Category Archives: cheap speech

“Meta turns its back on politics again, angering some news creators”

February 11, 2024, 7:48 amcheap speechRick Hasen

WaPo: Meta announced on Friday it would stop proactively recommending political content on Instagram or its upstart text-based app Threads, alarming news and politics-focused creators and journalists gearing up for a crucial election year. While users will still be allowed… Continue reading

Watch Archived Video of Safeguarding Democracy Project Webinar with Renee DiResta, Kate Klonick, Charles Stewart and Kim Wyman on How to Have a Fair and Safe 2024 Election

February 7, 2024, 7:11 amcheap speech, election administration, election subversion riskRick Hasen

Great conversation here:

“A fake recording of a candidate saying he’d rigged the election went viral. Experts say it’s only the beginning”

February 2, 2024, 7:21 amcheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

CNN: Days before a pivotal election in Slovakia to determine who would lead the country, a damning audio recording spread online in which one of the top candidates seemingly boasted about how he’d rigged the election. And if that wasn’t… Continue reading

“Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation, but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone”

January 25, 2024, 1:11 pmcheap speechRick Hasen

NYT: In the spring of 2020, when President Donald J. Trump wrote messages on Twitter warning that increased reliance on mail-in ballots would lead to a “rigged election,” the platform ran a corrective, debunking his claims. “Get the facts… Continue reading

Feb. 7 Brookings Event: “Assessing the Impact of Generative AI and Other Online Threats in a Historic Election Year”

January 24, 2024, 7:20 amcampaigns, cheap speechRick Hasen

Check this out. Great lineup.

“Pro-Biden PAC launches $1 million campaign to pay social media influencers”

January 23, 2024, 7:54 amcampaigns, cheap speechRick Hasen

Politico: LaToi Storr, a 42-year-old content creator and lifestyle blogger based in Philadelphia, normally posts Instagram and TikTok videos of local restaurants and skincare tips, mingled with some community-focused material on Black mental health care. Last fall, she started posting… Continue reading

“Fake Joe Biden robocall tells New Hampshire Democrats not to vote on Tuesday”

January 22, 2024, 7:41 amcheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

NBC News: A prominent New Hampshire Democrat plans to file a complaint with the state attorney general over an apparent robocall that appears to encourage supporters of President Joe Biden not to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary. The voice in… Continue reading

“Elections and Disinformation Are Colliding Like Never Before in 2024”

January 9, 2024, 10:56 amcheap speech, votingRick Hasen

NYT: Billions of people will vote in major elections this year — around half of the global population, by some estimates — in one of the largest and most consequential democratic exercises in living memory. The results will affect how… Continue reading

Roger Stone Cashes in Liars Dividend in a Potentially Deadly Context

January 8, 2024, 4:18 pmcheap speechRick Hasen

Mediaite: Exclusive: Roger Stone Spoke With Cop Pal About Assassinating Eric Swalwell and Jerry Nadler: Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, infamous political operative Roger Stone sat across from his associate Sal Greco at a restaurant in Florida. At the time, Greco was… Continue reading

Can Trump Campaign From Jail If He’s Held? “Imran Khan deploys AI clone to campaign from behind bars in Pakistan”

January 3, 2024, 12:03 pmcampaigns, cheap speech, election subversion riskRick Hasen

The Guardian: Artificial intelligence allowed Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan to campaign from behind bars on Monday, with a voice clone of the opposition leader giving an impassioned speech on his behalf. Khan has been locked up since August… Continue reading

“‘Stakes are really high’: misinformation researcher changes tack for 2024 US election”

January 1, 2024, 2:09 pmcheap speechRick Hasen

The Guardian reports, with the subhead: “Kate Starbird says attacks have made research difficult, and claims of bias arise because of prevalence of lies from the right.”

“The Problem of Misinformation in an Era Without Trust”

January 1, 2024, 12:09 pmcheap speechRick Hasen

Jennifer Szalai “critics notebook” review essay for the NYT.

“Regulating AI Deepfakes and Synthetic Media in the Political Arena”

December 6, 2023, 8:41 amcampaigns, cheap speechRick Hasen

New analysis from the Brennan Center, echoing many of the recommendations I made in Cheap Speech.

“Your Local Newspaper Might Not Have a Single Reporter; Rise of ‘ghost newsrooms’ spawns effort by local news startups to fill the void”

November 24, 2023, 7:43 amcheap speechRick Hasen

WSJ: The Gleaner, the local newspaper in Henderson, Ky., has sections focused on features, sports, news and opinion. What it doesn’t have: a single reporter on staff. The publication is one of the “ghost newsrooms” that increasingly dot the… Continue reading