Speakers<\/b><\/h3>\n
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- Jonathan Mehta Stein<\/b>, Executive Director of California Common Cause, a nonprofit watchdog agency<\/li>\n
- Jinxia Niu<\/b>, program manager for Chinese Digital Engagement, Chinese for Affirmative Action<\/li>\n
- Brandon Silverman<\/b>, former CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdTangle (now owned by Meta)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\nDisinformation Turbocharged by AI<\/b><\/h3>\n
As the presidential election approaches, online disinformation \u201cis a very real problem, turbocharged by AI, that is emerging in our democracy, literally by the day,\u201d said Jonathan Mehta Stein.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese threats are not theoretical,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen elections impacted by AI deepfakes and disinformation in Bangladesh, Slovakia, Argentina, Pakistan and India. Here, before the primary, there was a fake Joe Biden robocall in New Hampshire telling Democratic voters not to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Justice Department disrupted a Russian disinformation campaign with nearly 1,000 AI-generated social media bot profiles posing as Americans promoting Russian government aims on X. Entirely AI-generated local news websites are emerging with Russian-led disinformation, among them D.C. Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and the Miami Chronicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndia is a good example of what could happen in the US if we don\u2019t educate ourselves,\u201d Stein said. \u201cAs Indian voters are bombarded with millions of deep fakes and candidates have begun to embrace them. It\u2019s created this arms race where some candidates are using deep-fake images of themselves and their opponents, and the candidates who don\u2019t want to use them feel they have to in order to keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social media platforms are conveniently ignoring the growing problems. Meta has made some of its fact-checking features optional, while X stopped the software it used to identify disinformation campaigns. YouTube, Meta and X no longer call out posts that blatantly advertise stolen elections or other misinformation. Instead they responded by laying off much of their misinformation and civic integrity teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal news is the answer to fake news,\u201d said Stein. \u201cWe\u2019re in an era of double-checking political news. If you see an image or video that helps one political party or candidate too much, get off social media and see if it\u2019s being reported \u2026 Before you share a video of Joe Biden falling down the stairs of Air Force One, for example, see if it\u2019s being reported or debunked by the AP, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or your trusted local media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethnic Voters Face Challenges<\/b><\/h3>\n
\u201cIn the last 12 months, we documented over 600 pieces of disinformation across all major Chinese-language social media. And the top two themes are supporting or deifying Trump, and attacking Biden and democratic policies,\u201d said Jinxia Niu. \u201cThis year, AI disinformation presents this problem at a much faster speed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest challenge for our community to address it is that our in-language media often lacks the money and staff to fact-check information,\u201d she explained. \u201cIn our immigrant and limited-English-speaking communities particularly, AI literacy is often close to zero. We\u2019ve already seen scams on Chinese social media with fake AI influencers getting followers to buy fake products. Imagine how dangerous this would be with fake influencers misleading followers about how to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niu said some original content by right-wing Chinese influencers is spreaded. This content composes of AI-generated photos of former President Trump engaging with Black supporters and AI-generated photos attacking President Biden by portraying his supporters as \u201ccrazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA huge challenge on the ground for the Asian American community is that this disinformation tends to circulate not only on social media but is directly shared by influencers, friends, and family through encrypted messaging apps,\u201d she continued \u2014 most popularly WeChat, WhatApp, and Signal for Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, and Korean and Japanese Americans, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese private chats become like unregulated, uncensored public broadcasting that you can\u2019t monitor or document due to well-intentioned data and privacy protections,\u201d Niu explained. \u201cIt creates a perfect dilemma where it\u2019s difficult, if not impossible, to intervene with fake and dangerous information.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Can We Do\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n
\u201cNevertheless,\u201d Niu continued, \u201cWe\u2019re trying to do something about it through Piyaoba.org,\u201d a fact-checking website, specifically for Chinese American communities. It \u201coffers a smart chat box to send our latest fact-checks to followers in a Telegram chat group \u2026 But these solutions are not enough for the much bigger problem we face.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of the biggest misperceptions about misinformation, is that the vast majority of it, violates social media platforms\u2019 rules. Rather, it falls into a gray area of \u2018misleading, but not technically untrue,\u2019\u201d said Brandon Silverman.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the difference between saying that the moon is made of cheese and saying that some people are saying that the moon is made of cheese,\u201d he added. \u201cIn that gray area, it\u2019s very hard for platforms to enforce anything as quickly as they can with the directly false information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the existence of AI accounts \u201cdoes not mean that they had a measurable or meaningful impact on a topic or election,\u201d he explained. \u201cOne of the very goals of disinformation campaigns is \u2018flooding the zone\u2019 with so much untrustworthy content that people don\u2019t know what to trust at all \u2026 There\u2019s a balance we have to walk of being responsive, but also not playing into their hands by making them seem so powerful that nobody knows what to trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverman suggests taxes be implemented on revenue from digital adverts. The money would go towards funding ethnic and local community based medias.<\/p>\n
The Knight Foundation is a organization the is determined to fight AI disinformation. They have an Election Hub which provide services for newsrooms covering the 2024 elections, be it at the federal, state, or local level. The Brennan Center is another such organization that works for anti-disinformation softwares through a nonprofit called Meedan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cRather than responding to individual content, we should think about the narratives that are being consistently pushed \u2014 not only by bots but real influencers \u2014 and how we can push back against ones we know are false,\u201d Silverman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AI has become more widespread and ethnic voters are encountering an election landscape where distinguishing between what’s real and what’s not is increasingly difficult. In a media briefing on July 12, hosted by Ethnic Media Services, a panel of experts discussed the potential challenges to ethnic voters in this year\u2019s national and local elections and…<\/p>\n
- Jinxia Niu<\/b>, program manager for Chinese Digital Engagement, Chinese for Affirmative Action<\/li>\n