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| Home Front: Politix |
| Pro-Russia 'news' sites spew incendiary US election falsehoods |
| 2024-08-20 |
| [ARABNEWS] Pro-Kremlin sites masquerading as US ''news'' outlets have dished out unfounded claims that Democrats plotted to assassinate Donald Trump, a prime example of how phony AI-powered portals are spewing inflammatory falsehoods in a high-stakes election year. Xi had a stroke! Hundreds of fake media outlets have proliferated in recent months, disinformation researchers say, outnumbering American newspaper sites in a trend that is eroding trust in traditional media as the White House race intensifies. "traditional media" has done a fine job eroding trust all by themselves The fake sites — largely enabled by cheap, widely available artificial intelligence tools — are fueling an explosion of polarizing or false narratives as US officials warn that foreign powers such as Russia and Iran are stepping up efforts to meddle in the November 5 election. Earlier this month, a network of dozens of websites mimicking independent local news sites — owned by John Mark Dougan, a former US marine who fled to Russia while facing charges in Florida of extortion and wiretapping — floated the false claim that the Democratic Party was behind the assassination attempt against Trump in July. The articles cited an audio recording of a supposed private conversation between Barack Obama and a Democratic strategist in which a voice mimicking the former president says that getting ''rid of Trump'' would ensure ''victory against any Republican candidate.'' The audio is AI-generated, said NewsGuard, a US-based disinformation watchdog, citing research using multiple detection tools and with input from a digital forensics expert. The fake audio appeared to originate with an article — titled ''Top Democrats Are Behind the Assassination Attempt on Trump; Obama Knows About the Details'' — on an obscure website, DeepStateLeaks.org. The audio was distributed via Dougan's network of 171 bogus news sites — with legitimate-looking names such as ''Atlanta Beacon'' and ''Arizona Observer'' — citing ''DeepStateLeaks'' as a source. Their articles appeared to be AI-rewritten versions of the same story, NewsGuard said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 'Harris never quit drinking Russian vodka.' |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2024-08-20 14:50 |
| #2 ^There's no truth in Pravda or news in Izvestia? |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-08-20 01:59 |
| #1 Newsguard is itself not a trustworthy site. Read about how they tried to bully Jonathan Turley |
| Posted by: Frank G 2024-08-20 01:56 |