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The US election will take place in a polluted information space

EXPERT COMMENT

Relations between big tech, policymakers and the online accountability community have become hostile and politicized, degrading efforts to combat disinformation.

The US election will take place in the most polluted and degraded information space in living memory. Alarmist fears of an AI-generated apocalypse made in the new year were misplaced. 

But the trickle of generative AI-enabled spam, deepfakes and memes has added fuel to longer term trends in personalized digital political advertising, the disintegration of local news media and the vulnerability of digital democratic infrastructure to misuse and abuse. Innovations in information integrity – like Twitter/X’s Community Notes feature – are few and far between.

The US election will take place under a pall, as the people and organizations that have historically drawn attention to the threat of disinformation find themselves out in the cold, facing lawfare and harassment, their access to data curtailed and their funding cut.

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.

 

Channel website: https://www.chathamhouse.org/

Original article link: https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/09/us-election-will-take-place-polluted-information-space

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