February 19, 2020
Faux News Articles and Social Media Posts Will Haunt This Election
Last September, an image of a New York Times headline began circulating online, claiming that Abdullah Abdullah, a candidate for the Afghan presidency, had taken millions of dollars from Pakistan. Though the Times never published such a story, the convincing fake image—complete with the font and website design—exploited longstanding divisions in Afghan politics during a closely contested presidential election. For its creator, this piece of content became a useful tool for undermining Afghanistan’s already-fragile politics.
On Feb. 4, amid growing concern about deepfakes—ultra-convincing fake images and videos created using AI—Twitter announced a new set of policies to address synthetic and manipulated media on the platform. Under its new policies, Twitter will examine whether a piece of media content has been altered or fabricated, if it has been shared in a “deceptive manner,” and if it is likely to “impact public safety or cause serious harm.” The policies also attempt to establish guidelines to gauge a user’s intent to deceive.
Read the full article in Slate.
More from CNAS
-
Reports
Democracies must resist the impulses to build permanent digital surveillance infrastructures or risk losing a broader global contest between open societies and repressive regi...
By Kara Frederick
-
Video
Reaction and analysis from Center for a New American Security associate fellow Kara Frederick. View the full conversation on Fox and Friends First....
By Kara Frederick
-
Video
At this exercise on June 15, 2020, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) challenged the audience to spot the difference between real and synthetic media (digital forge...
By Kara Frederick, Ainikki Riikonen, Megan Lamberth, Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Sara Fischer, Dr. Aynne Kokas, Danika Laszuk & Maya Wang
-
Commentary
Washington’s post-9/11 debate about how much surveillance a free society should allow has suddenly become about much more than counterterrorism and national security. Amid tod...
By Carrie Cordero & Richard Fontaine