disinformation – pressnews

Biden robocall: Audio deepfake fuels election disinformation fears

5Feb

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Technology

Biden robocall: Audio deepfake fuels election disinformation fears

[ad_1] The 2024 White House race faces the prospect of a firehose of AI-enabled disinformation, with a robocall impersonating US President Joe Biden already stoking particular alarm about audio deepfakes."What a bunch of malarkey," said the phone message, digitally spoofing Biden's voice and echoing one of his signature phrases. The robocall urged New Hampshire residents not to cast ballots in the Democratic primary last month, prompting state authorities to launch a probe into possible voter suppression. It also triggered demands from campaigners for stricter guardrails around generative artificial intelligence tools or an outright ban on robocalls.Disinformation researchers fear rampant misuse of AI-powered applications in a pivotal election year thanks to proliferating voice cloning ...

Deepfake Video Call Scams Global Firm out of $26 Million; Used YouTube Videos: SCMP

5Feb

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Technology

Deepfake Video Call Scams Global Firm out of $26 Million; Used YouTube Videos: SCMP

[ad_1] Scammers tricked a multinational firm out of some $26 million by impersonating senior executives using deepfake technology, Hong Kong police said Sunday, in one of the first cases of its kind in the city.Law enforcement agencies are scrambling to keep up with generative artificial intelligence, which experts say holds potential for disinformation and misuse -- such as deepfake images showing people mouthing things they never said. A company employee in the Chinese finance hub received "video conference calls from someone posing as senior officers of the company requesting to transfer money to designated bank accounts", police told AFP. Police received a report of the incident on January 29, at which point some HK$200 million ($26 million) had already been lost via 15 transfers."I...

Sam Altman-led OpenAI seeks to allay election meddling fears in blog post; know how it will do so

16Jan

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Technology

Sam Altman-led OpenAI seeks to allay election meddling fears in blog post; know how it will do so

[ad_1] Artificial intelligence lab OpenAI published a blog post Monday seeking to address fears that its technology will meddle with elections, as more than a third of the globe prepares to head to the polls this year. The use of AI to interfere with election integrity has been a concern since the Microsoft-backed company released two products: ChatGPT, which can mimic human writing convincingly, and DALL-E, whose technology can be used to create "deepfakes," or realistic-looking images that are fabricated. Those worried include OpenAI's own CEO Sam Altman, who testified in Congress in May that he was "nervous" about generative AI's ability to compromise election integrity through "one-on-one interactive disinformation."The San Francisco-based company said that in the United States, whi...

Whistleblower allegation: Harvard muzzled disinfo team after $500 million Zuckerberg donation

5Dec

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Technology

Whistleblower allegation: Harvard muzzled disinfo team after $500 million Zuckerberg donation

[ad_1] A prominent disinformation scholar who left Harvard University in August has accused the school of muzzling her speech and stifling — then dismantling — her research team as it launched a deep dive in late 2021 into a trove of Facebook files she considers the most important documents in internet history.The actions impacting Joan Donovan's work coincided with a $500 million donation to Harvard by a foundation run by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. In a whistleblower disclosure made public Monday, Donovan seeks investigations into “inappropriate influence" from Harvard's general counsel, the Massachusetts attorney general's office and the U.S. Department of Education. The CEO of Whisteblower Aid, a legal nonprofit supporting Donovan, called the allege...

Thousands of fake Facebook accounts shut down by Meta were primed to polarize voters ahead of 2024

30Nov

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Technology

Thousands of fake Facebook accounts shut down by Meta were primed to polarize voters ahead of 2024

[ad_1] Someone in China created thousands of fake social media accounts designed to appear to be from Americans and used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the U.S. ahead of next year's elections, Meta said Thursday.The network of nearly 4,800 fake accounts was attempting to build an audience when it was identified and eliminated by the tech company, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The accounts sported fake photos, names and locations as a way to appear like everyday American Facebook users weighing in on political issues. Instead of spreading fake content as other networks have done, the accounts were used to reshare posts from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that were created by politicians, news outlets and others. The interconne...

EU tells TikTok to ‘spare no effort’ to fight disinformation

7Nov

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Technology

EU tells TikTok to ‘spare no effort’ to fight disinformation

[ad_1] The EU's top tech enforcer told TikTok's CEO on Monday to "spare no effort" to counter disinformation, but recognised the changes already made by the video-sharing platform.The Chinese-owned app favoured by younger online users is one of 19 platforms that face stricter rules on tackling illegal and harmful content online under a landmark EU law. "We have seen changes on TikTok's platform in the past months, with new features being released with the aim to protect users and investments made in content moderation and trust and safety," Thierry Breton, the EU's internal market commissioner, said, after a video call with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. TikTok said it pulled four million "violative" videos in the European Union in September, in its first transparency report since the Digital...

US Vice President Kamala Harris calls for action on full spectrum of AI risks

2Nov

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Technology

US Vice President Kamala Harris calls for action on full spectrum of AI risks

[ad_1] U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday called for urgent action to protect the public and democracy from the dangers posed by artificial intelligence, announcing a series of initiatives to address safety concerns about the technology.In a speech at the U.S. Embassy in London, Harris spoke of the dangers AI could pose for individuals and the Western political system. The technology has the potential to create "cyberattacks at a scale beyond anything we have seen before" or "AI-formulated bioweapons that could endanger the lives of millions", she said. "These threats are often referred to as the 'existential threats of AI', because they could endanger the very existence of humanity," Harris added.The United States on Wednesday announced plans to establish a new AI Safety In...

Twitter Withdraws From EU Disinformation Code, Commissioner Says

27May

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Technology

Twitter Withdraws From EU Disinformation Code, Commissioner Says

[ad_1] Twitter exited the voluntary European Union's Code of Practice on Disinformation, the bloc's Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said.Twitter Inc. was earlier this year the only major tech platform that didn't send a complete report to the European Union under the code, which the company agreed to follow before it was taken over by Elon Musk in late 2022. Its report was short of data and didn't include commitments from the social media company that it would empower fact-checkers, the EU's executive arm said in February. “Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation. But obligations remain,” Breton said on his Twitter account late on Friday. “You can run but you can't hide.” He said that beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will beco...