From SFGate, November 22:
In an bizarre twist, a Stanford University expert who studies misinformation appears to have created some of his own — while under oath.
On Nov. 1, Jeff Hancock, a well-known and oft-cited researcher who leads the Bay Area school’s Social Media Lab, filed an expert declaration in a Minnesota court case over the state’s new ban on political deepfakes. Republicans have sued to block the ban, arguing it’s an unconstitutional limit on free speech. Hancock defended the law in his declaration, explaining how artificial intelligence makes it easier to fabricate videos and discussed deepfakes’ psychological impacts. But he seems to have made an ironic mistake.
Hancock cited 15 references in his declaration, mostly research papers related to political deepfakes and their impacts. Two of the 15 sources do not appear to exist. The journals he cites are real, as are some of the two citations’ authors, but journal archives show no sign of either paper. The actual journal pages referenced by Hancock have different articles. SFGATE was unable to find the cited papers on Google Scholar, either.
The two missing papers are titled, according to Hancock, “Deepfakes and the Illusion of Authenticity: Cognitive Processes Behind Misinformation Acceptance” and “The Influence of Deepfake Videos on Political Attitudes and Behavior.” The expert declaration’s bibliography includes links to these papers, but they currently lead to an error screen.
Hancock’s court filing ended with a signed declaration under penalty of perjury that everything stated in the document was “true and correct.”
It would be an unusual mistake for a professor whose prominence stems from years of research and measured discussions of the field. His 2012 TED talk, called “The future of lying,” has about 1.5 million views....
....MUCH MORE
Last year there was Harvard's Francesca Gino:
https://www.science.org/content/article/honesty-researcher-facing-fraud-concerns-sues-harvard-and-accusers-25-million
And in 2019 we saw:
Seton Hall Ethics Professor Arrested, Fired
And a few other examples:
- "Bishop known for exorcisms resigns after falling for writer of satanic erotica"
- Meanwhile, In the USA: FBI Funded Neo-Nazi Satanist Book Publisher
- Hedge Fund Code Of Ethics Being Developed
- For Reals: The July 2000 Edition of the Enron Code of Ethics handbook
- "EY Auditors Cheated on Ethics Exams and Tried to Cover It Up, Will Pay a Record Fine for Naughtiness"
