As the hard-fought US election campaign approaches its final stages, misinformation researchers have raised concerns over the threats posed by AI and foreign influence – but voters appear more concerned about lies from a more familiar source: politicians. .
The United States is battling a firestorm of misinformation ahead of the November 5 vote — from fake “news” sites that researchers say were created by Russian and Iranian actors, to manipulated images generated by artificial intelligence tools. , which have blurred the boundaries between reality and fantasy. ,
However, what is more worrying for voters is that misinformation is being spread the old-fashioned way, by spreading lies through politicians who, researchers say, face almost no legal consequences for distorting the truth. Does matter.
“I think when we do the postmortem in 2024, the most viral misinformation will either have come from politicians or will have been promoted by politicians,” said Joshua Tucker, co-director of New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics. AFP.
In a poll published last week by Axios, 51 percent of Americans identified politicians spreading lies as their top concern regarding misinformation.
Thirty-five percent reported “social media companies failing to stop misinformation” and “AI is being used to deceive people.”
About 30 percent expressed concern over the spread of misinformation by foreign governments.
‘Liar’s Dividend’
“It’s like, ‘The call is coming from inside the house,'” said pollster John Gerzema, the head of the pollster, repeating the popular reference from a classic horror movie.
“In past elections, there was always a fear of misinformation and election interference from abroad. But here we see that the most likely source of concern is America’s own politicians who are spreading misinformation.”
The flood of photorealistic AI-generated fake images on social media has ushered in what researchers call the “deep skepticism” era – a new era of skepticism that has undermined trust online.
Growing fears about the power of generic AI tools have given politicians an easy incentive to be skeptical about the authenticity of genuine content – a strategy popularly called the “liar’s dividend.”
Voters saw it in August when Republican nominee Donald Trump falsely accused his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, of using AI technology to manipulate a Michigan campaign rally photo to show a larger crowd.
That claim was easily refuted by photographs and video from AFP journalists present at the rally, as well as digital forensics experts, who told AFP fact-checkers that the image in question had no signs of AI manipulation.
“As people begin to accept the ubiquity of generic AI, it becomes easier to convince yourself that things you don’t want to be true aren’t true,” Tucker said.
“Politicians know this, so now they have the option of trying to deny true things are produced by AI,” he said.
‘Advancing the Truth’
In the months leading up to the election, AFP fact-checkers have consistently debunked false claims by presidential and vice-presidential candidates on both sides of the political aisle.
These include baseless rumors spread by the Trump campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating pets and Harris’s misleading claim that the former president had left Democrats with “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.”
In an Axios survey, eight in 10 voters expressed concern that misinformation could significantly influence election outcomes and more than half of respondents said they were disengaged from politics because they “can’t tell what It’s true.”
According to the survey, Republicans are as concerned as Democrats and independents about politicians spreading misinformation.
Experts say there is little to stop them, given that free speech is protected under US First Amendment rights and courts have struck down several attempts in the past to regulate false political speech.
Social media content moderation of political falsehoods has also emerged as a lightning rod, with many conservatives calling it “censorship” under the guise of fighting misinformation.
“In every election cycle, we face the same concern: Are the candidates telling the truth,” Syracuse University professor Roy Gutterman told AFP.
“Other than not getting elected because of false statements, there are virtually no consequences for candidates from telling the truth or lying about their accomplishments or false criticism about their opponents.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
