Important to keep an eye on this. link to ‘Disinformation Researchers Raise Alarms About A.I. Chatbots - The New York Times’

Why… why don’t we better anticipate better misuses like this? Are technological “progress” and market opportunities more important than these side effects? link to ‘4chan users embrace AI voice clone tool to generate celebrity hatespeech - The Verge’

We’ve had it better than some states, so it’s disappointing to hear all of this. link to ‘Kentucky’s county clerks deal with misinformation as election approaches – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville’

Not that I was inclined to believe Russian cries of fake news anyway, but I still appreciate Bellingcat on the case. link to ‘Russia’s Bucha “Facts” Versus the Evidence - bellingcat’

Oh good, our fears about deepfakes are coming true. link to ‘Hacked News Channel and Deepfake of Zelenskyy Surrendering Is Causing Chaos Online’

Interesting if disconcerting story. The idea of whataboutism as misinformation is particularly disturbing, and it’s important to remember that misinformation is a non-partisan phenomenon (even if the GOP is particularly keen on it). The worst part from a personal angle is how this relates to my own struggling to balance calling out the invasion of Ukraine with knowing that I haven’t been as attentive to other conflicts that deserve my brainspace.

On one hand, this is actual social media censorship, not what bad actors in the U.S. complain about. On the other, it is a reminder that even the best intentioned laws against misinformation, etc. could have unintended effects. We need to tread carefully when figuring out legal responses to social media problems. link to ‘Russia Can Now Jail People for 15 Years for Tweeting About the War on Ukraine’

What a great episode. link to ‘#181 Absolutely Devious Lick | Reply All’

Happy to say that my local indie bookstore does not have this problem. link to ‘Ivermectin misinformation has poisoned Amazon’s platform, with few fixes planned - The Verge’

I agree that it’s difficult to define misinformation in cases like this, but “cleaning house before inviting company” is absolutely a problem if the mess is what we’re coming to evaluate. Even a fact-based article can be used to misinformative ends, and it’s important that we know things like that are happening. link to ‘Facebook’s Most Viewed Article In Early 2021 Raised Doubt About COVID Vaccine : NPR’