The Daily Psyop

Meta’s decision to shut down a content surveillance tool called CrowdTangle, announced earlier in the year and about to take effect next month, has met with opposition from a group of US lawmakers.

CrowdTangle, which the giant bought in 2016, has over the years been “repurposed” by “fact-checkers,” researchers focusing on “disinformation” as well as media who flag it.

Meta said it is replaced by the Meta Content Library, available to some researchers but not commercial entities (such as media outlets, a number of whom are currently running “fact-checking” operations).

Now 17 lawmakers (three Republicans among them) have written to Meta asking that it reconsider this decision, referring to CrowdTangle as a “transparency tool” both for researchers and journalists.

The letter, addressed to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, says CrowdTangle is being used to “view and study” content on Facebook and Instagram, but also other platforms, searching for content ranging from foreign influence, and terrorism, to mental health.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

And these members of Congress, led by senators Bill Cassidy (R) and Chris Coons (D) assert that the new tool, Meta Content Library, has “significant limitations” compared to CrowdTangle, urging at the same time the company not to discontinue the latter for at least another six months. I.e., until after the US elections.

But the lawmakers didn’t quite explain this timeframe in that way, mentioning first national security, then the children – in this case, protecting their mental health – then the perceived threat of AI, and elections in the US, but also around the world, as the reason to make sure CrowdTangle continues to be available, “while additional functionality and access is developed for the Meta Content Library.”

Some of those using CrowdTangle are the agency Agence France Presse (AFP) – also a major “fact-checker” and one of Facebook’s partners in this business – which found it useful in “debunking” content around topics like Covid.

AFP was searching for keywords and using Meme Search to find the targets of the debunking efforts and “report misinformation.”

Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact, another of Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers, was also among those who have “for years” been using CrowdTangle to focus its “fact-checking” on content slated for censorship that was likely to reach the widest audience.

The post Lawmakers Request Delay on Meta’s Shutdown of “Fact-Checker” Favorite Content Surveillance Tool appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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The AI (and specifically, deepfakes) panic is playing a prominent role in this US election campaign, with the states of Arizona and Michigan introducing a scheme to train election clerks in identifying content branded as such.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Michigan and Minnesota counterparts Jocelyn Benson and Steve Simon, all three Democrats, are among those pushing an initiative called the Artificial Intelligence Task Force, launched by the NewDEAL Forum.

NewDEAL Forum is a Washington-based NGO whose board is populated by Democrat-associated figures, and which states it set out to “defend democracy” by developing tools and methods to help election officials and voters not only identify but also flag “malicious AI-generated activity” like deepfakes and “misinformation.”

Arizona and Michigan are considered to be swing states and there this effort is happening in the form of tabletop exercises that teach participants how to inform law enforcement and first responders about flagged content.

That’s not the only recently launched “project:” there’s liberal voting rights and media Democracy Docket platform, which is quoting Jocelyn Benson as saying that Michigan now has a law making “knowingly distributing materially-deceptive deep fakes” a felony.

But this applies only if this activity is seen as intending to harm a candidate’s reputation or chance at success, the Michigan secretary of state explained. However, it wasn’t immediately clear how transparent and precise the rules around determining the intent behind a deep fake are.

If applied arbitrarily, such legislation could catch a lot of things in its net – like satire and parody.

And it’s not an insignificant distinction when talking about AI, and deepfakes for that matter, since both have been around for a while, the latter notably in the entertainment industry.

Yet, when trying to explain why this focus on finding, flagging, and reporting content seen as harmful AI to law enforcement is an urgent problem, those promoting the policy speak about it being “nearly impossible” to distinguish authentic from generated video/audio material – as if this is something new.

The Democracy Docket notes that in addition to the three states, 15 others have also introduced legislation that deals with “election-related AI.”

The post Election 2024: Arizona and Michigan Train Clerks To Report AI Deepfakes To Law Enforcement appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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