By Edward C. Baig

In 1993, The New Yorker magazine published a cartoon with the caption, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

Almost 30 years later, that line might be rewritten: “On the internet, nobody knows who you are or that what you are saying is true.” Figuring out what’s real and what’s not is getting even harder in cyberspace, especially when artificial intelligence (AI) and visual effects are used to make fake photos and videos look authentic.

More than 6 of 10 adults in a Google-supported global survey think they see false or misleading information online every week. The three youngest generations that aren’t young children — Generation Z, millennials and Gen X — feel “slightly more confident” in identifying false or misleading information than baby boomers, who are ages 58 to 76, or the Silent Generation, ages 77 to 93, according to the study that the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and the YouGov market research firm released this month.