Russia Escalates Effort to Subvert Election and ‘Instill Fear in Voters,’ U.S. Says; The New York Times, November 4, 2024

 Julian E. Barnes and Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times; Russia Escalates Effort to Subvert Election and ‘Instill Fear in Voters,’ U.S. Says

"Russian groups and other foreign adversaries have unleashed an extensive disinformation campaign to undermine confidence in the election, and senior U.S. officials are worried that Moscow’s efforts could continue to stoke political discord until the election is certified in January...

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the F.B.I. said in a joint statement that foreign adversaries led by Russia were “conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans.”

In recent weeks, the intelligence agencies have dramatically stepped up their alerts. Two weeks ago, they warned of post-election violence. Over the last 10 days, they have now issued three warnings about Russian attempts to undermine faith in the election. And Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said her organization would give regular updates Tuesday to inform the public of threats to the election."

A deepfake showed MLK Jr. backing Trump. His daughter calls it ‘vile.’; The Washington Post, November 4, 2024

 Pranshu Verma, The Washington Post; A deepfake showed MLK Jr. backing Trump. His daughter calls it ‘vile.’

"The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter Bernice on Monday condemned an artificially generated video of the Civil Rights leader praising former president Donald Trump, as both parties court Black voters ahead of Election Day.

The video, posted Sunday night on the social network X by a pro-Trump account called MAGA Resource, falsely depicted King urging Black people to vote for Trump, claiming he did “more for the Black community than any other president.” By late Monday it had garnered over 10 million views...

During the 2024 election, AI-generated misinformation has repeatedly gone viral, drawing attention from regulators and observers watching for the effect AI may have on the democratic process. AI experts are unsure how much impact this content has had on changing people’s opinions of the candidates or their choices at the ballot box.

In March, the BBC unearthed dozens of AI-generated false images portraying Black people supporting Trump. X owner Elon Musk, who supports Trump, in July targeted Biden’s replacement in the race, sharing on X an AI-generated audio deepfake of Vice President Kamala Harris falsely celebrating the president’s decision to drop out. The clip was viewed over 100 million times."

What AI knows about you; Axios, November 4, 2024

Ina Friend, Axios; What AI knows about you

"Most AI builders don't say where they are getting the data they use to train their bots and models — but legally they're required to say what they are doing with their customers' data.

The big picture: These data-use disclosures open a window onto the otherwise opaque world of Big Tech's AI brain-food fight.

• In this new Axios series, we'll tell you, company by company, what all the key players are saying and doing with your personal information and content.

Why it matters: You might be just fine knowing that picture you just posted on Instagram is helping train the next generative AI art engine. But you might not — or you might just want to be choosier about what you share.

Zoom out: AI makers need an incomprehensibly gigantic amount of raw data to train their large language and image models. 

• The industry's hunger has led to a data land grab: Companies are vying to teach their baby AIs using information sucked in from many different sources — sometimes with the owner's permission, often without it — before new laws and court rulings make that harder. 

Zoom in: Each Big Tech giant is building generative AI models, and many of them are using their customer data, in part, to train them.

• In some cases it's opt-in, meaning your data won't be used unless you agree to it. In other cases it is opt-out, meaning your information will automatically get used unless you explicitly say no. 
• These rules can vary by region, thanks to legal differences. For instance, Meta's Facebook and Instagram are "opt-out" — but you can only opt out if you live in Europe or Brazil.
• In the U.S., California's data privacy law is among the laws responsible for requiring firms to say what they do with user data. In the EU, it's the GDPR."

Ahead of US election, lawyers fight over ethics breach accusations; Reuters, November 2, 2024

Luc Cohen, Reuters; Ahead of US election, lawyers fight over ethics breach accusations

"After Donald Trump's bid to overturn his 2020 election loss, an advocacy group was launched to take on the lawyers who aided in his doomed effort, hitting them with more than 80 ethics complaints.

With Trump again the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, his allies have fired back at this group, named the 65 Project. A pro-Trump nonprofit known as America First Legal has accused the 65 Project of engaging in a left-wing attempt to intimidate conservative lawyers, filing a bar complaint earlier this week against the 65 Project's top lawyer Michael Teter. The Oct. 28 complaint said Teter was targeting lawyers "based solely upon their representation of a disfavored client...

The 65 Project, named for the number of unsuccessful lawsuits it says were filed to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden's win, says its mission is to deter lawyers from bringing false election claims. In September, the group pledged to spend at least $100,000 on advertisements in legal journals in battleground states warning lawyers not to risk losing their law license by helping Trump.

America First Legal, a nonprofit founded in 2021 by former Trump White House aide Stephen Miller, harshly criticized the ads on its website in announcing its complaint against Teter. The group has increasingly focused on the election this year after previously bringing suits challenging diversity and migration policies."

2 more Russian disinformation videos targeting U.S. election are circulating online, sources say; CBS New, November 2, 2024

Margaret Brennan, Robert Legare, James LaPorta, Rhona Tarrant , CBS News; 2 more Russian disinformation videos targeting U.S. election are circulating online, sources say

"U.S. officials believe another two fake videos circulating online and publicly identified by the FBI as an attempt to push false election security claims are likely part of a Russia-backed malign influence campaign ahead of Tuesday's presidential election, two sources familiar with the process told CBS News. 

The news comes after the FBI said in a statement Saturday that the videos "are not authentic, are not from the FBI, and the content they depict is false."

The agency said that one of the videos falsely claims "the FBI has apprehended three linked groups committing ballot fraud, and the second relates to first gentleman Doug Emhoff."

The FBI in its statement did not say who was behind the videos, and when reached by CBS News, declined to comment further. 

It added that the two videos — using Justice Department and FBI signage within them and images of Emhoff — were being circulated as part of "attempts to deceive the public with false content about FBI operations."

An ‘Interview’ With a Dead Luminary Exposes the Pitfalls of A.I.; The New York Times, November 3, 2024

Andrew Higgins, The New York Times; An ‘Interview’ With a Dead Luminary Exposes the Pitfalls of A.I.

"When a state-funded Polish radio station canceled a weekly show featuring interviews with theater directors and writers, the host of the program went quietly, resigned to media industry realities of cost-cutting and shifting tastes away from highbrow culture.

But his resignation turned to fury in late October after his former employer, Off Radio Krakow, aired what it billed as a “unique interview” with an icon of Polish culture, Wislawa Szymborska, the winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The terminated radio host, Lukasz Zaleski, said he would have invited Ms. Szymborska on his morning show himself, but never did for a simple reason: She died in 2012.

The station used artificial intelligence to generate the recent interview — a dramatic and, to many, outrageous example of technology replacing humans, even dead ones."

Disinformation Watchdogs Are Under Pressure. This Group Refuses to Stop.; The New York Times, November 1, 2024

Steven Lee Myers and Stuart A. Thompson, The New York Times; Disinformation Watchdogs Are Under Pressure. This Group Refuses to Stop

"Inside two small, windowless conference rooms on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, a group of students and researchers is prowling the internet to track the rumors and conspiracy theories eroding faith in this year’s presidential election...

“We can’t possibly track them all down,” Kate Starbird, a founder of the university’s Center for an Informed Public, said of the rumors, which began with a steady drip in recent weeks and have now turned into a torrent.

Four years ago, the center’s researchers were part of a larger coalition formed to debunk claims by President Donald J. Trump and others that the 2020 election was rigged. At its peak in the weeks around that vote, the effort had 120 analysts working around the clock to monitor disinformation.

In the last two years, however, that work came under a concerted political and legal attack from conservatives who portrayed it as a secret scheme to censor critics.

Called the Election Integrity Partnership, the coalition has since collapsed under the weight of that attack, smothered by civil lawsuits, Congressional subpoenas and records requests that have been time consuming and costly.

But the Center for an Informed Public has persevered, adapting to more limited resources, even as disinformation about the country’s electoral process has become more pernicious than ever."

'Targeted disinformation' warning: Beware of social media posts, Georgia Secretary of State says; Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), November 1, 2024

• GPB News Staff, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB); 'Targeted disinformation' warning: Beware of social media posts, Georgia Secretary of State say

"Halloween night, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released a warning to voters: Social media posts may include disinformation from foreign sources.

This came after he announced that Georgia exceeded 50% statewide turnout among active voters, with 3,653,333 Georgians having cast ballots, 3,426,851 of those voting early as of Thursday.

“Earlier today, our office became aware of a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia ID’s claiming to have voted multiple times," he wrote.

"This is false and is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen in this and other elections. It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the 2024 Presidential election," he said.

The viral video alleging voting fraud in Georgia, claiming a Haitian immigrant has voted multiple times in the sate, had spread widely across social media sites, including X, by Thursday evening.

"This is obviously fake and part of a disinformation effort," Raffensperger wrote. He made the assumption that the post could be the product of "Russian troll farms.""

'Above and beyond disgusting': Mount Pleasant parade display depicts Kamala Harris with hands bound; 90.5 WESA, October 31, 2024

Chris Potter, Tom Riese, 90.5 WESA; 'Above and beyond disgusting': Mount Pleasant parade display depicts Kamala Harris with hands bound

"(Note: This story below contains disturbing content and images.)

A community Halloween parade in Mount Pleasant Borough has drawn controversy after participants joined it with an elaborate display that appeared to depict Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris with hands bound, accompanied by a vehicle with a roof-mounted rifle. Witnesses alternately described the woman as bound with chains or another restraint.

Images of the display spread across social media Thursday, the morning after the Westmoreland County community’s parade. It appeared to feature an ATV bedecked with flags, a Trump sign, and a roof-mounted sniper rifle, apparently made from cardboard. The photos also displayed a woman walking behind the vehicle with her hands bound. At least two men wearing dark sunglasses, apparently impersonating security forces, accompanied the vehicle.

Mayor Diane Bailey said she was ”shocked” by the display.

“The borough had no part in that parade,” she said. “That has been handled by the fire department and organized by the fire department for as long as I can remember, and I’m old.

“We were observers the same as the citizens who came out, and we were as shocked by it as anyone else would have been,” she said. “We had no idea that that particular float or whatever you want to call it was going to be in the parade...

The Westmoreland chapter of the Republican Party directed calls to a spokesman from the Trump campaign.

The Pittsburgh branch of the NAACP, in a statement Thursday, condemned the display as “a harmful symbol that evokes a painful history of violence, oppression, and racism that Black and Brown communities have long endured here in America."

 Annelise Gilbert , Bloomberg Law; AI Training Study to Come This Year, Copyright Office Says

"The Copyright Office’s report on the legal implications of training artificial intelligence models on copyrighted works is still expected to publish by the end of 2024, the office’s director told lawmakers.

Director Shira Perlmutter on Wednesday said the office aims to complete the remaining two sections of its three-part AI report in the next two months—one on the copyrightability of generative AI output and the other about liability, licensing, and fair use in regards to AI training on protected works."

Raffensperger asks X to take down ‘false’ video purporting to show voter fraud; The Hill, October 31, 2024

JULIANN VENTURA  , The Hill; Raffensperger asks X to take down ‘false’ video purporting to show voter fraud

"Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said that his office asked Elon Musk, the owner of X, and the leadership of other social platforms to take down a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia IDs who claimed to have voted multiple times.

The secretary’s office said that the video is false and it is working to identify where the video originated. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is also investigating the matter, according to a press release."

Top election official says colleagues gave Elon Musk ‘hand-delivered’ notes to stop him from spreading misinformation; Fortune, November 1, 2024

SASHA ROGELBERG , Fortune; Top election official says colleagues gave Elon Musk ‘hand-delivered’ notes to stop him from spreading misinformation

"Elon Musk is accused of rampantly spreading election misinformation, and it has been a thorn in the side of election officials working double time to try and mitigate the spew of unfounded claims about meddling and alleged voter fraud. Some officials have even gone to measures like dispatching personal notes to the CEO of Tesla and X, who endorsed Donald Trump in July following as assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa.

“I’ve had my friends hand-deliver stuff to him,” Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County, Ariz.  recorder, told CNN. Richer, a Republican, has come under fire from conservatives for defending the 2020 election outcome that Trump lost.

But so far, the efforts of Richer’s colleagues have fallen short. “We’ve pulled out more stops than most people have available to try to put accurate information in front of [Musk],” Richer said. “It has been unsuccessful.”

Musk cast false information about election security, including insisting Americans vote in-person and on paper, citing a debunked conspiracy that ballot machines switched votes, at a Philadelphia town hall event on Oct. 18. Musk historically has voted by mail, and his super PAC, America PAC, has encouraged mail-in voting.

His social media platform X has also failed to quash election lies. A report from Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) on Wednesday found X’s Community Notes feature “failed to counter false” claims about the election, with 209 of 283 (74%) analyzed posts not showing notes correcting false information."

Trump suggests ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face’; The Washington Post, November 1, 2024

Hannah Knowles

 and 

Marianne LeVine

 , The Washington Post; Trump suggests ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face’

"Former president Donald Trump appeared to suggest on Thursday that former congresswoman and longtime Trump critic Liz Cheney should be subjected to gunfire as he called her a “war hawk,” saying during a live event with Tucker Carlson, “Let’s see how she feels about it,” with guns “trained on her face” as a target."

Trump sues CBS News for $10 billion over Harris interview; Axios, October 31, 2024

• Sareen Habeshian , Axios; Trump sues CBS News for $10 billion over Harris interview

"Former President Trump filed a lawsuit against CBS News Thursday, alleging the network engaged in election interference by doctoring a "60 Minutes" interview with Vice President Harris, per a court filing.

Driving the news: Trump is seeking $10 billion in damages for CBS's alleged "partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference," which the lawsuit claims were intended to confuse the public and "attempt to tip the scales" toward Democrats in the 2024 presidential election.

• The lawsuit was first reported by Fox News."

Anxious About the 2024 Election? Here's What Therapists Recommend; KQED, October 31, 2024

 Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí, KQED; Anxious About the 2024 Election? Here's What Therapists Recommend

"Keep reading for expert advice on the things you can do before, on and after Nov. 5 to help manage anxiety about the 2024 election."

Musk’s get-out-the-vote workers didn’t know they were canvassing for Trump – report; The Guardian, October 30, 2024

Robert Tait in Washington, The Guardian; Musk’s get-out-the-vote workers didn’t know they were canvassing for Trump – report

"Elon Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort for Donald Trump has come under renewed scrutiny after paid canvassers reported not knowing beforehand that they were being hired to support the former president.

Workers recruited by Musk’s America Pac to canvass in the battleground state of Michigan only discovered they were working for the Space X and Tesla entrepreneur to drum up voter turnout for Trump after signing non-disclosure agreements, Wired reported.

“I knew nothing of the job, or much of the job description, other than going door to door and asking the voters who are they voting for,” a canvasser who was flown to Michigan from another state told the website. “Then, after I signed over an NDA, is when I found out we are for Republicans and with Trump.”

The canvassers also said they faced threats to their working conditions if they failed to meet stringent door-knocking targets.

The disclosure comes after the Guardian revealed serious question marks about Musk’s voter turnout effort in Nevada and Arizona amid reports that up to 25% of reported door knocks in the state could be fraudulent."

MAGA Men Are Freaking Out Over Their Wives Secretly Voting for Harris; The New Republic, October 31, 2024

Malcolm Ferguson , The New Republic; MAGA Men Are Freaking Out Over Their Wives Secretly Voting for Harris

"Over the last couple of months, there have been growing reports of grassroots campaigns reminding women that no one has to know how they voted. Post-it notes have been left in women’s bathrooms reading, “Woman to woman, your vote is private.” And a new pro-Harris ad from Vote Common Good this week featuring a voiceover from Julia Roberts shows two women at the polls sharing an understanding gaze as they cast their ballots for Harris while their pro-Trump husbands cluelessly egg them on.

This development has deeply disturbed MAGA husbands everywhere. 

Perhaps no one better portrayed the MAGA meltdown than Fox News anchor Jesse Waters on Wednesday evening.

“If I found out [my wife] Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as an affair,” yelled Watters, who cheated on his first wife with Emma, then his 25-year-old employee. “That violates the sanctity of our marriage. What else is she keeping from me? What else has she been lying about?"

Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way; The New York Times, October 31, 2024

Nico Grant , The New York Times; Election Falsehoods Take Off on YouTube as It Looks the Other Way

"From May through August, researchers at Media Matters tracked 30 of the most popular YouTube channels they identified as persistently spreading election misinformation, to analyze the narratives they shared in the run-up to November’s election.

The 30 conservative channels posted 286 videos containing election misinformation, which racked up more than 47 million views. YouTube generated revenue from more than a third of those videos by placing ads before or during them, researchers found. Some commentators also made money from those videos and other monetized features available to members of the YouTube Partner Program...

Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, posted more false electoral claims to YouTube than any other major commentator in the research group, the analysis concluded...

YouTube, which is owned by Google, has prided itself on connecting viewers with “authoritative information” about elections. But in this presidential contest, it acted as a megaphone for conspiracy theories."

An Elon Musk-backed political group is posting fake Kamala Harris ads on Facebook; NPR, October 30, 2024

Bobby Allyn , NPR; An Elon Musk-backed political group is posting fake Kamala Harris ads on Facebook

"A series of ads that look like they are from the Harris campaign are spreading falsehoods about her current policy positions, including that she wants to institute a mandatory gun-buyback program and give Medicare benefits and drivers’ licenses to undocumented immigrants. One of the ads asserts Harris wants to ban fracking. None of this is true.

The Facebook ads have collectively been viewed millions of times in swing states, posted by an account dubbed “Progress 2028,” a name suggesting a liberal counterpart to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

But there is no such Harris-aligned initiative as Progress 2028. And the ads are bankrolled by Building America’s Future, a dark money group funded by billionaire Elon Musk and others, according to campaign tracking site Open Secrets. It’s part of the more than $100 million Musk has spent to help re-elect former president Donald Trump, campaign finance records show.

The ad buys are publicly available in an ad library database hosted by Meta, Facebook’s parent company. It shows that so far the group has posted 13 of these ads. As of Wednesday afternoon, Meta tallied the ads as having received 8.7 million impressions, although some viewers may have seen the same ads multiple times.

Experts told NPR that there is nothing illegal about the ads, since the First Amendment protects political speech, even when it contains lies. But the messages have the potential to lead voters astray just days before the election."

What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family; NPR, October 22, 2024

Katia Riddle , NPR; What is the No. 1 leading cause of stress for you? Hint: It's not family

"Every year the American Psychological Association takes a look at the leading causes of stress in the U.S., and publishes an annual report. This year the report shows all the usual suspects like money, health and family are still wearing people down, but one issue is dominating – politics.

Seven out of 10 adults say the future of the nation is a significant source of stress in their lives and the issue crosses party lines: 80% of Republicans rated it a top stressor, so did 79% of Democrats and 73% of Independents. Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and APA’s deputy chief, professional practice, says she was surprised by the findings...

The report – called Stress in America 2024: A Nation in Political Turmoil — details the results of a survey conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of the APA. More than 3,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and older were surveyed between August 1st and 23rd, 2024...

A majority of respondents are also concerned about misinformation and disinformation — 82% said they are worried that people are basing their values and opinions on false or inaccurate information.

Bufka says one of the problems is Americans are not seeing the things that matter to them represented in the political discourse...

There is some positive news in the report. Three out of five people felt hopeful about the election results. Stress can also galvanize people into action; 80% of survey respondents say they do intend to vote in the Presidential election."

Your guide to coping with election anxiety; Vox, October 28, 2024

Allie Volpe , Vox; Your guide to coping with election anxiety

"Feeling jittery and unsettled about the upcoming election? If you’re anything like the 69 percent of American adults who said the 2024 presidential election was a “significant” source of stress in their lives, per this year’s American Psychological Association’s Stress in America poll, you’re not alone. 

Elections are common wellsprings of anxiety because they’re rife with uncertainty, says David H. Rosmarin, the founder of the Center for Anxiety. You’re unsure of the outcome, and unsure of what life may look like for you under a new administration, especially when the difference between the two choices is undeniably vast. Some of the proposed policies may threaten people’s safety and freedoms, resulting in even more anxiety. Research shows political anxiety can impact people who aren’t generally anxious otherwise.

There are key differences between everyday anxiety and election-related anxiety. Sometimes, generalized anxiety is rooted in cognitive distortions, or inaccurate beliefs or fears about the world. But election-based distress isn’t necessarily based on hypotheticals or overreactions, says licensed clinical social worker Jneé Hill. “A lot of the concerns,” she says, “are very real and very valid based on people’s real lives and lived experiences.”

While election anxiety may feel large and existential, mental health experts agree it can be managed. In the lead-up to November 5 — and the uneasy days following — there are some strategies that can help quiet your mind."