Google · Donald Trump · Meta · Elon Musk · Facebook · X · The Guardian Technology
AI-driven disinformation running rampant on social media before US midterms, experts warn
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Social media feeds are awash with an unprecedented flood of AI -driven disinformation ahead of November’s US midterm elections, according to experts, who warn many posts are probably “slipping through the cracks”.
Key facts
- In 2023, YouTube also stopped removing content that falsely claimed the 2020 election or other past US presidential elections were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or glitches”, stating
- You can run an information operation now with quality that was impossible in 2016 for super, super cheap,” said Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data engineer turned whistleblower and advocate
- James Talarico, the high-flying Democrat running for US Senate in Texas, took time off from campaigning earlier this month to recover from the flu
- The Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA) tracked its propagation, and how the misinformation mutated as it was picked up by conservative Spanish-language media
Summary
As tens of millions of Americans prepare to cast their vote, social media companies have scaled back their efforts to protect voters from lies meant to manipulate elections. While the backlash against Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal prompted social media giants to bolster their trust and safety operations, a counter-backlash from the right over fears of speech restrictions, which intensified after Elon Musk’s takeover of X, formerly Twitter, and the election of Donald Trump in 2024, has led to significant layoffs from relevant teams. Artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to launch a disinformation campaign.