Germany’s security services warned on Friday that fake videos circulating online purporting to reveal ballot manipulation in the country’s upcoming federal elections were part of a Russian information operation.
With the US election on the horizon, it’s a good time to explore the concept of social media weaponization and its use in manipulating public opinion.
Russia is increasingly turning to American social media stars to covertly influence voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to U.S. officials and recently unveiled criminal charges.
“What we see them doing is relying on witting and unwitting Americans to seed, promote and add credibility to narratives that serve these foreign actors’ interest,” a senior intelligence official said in a briefing on Friday. “These foreign countries typically calculate that Americans are more likely to believe other Americans’ views.”
Discover how Iran is allegedly targeting the 2024 US election, the potential impacts, and the measures being taken to safeguard the democratic process.
With less than a year to go before one of the most consequential elections in US history, Microsoft’s AI chatbot is responding to political queries with conspiracies, misinformation, and out-of-date or incorrect information.
When WIRED asked the chatbot, initially called Bing Chat and recently renamed Microsoft Copilot, about polling locations for the 2024 US election, the bot referenced in-person voting by linking to an article about Russian president Vladimir Putin running for reelection next year. When asked about electoral candidates, it listed numerous GOP candidates who have already pulled out of the race.
Absentee voters flooded social media to express their frustration at not being able to cast votes through an online system created by the government.
Earlier this week, the Republican National Committee released a video that it claims was “built entirely with AI imagery.” The content of the ad isn’t especially novel—a dystopian vision of America under a second term with President Joe Biden—but the deliberate emphasis on the technology used to create it stands out: It’s a “Daisy” moment for the 2020s.
The Record by Recorded Future gives exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to leaders, policymakers, researchers, and the shadows of the cyber underground.
