Dear colleagues, I am pleased to share the publication of a new special issue in the International Journal of Communication titled "Beyond Verification: Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Artifices of Authenticity <https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/20-sec-beyond-verification>." The special issue is the result of a multi-year project led by the Digital Democracies Institute <https://digitaldemocracies.org/> at Simon Fraser University. This Special Issue explores the stakes of authenticity (and its artifices) in the post-truth era. The papers included in this Special Section show how authenticity is the result of the complex processes of technical infrastructures, intensities of engagement, user experiences, and cultural practices. It addresses the orchestration of mis/disinformation through techno-cultural and techno-affective flows that combine network trackers with emotional bursts, algorithmic recommendations with national fantasies, and collective wounds and trauma with a desire for belonging. It investigates the distinction between veracity and authenticity, revealing where fact-checking fails and how dis/misinformation spreads through data and its networked infrastructures, by deploying methodologies from digital methods to media theory, and from large-scale content analysis to speculative and participatory methods. The Special Section highlights how a diversity of approaches to affect and authenticity furthers the study of mis- and disinformation by highlighting the various intersections between perceptions, communities, and disclosures. It also stresses how different methods can approach these questions while existing in tension with each other, from quantitative and mixed-methods approaches to theoretical examinations. You can read it here (Open Access): https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/20-sec-beyond-verification Best, -- Alberto Lusoli (he/him) Assistant Professor Creative Industries <https://www.torontomu.ca/creativeindustries/> The Creative School <https://www.torontomu.ca/the-creative-school/> Toronto Metropolitan University