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AI Election Disinformation Surges on Social Media in India

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Disinformation on India's Election Surges on Social Media

Claims circulating online in India recently misstated details about voting, claimed without evidence that the election would be manipulated, and urged for violence against India’s Muslims.

Researchers who study misinformation and hate speech in India say digital companies’ lax enforcement of their own regulations has created ideal conditions for damaging content that might alter public opinion, incite violence, and leave millions of voters unsure what to trust.

“A non-discerning user or regular user has no idea whether it’s someone, an individual sharing his or her thoughts on the other end, or is it a bot?” Rekha Singh, a 49-year-old voter, told the Associated Press. Singh expressed her concern that social media algorithms affect voters’ perceptions of truth. “So you are biased without even realizing it,” she went on to say.

In a year filled with major elections, India’s sweeping vote stands out. The world’s most populous country speaks dozens of languages and has the highest number of WhatsApp users and YouTube subscribers. Nearly 1 billion citizens are eligible to vote in the election, which will take place through June.

Google and Meta, the owners of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, say they are striving to prevent false or hateful content while assisting voters in finding credible sources. However, experts who have long followed disinformation in India believe their assurances are hollow after years of failed enforcement and “cookie-cutter” techniques that ignore India’s linguistic, religious, geographic, and cultural diversity.

According to disinformation experts that specialize in India, given the country’s size and importance to social media businesses, greater attention is likely.

“The platforms get money from this. Ritumbra Manuvie, a law professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, stated, “They benefit from it, and the entire country pays the price.” Manuvie is the leader of The London Story, an Indian diaspora group that staged a protest outside Meta’s London offices last month.

The group and another organization, India Civil Watch International, discovered that Meta allowed political advertisements and posts that contained anti-Muslim hate speech, Hindu nationalist narratives, misogynistic posts about female candidates, and ads encouraging violence against political opponents.

The advertisements were viewed over 65 million times in 90 days earlier this year. They collectively cost more than $1 million.

Meta defends its work on global elections and disputes the findings of the India study, noting that it has expanded its collaboration with independent fact-checking organizations ahead of the election and has employees around the world ready to act if its platforms are used to spread misinformation. Meta’s president of worldwide affairs, Nick Clegg, stated about India’s election, “It’s a huge, huge test for us.”

YouTube in India

“We have months and months of preparation in India,” he told the Associated Press in a recent interview. “Our teams work around the clock. We have fact checkers in India who speak several languages. “We have a 24-hour escalation system.”

Experts think YouTube is another significant disinformation source in India. To see how well the video-sharing platform enforced its own rules, researchers from the organizations Global Witness and Access Now constructed 48 fake ads in English, Hindi, and Telugu that contained inaccurate voting information or calls to violence.

One stated India changed the voting age to 21, although it remains at 18, and another claimed women could vote via text message, which they cannot. A third advocated for the use of force at polling locations.

When Global Witness submitted the commercials to YouTube for approval, the answer was unsatisfactory, according to Henry Peck, an investigator with Global Witness.

“YouTube didn’t act on any of them,” Peck explained, instead approving the commercials for release.

Google, YouTube’s owner, rejected the study and stated that it had several procedures in place to detect ads that breach its policies. Global Witness said the ads were removed before they could be identified and prohibited.

“Our policies explicitly prohibit ads making demonstrably false claims that could undermine participation or trust in an election, which we enforce in several Indian languages,” the company said in a statement. The corporation also mentioned its relationships with fact-checking organizations.

AI deepfakes

AI is this year’s newest threat, as technological advancements make it easier than ever to create lifelike images, video, and voice. AI deepfakes are appearing in elections around the world, from Moldova to Bangladesh.

Senthil Nayagam, founder of Muonium AI, feels there is an increasing market for deepfakes, particularly among politicians. In the run-up to the election, he had several questions about creating political videos with AI. “There’s a market for this, no doubt,” he told me.

Some of the fakes produced by Nayagam include deceased politicians and are not intended to be taken seriously, while other deepfakes circulating online have the potential to mislead voters. Modi has underlined the threat.

“We need to educate people about artificial intelligence and deepfakes, how it works, what it can do,” he stated.

India’s Information and Technology Ministry has asked social media companies to eliminate disinformation, including deepfakes. However, experts argue the lack of specific regulation or law focusing on AI and deepfakes makes it more difficult to combat, leaving it up to voters to decide what is true and what is fiction.

Ankita Jasra, 18, a first-time voter, says these ambiguities make it difficult to know what to believe.

“If I don’t know what is being said is true, I don’t think I can trust in the people that are governing my country,” she went on to say.

Source: The Associated Press

Election News

Democrats Now Leaderless After Trump Presidential Win

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Democrats Leaderless After Trump Presidential Win

Democrats spent billions of dollars with the legacy media to try and create fear among American voters that Donald Trump posed an imminent threat to democracy; in the end, voters didn’t care. They chose to believe their own eyes and not the rhetoric.

Following Kamala Harris’ decisive loss, the Democrats are now entering a second Trump presidency without a clear leader, a clear plan, or an accord on the reasons for their significant miscalculations in the 2024 election.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and former Democratic primary candidate, had warned Harris before Election Day that she was focusing too much on flipping Republican votes and not enough on pocketbook issues. He issued a statement excoriating party leadership.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” he said. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well.

While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

Trump’s promises to impose tariffs on both allies and foes and his threats to American businesses contemplating the relocation of jobs offshore were alluring to union workers.

Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of the far-left Justice Democrats, told AP that the party’s leadership must “accept responsibility for that a second”Donald Trump presidency was once again feasible under their supervision.”

Rojas charged that the Democratic Party is los”ng legitimacy among the everyday people and marginalized communities, who are continuously used as stepping stones to win elections. She also acknowledged that “there are no easy answers for where we as a coun”ry and movement go from here.”

The data indicates that Democrats have” substantial work to do.

Faiz Shakir, the Democratic strategist who oversaw Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, is concerned that Sanders’s Democratic Party will fail to engage in the necessary introspection after this catastrophic defeat.

He asserted that “a healthy party is challenging itself to conduct”that type of autopsy and hear what we did wrong.” “I am not even aware that such a process will occur. He asks, “Will the Democratic Party’s well-paid consultant and big-money interParty learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?”

“Will they comprehend the political alienation and pain that tens of millions of Americans are currently experiencing?” Do they have any suggestions for how we can confront the Oligarchy, which is gaining economic and political influence at an accelerated pace? It is unlikely, he said.

Source: AP

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Kamala Concession Speech Trends on Google

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Kamala Concession Speech

One day after former President Donald Trump’s historic re-election, Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the presidential race and vowed to maintain unity. Her concession speech trended on Google with over 5 million searches.

“I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign, but I do concede this election.” She stated, “In our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States.”

Kamala Harris acknowledged that there was no viable strategy for obtaining the presidency even though her speech was not what she intended.

In the center of Washington, DC, Harris delivered a speech at her alma mater, Howard University. Harris expressed her gratitude to the hundreds of campaign workers and volunteers who worked assiduously on her campaign and to the tens of millions of voters who cast their votes for her.

Kamala Harris also stated that the country should unite for a peaceful power transfer despite the agony of losing.

She said, “We must acknowledge the outcomes of this election.” “I conversed with President-elect Trump earlier today and congratulated him on his victory.”

I also informed him that we would assist him and his team during his transition and participate in a peaceful transfer of power.

In the interim, Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a caustic statement regarding the presidential election results, accusing the Democratic Party of having “abandoned” working-class voters. It’s unsurprising that “a Democratic Party that has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

Sanders, who secured re-election last night, stated that the party’s white working-class voters were the first to quit and that it now appears that Latino and Black workers are following suit. “The American people are enraged and desire change despite the Democratic leadership’s defense of the status quo,” he stated. “And they’re right.”

Trump and Vance were also congratulated on their electoral victory by former President Obama, who ardently campaigned for Harris in the final stretch before Election Day. This was announced in a statement published today.

“This is obviously not the outcome we had hoped for, given our profound disagreements with the Republican ticket on a whole host of issues,” according to him. “But living in a democracy is about recognizing that our point of view won’t always win out, and being willing to accept the peaceful transfer of power.”

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Despite All the Odds Donald Trump Elected 47th President

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Donald Trump Elected President
Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States, a remarkable turnaround for a former president who refused to concede defeat four years ago.

Trump achieved the 270 electoral votes required to secure the presidency with a victory in Wisconsin. On Wednesday afternoon, he emerged victorious in Michigan, conquering the “blue wall” with Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris contacted President-Elect Trump to congratulate her and acknowledge his victory in the election. Shortly thereafter, Vice President Biden conversed with Trump to extend his congratulations and invitation to the White House.

Foreign leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also phoned Trump.

“I would like to express my gratitude to the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected as your 47th and 45th president,” Trump addressed a crowd of enthusiastic supporters in Florida before officially confirming their victory.

“Today, you demonstrated unprecedented attendance to secure a victory, and we have endured an immense amount of hardship together,” Trump said. This was truly exceptional, and we will repay you,” he added.

Upon his return to office, Trump will collaborate with a Senate that is now under Republican control, while the House’s governance remains uncertain.

Elon Musk’s Tesla, banks, cryptocurrencies, and the U.S. stock market all surged Wednesday as investors anticipated a smooth election and Trump’s return to the White House.

Trump has pledged to implement an agenda that prioritizes the substantial revamping of the federal government during his second term.

When Trump assumes office on January 20, he will face various challenges, such as global crises testing America’s influence abroad and heightened political polarization.

Trump has pledged to revolutionize nearly every facet of the American government. This encompasses the intention to initiate the most extensive deportation operation in the nation’s history, once more pursue a zero-sum approach to foreign policy, and increase the use of tariffs.

Upon his arrival in Washington in 2017, Trump was unfamiliar with the mechanisms of federal authority. Congress, the judiciary, and senior staff members who acted as guardrails impeded his agenda.

This time, Trump has declared that he will surround himself with allies who will execute his agenda without question and arrive with hundreds of proposed executive orders, legislative proposals, and in-depth policy papers.

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