disinformation - CybAI news

15 Nov

Reporters Without Borders says it’s pressing charges against X

stp2y0 CommentsNewsdisinformation, elon musk, gear, news, twitter

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said this week it’s pressing criminal charges against X (Twitter) in France related to a Kremlin disinformation campaign that used the nonprofit as a prop to spread fake news. The organization said legal means are its “last resort” in its fight against the bogus stories, designed to foster pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine sentiment, that festered on the platform. “X’s refusal to remove content that it knows is false and deceitful — as it was duly informed by RSF — makes it complicit in the spread of the disinformation circulating on its platform,” RSF director of advocacy Antoine…

01 Nov

Profiteers Are Exploiting US Election Conspiracies and Hate to Make Millions

stp2y0 CommentsRAG models2024 election, bitcoin, conspiracy theories, disinformation, donald trump, elections, facebook, politics, social media

The messages, potentially misleading US citizens or stoking hate towards various groups, will have been seen by many times more people than actually made a purchase.Those running the network of Facebook pages in Nigeria may simply believe that US-focused clickbait is the best way to boost the number of people who see their scams. In contrast, the ecommerce operations identified by TBIJ give every impression that they are proudly American.Yet analysis of their listed physical addresses and online presence suggests that the businesses are at least partly run from Vietnam, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, and Croatia (with Facebook page admins…

08 Sep

YouTube terminates five right-wing channels linked to the DOJ’s Russia indictments

stp2y0 CommentsNewsdisinformation, gear, news, propaganda, russia, youtube

YouTube confirmed its termination of five right-wing political channels believed to be connected to the Department of Justice’s Russia-linked US media indictments this week. The platform pulled the channel of Tenet Media, which CNN reported to be the unnamed company implicated in the indictment. The DOJ accused Russian operatives of paying the media organization to spread disinformation designed to influence the 2024 US elections.A YouTube spokesperson confirmed the takedown and provided a statement to Engadget. “Following an indictment from the US Department of Justice and after careful review, we are terminating the Tenet Media channel and four channels operated by…

26 Aug

How Israel Is Exploiting Google Ads to Discredit a UN Aid Agency

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsadvertising, disinformation, google, israel, israel-hamas war, search, youtube

What Kronenfeld says truly worries her is that Americans are being exposed to Israel’s propaganda while trying to understand UNRWA’s role in the ongoing crisis. Beside the search ads, Israel has aired video ads in the US through Google that say “UNRWA is inseparable from Hamas” and that it “keeps employing terrorists.” Public misunderstanding could further jeopardize support from the US government, which until the war had been the largest donor to UNRWA.“There is an incredibly powerful campaign to dismantle UNRWA,” Kronenfeld says. “I want the public to know what’s happening and the insidious nature of it, especially at a…

07 Aug

The End of X (Or, It Should Be): How Elon Killed Twitter

stp2y0 CommentsNewscoding, community, development, disinformation, engineering, inclusive, news, security, software

When Elon Musk announced his intention to purchase Twitter in April 2022, he did so with grand promises. He pledged to tackle the platform's pervasive bot problem, ensure free speech, and improve overall user experience. However, as the dust settles, it's clear that these promises remain largely unfulfilled. Instead, the transformation of Twitter into "X" has introduced new issues, exacerbated old ones, and left users questioning the platform's future. The Bot Problem: Worse Than Ever One of Musk's primary reasons for acquiring Twitter was his desire to eliminate spam bots, which he claimed plagued the platform. In 2022, Musk estimated…

10 Jul

US officials announce the takedown of an AI-powered Russian bot farm

stp2y0 CommentsNewsbot, disinformation, gear, news, russia

US officials and their allies have identified and taken down an artificial intelligence-powered Russian bot farm comprised of almost 1,000 accounts, which spread disinformation and pro-Russian sentiments on X. The Justice Department has revealed the the scheme that was made possible by software was created by a digital media department within RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet. Its development was apparently led by RT's deputy editor-in-chief back in 2022 and was approved and funded by an officer at Russia's Federal Security Service, the main successor of the KGB.In a cybersecurity advisory issued by the FBI, intelligence officers from the Netherlands…

09 Jul

How Disinformation From a Russian AI Spam Farm Ended up on Top of Google Search Results

stp2y0 CommentsAIartificial intelligence, disinformation, google, russia, ukraine

In the space of 24 hours, a piece of Russian disinformation about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife buying a Bugatti car with American aid money traveled at warp speed across the internet. Though it originated from an unknown French website, it quickly became a trending topic on X and the top result on Google.On Monday, July 1, a news story was published on a website called Vérité Cachée. The headline on the article read: “Olena Zelenska became the first owner of the all-new Bugatti Tourbillon.” The article claimed that during a trip to Paris with her husband in June, the…

31 May

It’s the AI Election Year

stp2y0 CommentsAI2024 election, artificial intelligence, disinformation, elections, podcasts, politics, wired politics lab podcast

Leah Feiger: Sometimes you are able to link it back to specific companies-Vittoria Elliott: Yes.Leah Feiger: That are doing the generative AI itself.Vittoria Elliott: Yeah, totally. For instance, there was a deep fake made of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, whose been in jail under corruption charges. His party was disqualified for running in the general election earlier this year. He was able to make campaign speeches using generative AI.Leah Feiger: Wild.Vittoria Elliott: To do that, they used ElevenLabs, which is the same company that was used for the fake Joe Biden robocall earlier this year. Sometimes…

30 May

Foreign Influence Campaigns Don’t Know How to Use AI Yet Either

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIartificial intelligence, china, disinformation, national affairs, openai, propaganda, russia

Today, OpenAI released its first threat report, detailing how actors from Russia, Iran, China, and Israel have attempted to use its technology for foreign influence operations across the globe. The report named five different networks that OpenAI identified and shut down between 2023 and 2024. In the report, OpenAI reveals that established networks like Russia’s Doppleganger and China’s Spamoflauge are experimenting with how to use generative AI to automate their operations. They're also not very good at it.And while it’s a modest relief that these actors haven’t mastered generative AI to become unstoppable forces for disinformation, it’s clear that they’re…

30 May

How AI Is Impacting the 2024 Elections

stp2y0 CommentsAI2024 election, artificial intelligence, disinformation, elections, politics

In India and Indonesia, dead leaders are rising to throw their support behind their political successors; rapper Eminem is endorsing opposition parties in South Africa; and in the United States, President Biden is telling voters in New Hampshire to stay home. All of these things “happened”–but none of them are real. The generative AI revolution is here, and it's coming for your elections. Welcome to the future, welcome to 2024.For the very first time, the widespread availability of generative AI is going to clash head-on with political campaigns and elections. 2024 is already an unprecedented year for democracy: More than…