September 19, 2024 – WASHINGTON – On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration with oversight over federal elections, along with Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sent a letter to the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg; CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino; CEO of Alphabet, Sundar Pichai; CEO of Twitch, Daniel Clancy; and CEO of Discord, Jason Citron to highlight the risks of election-related disinformation on their platforms, and to urge the companies to take decisive action, including bolstering content moderation resources, to combat deceptive content intended to mislead voters or sow violence.
“Your companies are on the frontlines of the risks to our democracy posed by online disinformation and technology-enabled election influence, and it is for these reasons that we urge you to prioritize taking action to ensure that you have the policies, procedures, and staff in place to counter and respond promptly to these threats,” said the lawmakers.
As Chair of the Rules Committee, Senator Klobuchar has worked on a bipartisan basis to safeguard our elections and strengthen democracy.
In May 2024, the Senate Rules Committee passed three Klobuchar-led bipartisan bills to address the impact of AI on our elections. The bills include the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act with Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Susan Collins (R-ME) joined by Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), the AI Transparency in Elections Act with Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and the Preparing Election Administrators for AI Act with Senator Collins.
In January 2024, Klobuchar and Collins called on the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to assist state and local election officials in combating the spread of AI-generated disinformation about our elections. Their letter followed the reports of AI-generated deepfake robocalls using President Biden’s voice to discourage voting in the New Hampshire primary election. In February, the EAC voted unanimously to allow election officials to use federal election funds to counter disinformation in our elections caused by AI.
Klobuchar is a lead sponsor of the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act of 2023. The NO FAKES Act is a bipartisan proposal that would protect the voice and visual likeness of all individuals from unauthorized recreations from generative AI.
The full text of the letter is available HERE and below:
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, Ms. Yaccarino, Mr. Pichai, Mr. Clancy, and Mr. Citron:
We write to express our persisting concerns about the spread of election-related disinformation on your platforms as the 2024 general election is quickly approaching and to call on your companies to prioritize taking decisive action, including bolstering content moderation resources, to combat deceptive content intended to mislead voters or sow violence.
Election-related disinformation continues to go viral and reach millions of viewers on your platforms, and generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the capacity to turbocharge the spread of disinformation to greatly enable malign influence actors. As AI technology gets more sophisticated, voters will have an increasingly hard time knowing if what is being presented to them on your platforms about candidates or how to cast a ballot is real or fake. This kind of deceptive content has targeted candidates on both sides of the aisle, including a recent deepfake of Vice President Kamala Harris’ voice that reportedly received more than 130 million views in just four days and AI-generated images of former President Donald Trump spread online during the primary elections. The proliferation of hyper-realistic synthetic media may also erode public trust more broadly, particularly given the increasing prevalence with which influence actors utilize generative AI in the course of impersonating legitimate news organizations. Election officials from both parties and experts have testified in the Senate Rules Committee about how disinformation can deceive voters and erode trust and confidence in our democracy.
National security officials have warned about these threats as well. The Department of Justice recently took action to disrupt Russian government-backed efforts to interfere in the election, including with AI-generated content to deceive people online. In May Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the increase in foreign adversaries attempting to influence our elections and how emerging technologies, including AI, are making it easier to create and amplify deceptive content online. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray echoed those concerns earlier this year when he said that “the U.S. will face more adversaries, moving at a faster pace, and enabled by new technology.” The Department of Homeland Security has warned about the misuse of AI technologies by both domestic actors and foreign adversaries to attempt to interfere in U.S. elections including through online disinformation campaigns. We have already seen these efforts in other countries’ elections across the globe this year. Equally concerning, the Intelligence Community has warned about growing efforts by Russia and Iran to sow discord using online platforms; these warnings are particularly alarming given declassified information from previous elections indicating that Russian and Iranian influence operatives have sought to sow violence among Americans.
Recent reports have raised significant questions about the extent to which online platforms are prepared to combat the threats presented by election-related misinformation, disinformation, and foreign influence efforts. Particularly in the context of safeguarding elections, it is vital that your companies maintain trust and integrity teams devoted to a number of functions related to addressing malicious activity, including content moderators, incident responders, legal compliance personnel, digital forensic specialists, and investigators.
Your companies are on the frontlines of the risks to our democracy posed by online disinformation and technology-enabled election influence, and it is for these reasons that we urge you to prioritize taking action to ensure that you have the policies, procedures, and staff in place to counter and respond promptly to these threats. We also ask that you provide answers to the following questions:
- What actions has your company taken to update its policies to address the spread of election-related misinformation and disinformation in advance of this year’s election? How are you measuring if these policies are effective?
- Does your company plan to implement additional measures, policies, or procedures to counter election-related misinformation and disinformation on your platform in advance of the November election, and what processes does your company have in place to determine if additional actions to address these issues are needed?
- How is your company addressing the rising proliferation of deceptive AI-generated content concerning candidates and elections on your platform?
- What policies does your company have related to entities impersonating legitimate media organizations, including sharing plagiarized or manipulated content from legitimate media organizations? Did your company consult with or otherwise engage with legitimate media organizations in the development of the aforementioned policies?
- Has or will your company share information with other companies that own or operate social media platforms on election-related misinformation and disinformation that your company identifies in advance of this year’s election? This could include sharing information on identified or suspected actors or entities, malicious usage patterns and other tactics, techniques, or procedures, technical data, or any other information to address election-related misinformation and disinformation.
- How many employees at your company, including contractors, are dedicated to addressing election-related misinformation and disinformation for this year’s election, and how does that number compare to staffing in other recent election years? Do you believe you have sufficient staff to address these issues?
- How is your company working to identify and combat election-related misinformation from foreign actors on your platforms?
Thank you for your attention to these critical matters. We look forward to your responses by October 1, 2024.
Source: Senator Amy Klobuchar
This post was originally published on here
