Quote:As the U.S. 2024 presidential election gets underway, social media companies are caught in an unenviable position: trying to stop the spread of misinformation while also facing more and more allegations of censorship.

Claims of censorship online have, in some cases, stymied efforts to combat false election news shared online. The problem is not unique to the U.S.: high-stake elections are being held in dozens of countries around the world this year and some worry that misinformation could influence the results.

"Half of the world is voting this year and the world could stick with democracy or move toward authoritarianism," Darrell West, a senior fellow of technology innovation at the Brookings Institution, said. "The danger is, disinformation could decide the elections in a number of different countries."
CBS News

Quote:The Canadian cyber spy agency, the Communications Security Establishment (“CSE”), has stated that it is “very likely” that Canadian voters will encounter some sort of foreign interference ahead of the September 2021 election. This type of interference may come in the way of overt hacking attempts, or the more insidious dissemination of “fake news” on online platforms.
McCarthy

Quote:Just days before Slovakia's national election last fall, a mysterious voice recording began spreading a lie online.

The manipulated file made it sound like Michal Simecka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, was discussing buying votes with a local journalist. But the conversation never happened; the file was later debunked as a "deepfake" hoax.

On election day, Simecka lost to the pro-Kremlin populist candidate Robert Fico in a tight race.
CBC

Quote:While it's nearly impossible to determine whether the deepfake file contributed to the final results, the incident points to growing fears about the effect products of artificial intelligence are having on democracy around the world — and in Canada.

"This is what we fear ... that there could be a foreign interference so grave that then the electoral roll results are brought into question," Caroline Xavier, head of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) — Canada's cyber intelligence agency — told CBC News.
CBC

Quote:After weathering a years-long political and legal assault, researchers who study disinformation say they see reasons to be cautiously hopeful as their efforts heat up ahead of the 2024 election.

These researchers, along with the universities and nonprofits that they work for, have been in the crosshairs of Republicans and their allies, accused of acting as government proxies in a Biden administration plot to censor conservative speech online. Since 2021, those who worked to identify and combat disinformation around the last presidential election and Covid-19 have faced lawsuits, congressional inquiries and attacks online and in right-wing media that have threatened their reputations, careers and personal safety.

On Monday, during oral arguments at the Supreme Court, most of the justices voiced some support for governments and researchers working with social media platforms on content moderation, especially related to national security, emergencies and health.
NBC

Quote:As destructive as these false election narratives have been, there is good reason to believe the problem may be markedly worse in 2024. Five factors are poised to degrade the election information environment even further compared with 2020: 1) right-wing legal and political attacks have successfully deterred key institutions, organizations, and government agencies from addressing falsehoods about the election process; 2) domestic actors appear increasingly robust and coordinated in their broader efforts to undermine confidence in American elections, too; 3) social media companies have drastically reduced efforts to moderate false election content and amplify accurate information; (4) a convergence of recent geopolitical crises seem set to galvanize renewed interest from foreign adversaries such as Russia, China, and Iran to interfere in U.S. elections; and (5) recent advances in artificial intelligence mean adversaries of American democracy have access to tools that can boost voter suppression efforts and pollute the information environment on a scale and level of sophistication never seen before in a federal election cycle, though AI may also help address these threats.
Brennan Center

Quote:The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a decision that could have enormous consequences for the 2024 election, saying the US government can – for now – keep warning social media companies about mis- and disinformation threats it’s seeing online.

Although the case was decided narrowly on a technicality and not on the substance of the issues, the decision is nonetheless among the most consequential of the court’s current term.

The government’s outreach to social media platforms has been happening since the 2016 election and in direct response to Russia’s attempts to meddle in US politics. In 2020, a congressional inquiry faulted the US government and tech platforms for not working together more to respond to those types of informational threats, which could baselessly sow division among voters and weaken the United States on the world stage.
CNN

(09-29-2024, 11:51 PM)MykeNukem Wrote: Do you think there's a problem with people posting misinfo/disinfo online, to the point that we have to censor them?

Quote:Or is posting misinfo/disinfo (during election years, or not) a fundamental right?

Quote:Sometimes opinions are full of misinfo/disinfo, therefore, battling misinfo/disinfo means battling opinion, doesn't it?

Quote:Have you noticed an uptick in censorship recently?

Quote:Perhaps better education and awareness of how to spot mis/disinfo would be more effective? This is a multi-faceted question – yes, I think people posting  mis/disinfo online is a problem and not necessarily about politics or elections (said as part of a demographic frequently subject to such bullshit) but censoring/cancelling and silencing are only band-aids. However, with how stupid people are today, some handholding might be necessary and appropriate?

Quote:Having a fundamental right to lie seems to be a given as everyday people, so-called journalists, talking heads and politicians do it freely and often without repercussion or remorse hoping they won’t be fact checked or debunked. I don’t see any way around this but when it comes to identified state sponsored blatant mis/disinfo and ludicrous online lies, I think authorities should have a right to intervene when necessary.

Maybe not specifically through censorship as pointing out such actions and actors might be enough but with today's ever growing consumption of bias confirming sources, who knows?