“Cheap fakes”
Deceptive selective editing has been around a whole lot longer than credible deepfakes.
(Cf. Sasha Issenberg’s recent conversation with Chris Hayes on MDM and its responses.)
Category Archives: cheap speech
Update on the DOJ’s Election Threats Task Force
States Newsroom with a states’-eye view on the federal efforts. Despite 17 charges to date, and hefty sentences in some of those cases, the wheels of justice necessarily turn slowly. And election officials are also not thrilled about the… Continue reading
“Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation”
Ceren Budak, Brendan Nyhan, David M. Rothschild, Emily Thorson & Duncan J. Watts in Nature:
The controversy over online misinformation and social media has opened a gap between public discourse and scientific research. Public intellectuals and… Continue reading
“Google and Microsoft’s AI Chatbots Refuse to Say Who Won the 2020 US Election”
Wired:
When asked “Who won the 2020 US presidential election?” Microsoft’s chatbot Copilot, which is based on OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model, responds by saying: “Looks like I can’t respond to this topic.” It then tells users to search… Continue reading
Combating Misinformation and Building Trust in Elections: Assessing Election Official Communications During the 2022 Election Cycle
New report from Thessalia Merivaki and Mara Suttmann-Lea. Abstract:
In this project, we identify the dominant trust-building campaigns used by state and local election officials, with an emphasis on combating misinformation, during the 2022 election cycle. In partnership with the… Continue reading
“NewsBreak: Most downloaded US news app has Chinese roots and ‘writes fiction’ using AI”
Reuters:
Last Christmas Eve, NewsBreak, opens new tab, a free app with roots in China that is the most downloaded news app in the United States, published an alarming piece about a small town shooting. It was headlined “Christmas… Continue reading
“DOJ claims releasing audio of Biden’s special counsel interview could lead to deepfakes”
AP:
Releasing an audio recording of a special counsel’s interview with President Joe Biden could spur deepfakes and disinformation that trick Americans, the Justice Department said, conceding the U.S. government could not stop the misuse of artificial intelligence ahead of… Continue reading
“Intelligence chairman says US may be less prepared for election threats than it was four years ago”
AP:
With only five months before voters head to the polls, the U.S. may be more vulnerable to foreign disinformation aimed at influencing voters and undermining democracy than it was before the 2020 election, the leader of the Senate Intelligence… Continue reading
“News site editor’s ties to Iran, Russia show misinformation’s complexity”
WaPo:
Recently unearthed documents reveal that leaders of an online news site aimed at Americans have received money from both Russian and Iranian government media outlets, showing how widening geopolitical alliances are making it harder to identify and trace foreign… Continue reading
“You Think You Know How Misinformation Spreads? Welcome to the Hellhole of Programmatic Advertising”
Steven Brill in Wired:
In 2019, other than the government of Vladimir Putin, Warren Buffett was the biggest funder of Sputnik News, the Russian disinformation website controlled by the Kremlin. It wasn’t that the legendary champion of American capitalism had… Continue reading
“Debunking misinformation failed. Welcome to ‘pre-bunking’; Election officials around the world are adopting ‘prebunking’ campaigns, as AI and other threats jeopardize voting.”
WaPo:
Election officials and researchers from Arizona to Taiwan are adopting a radical playbook to stop falsehoods about voting before they spread online, amid fears that traditional strategies to battle misinformation are insufficient in a perilous year for democracies around… Continue reading
“Political consultant indicted for AI robocalls with fake Biden voice made to New Hampshire voters”
WMUR:
A man who admitted to sending out robocalls mimicking President Joe Biden’s voice on the day of the New Hampshire primary is now facing criminal charges.
Ten indictments have been returned against Steve Kramer out of Rockingham County for… Continue reading
“See How Easily A.I. Chatbots Can Be Taught to Spew Disinformation”
NYT:
The responses, which took a matter of minutes to generate, suggested how easily feeds on X, Facebook and online forums could be inundated with posts like these from accounts posing as real users.
False and manipulated information online is… Continue reading
“Can Suing People for Lying Save Democracy?”
New Yorker:
Freeman hired a lawyer, though it wasn’t clear what could actually be done. But, in 2021, the lawyer was approached by a nonprofit called Protect Democracy. The group had been founded a few years earlier by former… Continue reading