Category Archives: cheap speech

“The Year of the AI Election Wasn’t Quite What Everyone Expected; Deepfakes were nothing like the political force in 2024 that many feared—but that doesn’t mean that generative AI didn’t profoundly affect elections all over the world.”

December 26, 2024, 10:51 amcheap speechRick Hasen

Wired reports: Earlier this year, WIRED launched the AI Elections Project to track instances of AI in elections around the world. An analysis of the WIRED AI Elections Project published by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University… Continue reading

“Can Democracy Survive the Disruptive Power of AI?”

December 20, 2024, 7:24 amcheap speechRick Hasen

Raluca Csernatoni for the Carnegie Endowment.

“Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Donates $1 Million to Trump’s Inaugural Fund”

December 12, 2024, 6:51 amcampaign finance, cheap speechRick Hasen

WSJ: Meta Platforms has donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, the latest step by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to bolster his once-fraught relationship with the incoming president. The donation, confirmed by the company, is a departure… Continue reading

“Romanian Court Annuls Presidential Election Results and Orders a New Vote”

December 7, 2024, 9:04 pmcheap speech, comparative election law, election subversion riskforeign interferenceJustin Levitt

The NYT coverage of the Romanian constitutional court’s decision is here; the court’s decision itself is here. The NYT reports that the decision was based on manipulation of digital media — including this Tiktok controversy and alleged Russian… Continue reading

“How Trump Targeted Undecided Voters Without Breaking the Bank”

December 5, 2024, 9:13 pmcampaigns, cheap speechJustin Levitt

The NYT with some insight into the microtargeting capability of streaming services.

“In Fraud We Trust: How Leaders in Politics, Business, and Media Profit from Lies—and How to Stop Them”

December 5, 2024, 8:40 amcheap speech, fraudulent fraud squadRick Hasen

New book from Wes Hendricksen from the University Press of Kansas, with potential relevance to election law. It includes a brief discussion of the post-2020 period.

“What We Saw on Our Platforms During 2024’s Global Elections”

December 3, 2024, 10:15 pmcheap speech, chicaneryJustin Levitt

A description from Meta about the state of their social media in the recent election cycle (including covert foreign influence operations Meta says it detected and quashed). Of course, it’d be nice if there were enough transparency to allow for… Continue reading

“Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online”

December 2, 2024, 11:38 pmcheap speechJustin Levitt

I’m really looking forward to reading this new paper in Science (Killian L. McLoughlin, William J. Brady, Aden Goolsbee, Ben Kaiser, Kate Klonick, and M. J. Crockett.) With a bonus thread by Crockett on the process to get there…

“The apocalypse that wasn’t: AI was everywhere in 2024’s elections, but deepfakes and misinformation were only part of the picture”

December 2, 2024, 11:34 pmcampaigns, cheap speechArtificial IntelligenceJustin Levitt

Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders expand the frame in The Conversation.

“Donald Trump’s return sends shivers through the anti-misinformation world”

November 26, 2024, 11:01 amcheap speechRick Hasen

Financial Times: The incoming Trump administration’s vow to dismantle the leftwing “censorship cartel” has thrown a shadow over the cottage industry of academics, non-profits and researchers that sprang up to combat a tide of digital misinformation — and threatens… Continue reading

“Liberals Are Left Out in the Cold as Social Media Veers Right”

November 18, 2024, 7:31 amcheap speech, political polarizationRick Hasen

Sheera Frenkel for the NYT: After Donald J. Trump won the election this month, his supporters gravitated to a panoply of online destinations to celebrate. Hundreds of thousands of posts lauding Mr. Trump’s victory filled Truth Social, the social… Continue reading

New Report Find X’s Algorithms Changed in July 2024 to Boost Republican-Leaning Accounts and Elon Musk’s Account After Musk’s Trump Endorsement

November 18, 2024, 7:24 amcheap speechRick Hasen

The report from Timothy Graham and Mark Andrejevic (via Bluesky). Abstract: This technical report presents findings from a two-phase analysis investigating potential algorithmic bias in engagement metrics on X (formerly Twitter) by examining Elon Musk’s account against a group… Continue reading