already pay into these systems. Online marketplaces should not provide a back door through which electronics can enter a market without anyone taking financial responsibility for what happens to them afterwards.”

The WEEE Forum says this is both an environmental issue and a question of fairness. Companies that comply with extended producer responsibility requirements bear costs that non-compliant competitors can avoid, potentially putting responsible businesses at a disadvantage.

“Consumers shopping online this Black Friday should not have to investigate the environmental compliance of every seller,” Leroy says. “The platforms facilitating those sales are in a powerful position to ensure that sellers comply with the rules and that the recycling costs associated with the products they sell are covered.”

Small devices, big risks

Although 82.7% of consumers surveyed know these small products contain electronic components, the study suggests many do not necessarily translate that knowledge into appropriate disposal behaviour.

Fast Tech products contain plastics, metals and other materials that can potentially be recovered and returned to productive use. When they are thrown into general waste, those resources are lost.

A growing number also contain lithium-ion batteries, creating an additional hazard.

When discarded with household waste, battery-powered devices can be crushed or punctured inside collection vehicles, sorting plants and waste-treatment facilities, potentially causing fires that endanger workers, damage equipment and disrupt waste services.

According to findings from the WEEE Forum’s Batteries Roundtable, 36% of e-waste operators surveyed reported experiencing a battery-related fire at their facilities during the previous four years.

In France, the number of fires at waste-treatment facilities linked to lithium batteries doubled between 2019 and 2023.

Single-use vapes, wireless earbuds, small electronic toys and other battery-powered products are among the items of particular concern.

Concludes Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum and IEWD coordinator: “A tiny battery-powered gadget tossed into a household bin may seem inconsequential. Multiply that by millions of products and it becomes a serious problem, both in lost resources and in fire risks for the people and facilities handling our waste.”

Think before the Black Friday click

International E-Waste Day falls just weeks before one of the world’s biggest periods for consumer electronics sales.

The WEEE Forum is encouraging consumers to consider not only price when buying Fast Tech during Black Friday and the Christmas season, but also whether they really need a new product, can they get it second hand instead, whether it can be repaired, and how it can eventually be returned for responsible recycling.

For electronics already sitting unused in homes, the message is recognise, return and demand responsibility.

Recognise it: Anything with a plug, cable, circuit board or battery should be treated as electronic waste at the end of its useful life, regardless of how small or inexpensive it is. It should not go into general household waste or bins.

Return it: Unwanted Fast Tech products should be taken to official collection points, retailer take-back locations or dedicated e-waste drop-off sites. In the European Union, retailers, including online retailers, have obligations concerning the take-back of discarded electronics. Other circular options include donation, repair and reuse.

Demand responsibility: Regulators, retailers, consumers and online marketplaces can help ensure that companies selling electrical and electronic products meet producer-responsibility requirements and contribute to the systems needed to collect and recycle what they sell.

Editor's note: Original article revised for statistical accuracy and clarity.

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• 44% of Americans Want AI Price Comparisons, and 37% Bought Products Based on AI Recommendations

• Study Finds 56% of AI Collaborations Consequential, 67% Involve Requests for AI to Explain or Teach

• Singapore Leads a New Circularity Ranking

by External Contributor via Digital Information World

Study Finds 56% of AI Collaborations Consequential, 67% Involve Requests for AI to Explain or Teach

By Andrew Myers, The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI)
Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad (DIW).

Image: Jerrin James - Unsplash

Analyzing thousands of human-AI conversations, a new study shows that people are turning to chatbots for increasingly critical tasks – and that productive outcomes depend on how the collaboration unfolds.

What actually happens when humans and AI work together? Challenging the assumption that people deploy AI as a shortcut or quick fix, a new study supported by Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) shows how real-world users rely on the tool as a dynamic collaborator to elevate their work output and be more productive.

Analyzing 249,834 anonymized conversations between humans and Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, a team of Stanford researchers found that most people engage with AI in meaningful, substantial ways.

“Counter to many dire predictions, the vast majority of users of AI are not treating it as a ‘free lunch’ but rather as a tool that presents new ideas and ways of thinking, pushes back on the user’s knowledge and reasoning, and collaborates in ways that humans find useful in improving their own work,” said lead author Diyi Yang, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at HAI. The paper has been accepted by Nature Human Behavior.

Key Questions

Using Insights, Anthropic’s analytical tool, the researchers set out to answer three key questions: Is the work people bring to AI meaningful? What degree of agency do humans take in the conversations? And where does the human-AI partnership experience “friction” that can be productive when positive or break down when negative? What they found challenges conventional wisdom and, in many ways, upends common narratives that AI leads to intellectual surrender.

“We find that, yes, users sometimes bring trivial tasks to AI, like drafting emails, but much more often it is high-stakes, hard-to-reverse, and consequential work. So it’s really important to ensure that the humans do not just simply offload to AI and take its answers wholesale without scrutiny,” noted co-first author Yijia Shao, a computer science graduate student in Yang’s lab. Well over half (56%) of all collaborations were deemed to be of “consequential” or greater level.

“What’s more, as the stakes rise, users begin to engage more actively with the AI, and conversation length nearly doubles from those addressing more mundane tasks,” added co-first author Dora Zhao, a fellow computer science graduate student in the lab.

Beneficial Friction

The researchers found that people rarely use AI to passively offload their work. Instead, they say that most users stay actively engaged with the chatbot, creating a dynamic interplay that improves the work product. Roughly half of the conversations involve what the authors call “friction” – a sort of creative tension that drives learning by humans. Friction is natural and essential in any collaboration and fundamental to growth, they say.

“What we know now is that friction can be beneficial,” Zhao says. “Speaking up and being able to advocate for yourself in the workplace is often a sign of having a healthy team culture. It seems to be the same with human agency in collaboration with AI.”

Productive friction leads to clarification, refinement, and learning. The researchers identified a distinct user type that digs deeper, prompting AI to elucidate its ideas rather than simply generating content. In two-thirds (67% to be exact) of the interactions, the researchers found a dynamic arising where humans ask AI to explain – to teach – rather than merely produce content for them.

But the friction can turn negative, and the collaborations begin to break down. When they do, users must learn how to work with AI that pushes back – to recover, as the researchers put it. In almost 80 percent of collaborations experiencing negative friction, the user attempted to recover. Whether the outcome of the negative friction is productive, however, depends on how humans use the AI. AI teaching was most beneficial in high-consequence domains like law, software engineering, home improvement, and health.

Recommendations

What is apparent from the study is that people are using AI for important and consequential conversations about legal, medical, professional, and financial matters – in addition to more personal mental health and relationship advice. The study also revealed that the work brought to AI is notably consequential – not mundane – especially in high-stakes fields like law and medicine. In fact, the findings challenge earlier research suggesting that people are more cautious about using AI for high-stakes tasks. In other words, the subject matter matters.

Taking their research about how humans and AI are collaborating a step further, the researchers then suggested ways to make the collaboration even more productive. One recommendation the authors offer to further improve AI-human collaboration is to raise human literacy about AI.

“What I’m really passionate about is how we can grow the population that benefits from AI,” Shao said, pointing to future avenues of research. “This means we need to get more laypeople to use AI responsibly and maintain or even enhance their skills. This study shows a way forward where humans understand AI’s strengths and weaknesses and make the most of their growing collaboration.”

One area of note for the authors is a growing concern that AI’s beneficial effects may become concentrated in the higher-stakes knowledge sectors, deepening inequalities for those outside them – or worse, creating a sort of intellectual capitulation that many fear will lead to a “de-skilled” workforce.

“We could see a widening gap between those who recognize AI as a tool for skill development and career advancement, while others accept it as a substitute for their own good judgment and reasoning,” Yang noted.

In terms of next steps, Shao is developing tools to help users know when AI output requires greater scrutiny, when to welcome friction as part of a collaboration and exert greater agency, and how to get back on track when friction turns negative. Zhao, meanwhile, is looking into personalization and how to design AI systems that support longer-term benefits, such as increased cognitive engagement, for users. Both researchers underscored the value of ongoing academia–industry partnerships, such as their collaboration with Anthropic, in producing transparent, illuminating research at scale.

“This work is a call to action for more partnerships between academia and industry to advance similar kinds of analyses that show how humans and AI can work together most effectively,” Zhao said.

Editor's note: Revised for precision and clarity, including the recovery statistic and comparison with earlier research.

Read next:

• AI can help with academic research but doesn’t always get it right – here are some tips to check the information you receive

• 27% of Americans Use AI for Personal Advice, 20% for Stress Relief, and 19% for Mental Health Information

by External Contributor via Digital Information World

AI can help with academic research but doesn’t always get it right – here are some tips to check the information you receive

By Allison Faix, Coastal Carolina University and Samantha Duncan, Coastal Carolina University

Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad.

Image: Kaptured by Kasia - Unsplash

Almost 25% of adults in the United States are using artificial intelligence chatbots on a daily basis, a 2026 Pew Research Center study found.

At the same time, another recent study found that 48% of the information that popular free chatbots gave in response to questions about the news contained errors.

As librarians, we know that if students are using AI chatbots to help with their academic research, they shouldn’t assume that the information they’re given is accurate.

Not all AI is the same. Here are four steps we recommend to question information AI generates, including by checking the original source and considering issues that aren’t always easy to spot.

1. Find the best fit

First, we think it makes sense to spend time choosing the right AI tool for the task at hand.

AI tools – be it ExLibris’ Primo Research Assistant, Research Solutions’ Scite, Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT – are trained with various datasets and use different algorithms to generate results.
They should not be used interchangeably.

Some tools might be better or worse at answering specific kinds of questions, and the types of answers they generate can vary.

People might choose ChatGPT, for example, at the beginning of their research process, because it can provide overviews and summaries to help with understanding concepts.

In subsequent stages, they might choose a tool such as Primo Research Assistant or Scopus AI, which can help find and examine peer-reviewed research that has been vetted by academics.

Students conducting academic research could also see whether their library subscribes to an artificial intelligence tool like LeapSpace or Concensus, which draw their data from peer-reviewed, scholarly research.

Using these specific AI tools doesn’t eliminate the need to evaluate their answers, but it provides more certainty that the data has gone through a review process.

Tools such as Anthropic’s Claude, meanwhile, may also draw from academic research, but to what extent is unclear. According to Anthropic, Claude states that it is trained on a proprietary mix of publicly available information from online sources, public and private datasets, user data and synthetic data generated by other models.

Finally, it can be helpful to read librarians’ reviews about AI tools to help select the best fit. People can also take a simple online test such as ROBOT to help them consider which tool to use.

Checking the primary sources on the information that AI tools generate is one of the important steps researchers can take to ensure it is accurate. Andriy Onufriyenko/iStock/Getty Images

2. Ask more questions

Second, asking follow-up questions is an important part of evaluating the answers AI tools generate. Even if the answer an AI tool gives sounds good, it is useful to take time to learn more about it.

Checking one’s own emotions is also important, because AI chatbots have been known to flatter users by giving answers based on the user’s own biases, or what the user wants to hear, rather than just facts.

Ask the AI to tell you where it got the information, how confident it is that the answer is correct and what might be missing. Ask the AI why it believes the answer is correct, or ask it to explain how it came up with an answer.

It’s helpful to also make sure your prompt is phrased in a neutral way. For example, asking “What does psychological research say about social media and anxiety?” rather than “Tell me why social media causes anxiety” may produce different responses.

3. Check the source

Third, it is useful to trace any claims the AI chatbot makes to their original sources.

Students may be familiar with using the SIFT process to evaluate websites. This process asks people to stop, investigate the source, find better coverage and trace claims to their original source.

Start by asking the chatbot to cite its sources, if it did not do that already.

Then, go to each source and read enough to figure out whether the AI is using the information in the right context. Also, look into who authored the source and whether they have expertise in the topic. If the AI won’t cite the sources it used, or if the sources it cites don’t include the information it said they did, pull out any claims it is making and do further research.

Can you find other, credible sources that back up what the AI is saying, using Google or a library database? Can you figure out where the AI may have gotten the information and whether that source is credible?

If this seems like a lot of work, you could always go directly to library databases instead of using AI tools.

4. Not all issues are easy to spot

Fourth, there are other, less visible issues that can play out when using AI tools.

For example, it might not always be easy to tell whether an AI tool is missing important perspectives or is giving biased information.

Remember that you, not the AI tool, are the researcher. It might be easy to rely on an AI tool to generate a summary of important sources, but deciding for yourself what sources to use helps you learn about a topic more deeply.

Research shows that most AI tools focus on sources such as websites, internet forums and other online content that is freely available and written in English. Consider what expert knowledge might be missing from AI datasets and seek out those viewpoints when needed.

Last, remember that you need to cite the AI tool you used if you are quoting or paraphrasing text generated by it in your work, just as you would cite any other source.

Artificial intelligence is changing fast. As librarians, we think it is important to continually evaluate whether the tools you are using are still working for you.

These tips are a good place to start to help sharpen your evaluation skills.

Allison Faix, Librarian and Instruction Coordinator, Coastal Carolina University and Samantha Duncan, Instructional Design Librarian, Coastal Carolina University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read next: 

• 27% of Americans Use AI for Personal Advice, 20% for Stress Relief, and 19% for Mental Health Information

• 56% of Consumers Want AI Use Disclosed, While 20% Would Avoid Using the Brand or Leave the Website Immediately Over Undisclosed AI

by External Contributor via Digital Information World

27% of Americans Use AI for Personal Advice, 20% for Stress Relief, and 19% for Mental Health Information

By Felix Richter, Statista

As AI has quickly become more capable and human-like in the way it responds to questions, many people are turning to chatbots as an accessible, non-judgmental way to discuss personal issues or mental health problems. Data suggests that Americans are using AI tools to navigate personal dilemmas and emotional challenges.

According to a recent Statista Consumer Insights survey, getting personal advice or guidance is by far the most popular AI use case related to personal concerns and mental well-being, cited by 27 percent of U.S. respondents. Meanwhile, one in five Americans reported turning to AI tools specifically to reduce stress or anxiety, and 19 percent use them to learn more about mental health.

Other common motivations include self-reflection and personal growth, talking through personal concerns, distraction and practicing mindfulness. 12 percent of respondents use chatbots to combat feelings of loneliness, a trend mirrored in the rise of AI companion apps specifically designed to mimic human connection. While 43 percent of respondents say they do not turn to AI for mental well-being or personal topics at all, those who do largely perceive a benefit: 70 percent of AI well-being users reported finding the tools either very or somewhat helpful.

Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad.

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• Arcadia University Professor Shares Insights for Staying Safe Online

• Daily doses of ‘digital ibuprofen’: how burnt‑out Chinese youth soothe their anxieties
by External Contributor via Digital Information World

Arcadia University Professor Shares Insights for Staying Safe Online

By Tim Pierce, Arcadia University

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, calling attention to the need to protect ourselves against online threats.

Image: Julio Lopez - Unsplash

Dr. Vitaly Ford, associate professor of Computer Science, is an expert in the computing field, including online security, privacy, and machine learning.

With threats becoming more and more sophisticated each day, he has some tips and tricks for staying safe during Cybersecurity Awareness Month and beyond.

This Q&A has been slightly edited for clarity and length.

What are some of the biggest cybersecurity threats that ordinary people face today? What risks do you think people are still underestimating?

Scammers are still on the rise with fake emails, texts, and phone calls, and it’s only getting worse. Free tools like modlishka, evilginx3, and evilworker let them sit between you and a real login page, so they can steal your whole logged-in session and get around normal two-factor authentication (the extra code you type in).

Other common tricks include fake WiFi, downloads that infect your device just from visiting a site, and fake pop-ups on sites that get you to install malware masquerading as an “update.” There are even attacks that abuse a weakness in SS7, an old 1970s phone network protocol, or use SIM-swapping–taking over your phone number–to go after high-profile individuals and intercept their text messages and phone calls.

As the list of threats keeps growing, I recommend checking your data leaks through haveibeenpwned.com, haveibeenflocked.com, and att.pentester.com.

With artificial intelligence making it easier to create convincing emails, messages, websites, and even voices, how is AI changing the way people should think about cybersecurity?

With deepfakes, automated attacks, and convincing messages, artificial intelligence has escalated hacking capabilities worldwide. We can even call it vibe hacking at this point.

I recommend “Stop Trusting -> Always Verifying.” This should be the motto for any site interaction and message we receive. Is it a bank contacting you? Hang up and call back on a trusted line, go to their site yourself, or check in your bank app. Seeing a pop-up asking you to update your system? Cancel and check for updates separately yourself. Avoid blind downloads without verification of what you get.

If readers want to take immediate actions to become more cybersecurity aware, what would you recommend?

1. Freeze your credit with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – it’s free. Thawing it is easy and takes only a minute in case you need to apply for a loan or credit card. This will avoid many potential issues with identity theft.

2. Sign up for data breach notifications at haveibeenpwned.com (click on Notify button).

3. Use Cloudflare WARP (https://one.one.one.one). Think of it as a better version of “VPN” because it not only encrypts, but also blocks nasty stuff. If it doesn’t work on your device for some reason, try the personal/free version of Proton VPN. Never connect to free WiFi unless you have WARP or a VPN that you trust.

4. Antivirus is far from a panacea, but it will help catch at least the “common cold.” Avoid disabling it. But don’t install a random antivirus; do your research.

5. Use passkeys or physical keys (e.g., YubiKey), if you can, for your 2FA. The third-best option for 2FA is authenticator apps (e.g., Google Auth).

6. Always, always check what domain you are on.

7. Check the email sender and the original raw email (e.g., in Gmail it’s in the top-right corner -> “Show original” menu) and make sure that at the top you see all SPF, DKIM, DMARC as PASS. If not, question the email.

Image: DIW. CC BY

8. Learn about your privacy at operationprivacy.com and deflock.org.

Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad.

Read next: The Trust Recession: Why Consumers Are Quietly Opting Out of Believing What They See Online
by External Contributor via Digital Information World