Digital media watchdogs: Fake news are now much harder to track with AI

They expressed fears of an Artificial Intelligence-compromised November elections

By Marivir Montebon

New York – Digital media watchdogs are warning the public of the greater threats posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in compromising the upcoming elections in November. Combatting AI-generated deep fake information may only be through public vigilance and policy reforms, they said.

Jonathan Mehta Stein of the California Common Cause

At a national media conference organized by the Ethnic Media Services (EMS) on July 12,  2024, Jonathan Mehta  Stein, executive director of California Common Cause, a nonprofit watchdog agency said that online disinformation created by AI “is a very real problem and are not theoretical. It is emerging in our democracy literally by the day.”

At the media conference, Stein cited elections in India, Bangladesh, Slovakia, Argentina, and Pakistan as having been negatively impacted by AI deepfakes.

“India is a good example of what could happen in the US if we don’t educate ourselves. As Indian voters are bombarded with millions of deep fakes and candidates have begun to embrace them. It has created this arms race where some candidates are using deep-fake images of themselves and their opponents, and the candidates who don’t want to use them feel they have to keep up,” Stein said.

Stein points out a photo of former Pres. Trump with African-Americans as fake and says that AI-generated political disinformation is too sophisticated and nuanced to track easily.

According to Stein, who cited a photo for former Pres. Trump with African-Americans as fake, it is currently harder to build a system that can track political disinformation than the ordinary red-flag terms such as sexual exploitation or racist or anti-Semitic slurs. “For instance, it is not easy to identify a Russian bot providing anti-Ukraine and pro-Russian messaging on a platform. It takes a more sophisticated and nuanced system to identify that,” he explained.

Because of this, the US elections could be compromised through AI. Taking down fake content and the suspension of fake social media accounts tail on the speed and magnitude of AI-manipulated disinformation, and there lies the problem, Stein explained.

Additionally, social media platforms are not helping to curb disinformation. Meta, YouTube, and X have laid off their misinformation and civic integrity teams. Meta, for instance, made its factchecking features optional.

Jinxia Niu: Current solutions are not enough to combat fake news and deep fake.

Jinxia Niu, program manager for Chinese digital engagement at Chinese for Affirmative Action, said that her group has documented “more than 600 disinformation items for the past 12 months across all major Chinese language social media.”

The disinformation was mainly political – supporting Trump and attacking the Biden administration, claimed Niu.  

The Chinese American community’s effort to combat disinformation is place, Niu assured. But it is just a drop in the bucket. Through Piyaoba.org, a fact-checking website, fact-checked items are being sent to followers in a Telegram chat group. 

“But these solutions are not enough for the much bigger problem we face,” said Niu.

Brandon Silverman: Digital advertising tax may be used to fund ethnic media groups.

Brandon Silverman, former CEO and co-founder of the now Meta-owned CrowdTangle advocated for the enforcement of the digital ad tax imposed on large media platforms. It may be used to provide financial resources to ethnic media organizations at the local level to combat disinformation, he said.

New York, Nebraska, and Maryland have initiated legislation for digital advertising tax and is still pretty much in the works.

The speakers at the media conference highlighted education and individual discretion to check on the veracity of information at hand before sharing.

Silverman and Stein emphasized the importance of double-checking facts before sharing a content at hand, and to be vigilant in keeping track on the content or information ‘influencers’ are sharing on social media. #