X reportedly cut all four Dublin, Ireland-based members of the team, including leader Aaron Rodericks. Yet only yesterday, CEO Linda Yaccarino said X was planning to expand its safety and election teams around the world, according to The Financial Times. And less than a month ago, the company was planning to hire a civic integrity and elections lead focused on combatting disinformation. “If you have a passion for protecting the integrity of elections and civic events, X is certainly at the center of the conversation,” said Rodericks in a LinkedIn post.

Rodericks was subsequently suspended for liking posts critical of X, Musk and Yaccarino. After The Information published its story and it was quoted by X News Daily, Musk responded: “Oh you mean the ‘Election Integrity’ Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”

Yesterday, the EU released its first report on social media platforms’ handling of disinformation as part of the Digital Services Act (DSA), finding that X had much higher levels of mis- and disinformation than its peers. X said in a series of posts that it disputed the “framing” of the data and remained “committed to complying with the DSA” despite pulling out of a voluntary Code of Practice on disinformation. In a statement accompanying the report, European Vice President Vera Jourova said that “my message for Twitter/X is you have to comply. We will be watching what you do.”

However, since Elon Musk purchased X (née Twitter) last October, the company has cut more than 80 percent of its staff, and the company already had challenges staying on top of disinformation prior to his tenure. Under the DSA, X must comply with the stricter laws or face fines up to 6 percent of its annual global revenue — though to date, Musk has faced very little pushback for all that’s happened with X.

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At the center of the case is a video of Biden from last fall, when he joined his granddaughter who was voting in-person for the first time. After voting, Biden placed an “I voted” sticker on her shirt. A Facebook user later shared an edited version of the encounter, making it appear as if he repeatedly touched her chest. The video caption called him a “sick pedophile,” and said those who voted for him were “mentally unwell.”

In a statement, the board also raised the issue of manipulated media and elections. “Although this case involves President Biden, it touches on the much broader issue of how manipulated media might impact elections in every corner of the world,” Thomas Hughes, director of the Oversight Board Administration, said in a statement. “It’s important that we look at what challenges and best practices Meta should adopt when it comes to authenticating video content at scale.”

According to the Oversight Board, a Facebook user reported the video, but Meta ultimately left the clip up saying it didn’t break its rules. As the board notes, the company’s manipulated media policy prohibits misleading video created with artificial intelligence, but doesn’t apply to deceptive edits made with more conventional techniques. “The Board selected this case to assess whether Meta’s policies adequately cover altered videos that could mislead people into believing politicians have taken actions, outside of speech, that they have not,” the Oversight Board said in a statement announcing the case.

The case also underscores the often glacial pace of the Oversight Board and its ability to effect change at Meta. The Biden clip at the center of the case was originally filmed last October, and edited versions have been spreading on social media since at least January (the version in this case was first posted in May). It will likely take several more weeks, if not months, for the board to make a decision on whether the Facebook video should be removed or left up. Meta will then have two months to respond to the board’s policy recommendations, though it could take many more weeks or months for the company to fully implement any suggestions it chooses to adopt. That means any meaningful policy change may fall much closer to the 2024 election than the 2022 midterm election that kickstarted the case in the first place.

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This approach is similar to, if not better than, DeepMind's SynthID for digitally watermark AI-generated images and audio, as part of Google's own election content strategy published last month. Meta's AI image generator also adds an invisible watermark to its content, though the company has yet to share its readiness on tackling election-related misinformation.

OpenAI says it will soon work with journalists, researchers and platforms for feedback on its provenance classifier. Along the same theme, ChatGPT users will start to see real-time news from around the world complete with attribution and links. They'll also be directed to CanIVote.org, the official online source on US voting, when they ask procedural questions like where to vote or how to vote.

Additionally, OpenAI reiterates its current policies on shutting down impersonation attempts in the form of deepfakes and chatbots, as well as content made to distort the voting process or to discourage people from voting. The company also forbids applications built for political campaigning, and when necessary, its new GPTs allow users to report potential violations.

OpenAI says learnings from these early measures, if successful at all (and that's a very big "if"), will help it roll out similar strategies across the globe. The firm will have more related announcements in the coming months.

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To start, the company is introducing its in-app election guide, which will point users to information about voting, including how to register and how to vote by mail. While the election guide will look similar to years past, the company is introducing it earlier than it has in past elections (its election resources for 2020 and 2022 debuted much closer to their respective contests than this year’s, which comes just as the presidential primaries are getting underway).

TikTok’s approach to misinformation in 2024 hasn’t changed much since 2022. The company will continue to bar political ads, including those that come via creators’ branded content. It will also keep working with fact-checking organizations, which help determine whether content is eligible for recommendations or warrants an “unverified” label. The company says it will “expand media literacy resources to these labels” later this year, which could make the notices more useful to users who encounter them, though it’s unclear what that will look like just yet.

TikTok’s plan for 2024 comes as experts warn that the rise of generative AI could fuel a new wave of viral election misinformation. On its part, TikTok acknowledges that generative AI has created “new challenges” for the social media industry, but stopped short of offering any new policies to address it. Instead, the company says it will keep enforcing its existing rules, which prohibit “misleading” AI-generated content and require creators to disclose when videos use “realistic” AI-generated content.

“As the technology evolves in 2024, we’ll continue to improve our policies and detection while partnering with experts on media literacy content that helps our community navigate AI responsibly,” the company wrote in a blog post.

When it comes to disinformation and coordinated efforts to manipulate its platform, TikTok is making a notable change. The company says it plans to release detailed reports on covert influence campaigns ahead of the 2024 contest It already discloses some information about influence campaigns it uncovers in its quarterly transparency reports, but the disclosures are typically short on details. That should change this year, according to TikTok, which says it will begin releasing “dedicated covert influence operations reports” later this year.

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"I know it's fun to make Trump pictures — I make Trump pictures," he told users who attended the session. "Trump is aesthetically really interesting. However, probably better to just not — better to pull out a little bit during this election. We'll see." As Bloomberg notes, people had previously used the company's AI to generate deepfakes of Trump getting arrested. The company ended free trials for its AI image generator after those images — along with those infamous deepfakes of the pope wearing a Balenciaga-inspired coat — went viral.

At the moment, the company already has rules in place prohibiting the creation of "misleading public figures" and "events portrayals" with the "potential to mislead." Bloomberg was still able to create modified images of Trump covered in spaghetti using the older version of Midjourney's system, though, whereas the newer version refused to generate modified images of the former President. Of course, even if Midjourney does ban images of high-profile politicians, it will only be protecting its platform from drawing the ire of critics and becoming the center of attention this election season. It will not prevent the use of AI tools in political disinformation campaigns or the spread fake information meant to manipulate the elections as a whole.

Other tech companies have also taken steps to help prevent political disinformation, or at least to help make it easier to identify. ChatGPT will soon start tagging images created using DALL-E 3, while Meta is working to develop technology that can detect and signify whether an image, video or audio clip has been generated using AI.

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The list of companies signing the “Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections” includes those that create and distribute AI models, as well as social platforms where the deepfakes are most likely to pop up. The signees are Adobe, Amazon, Anthropic, Arm, ElevenLabs, Google, IBM, Inflection AI, LinkedIn, McAfee, Meta, Microsoft, Nota, OpenAI, Snap Inc., Stability AI, TikTok, Trend Micro, Truepic and X (formerly Twitter).

The group describes the agreement as “a set of commitments to deploy technology countering harmful AI-generated content meant to deceive voters.” The signees have agreed to the following eight commitments:

Developing and implementing technology to mitigate risks related to Deceptive AI Election content, including open-source tools where appropriate

Assessing models in scope of this accord to understand the risks they may present regarding Deceptive AI Election Content

Seeking to detect the distribution of this content on their platforms

Seeking to appropriately address this content detected on their platforms

Fostering cross-industry resilience to deceptive AI election content

Providing transparency to the public regarding how the company addresses it

Continuing to engage with a diverse set of global civil society organizations, academics

Supporting efforts to foster public awareness, media literacy, and all-of-society resilience

The accord will apply to AI-generated audio, video and images. It addresses content that “deceptively fake or alter the appearance, voice, or actions of political candidates, election officials, and other key stakeholders in a democratic election, or that provide false information to voters about when, where, and how they can vote.”

The signees say they will work together to create and share tools to detect and address the online distribution of deepfakes. In addition, they plan to drive educational campaigns and “provide transparency” to users.

OpenAI, one of the signees, already said last month it plans to suppress election-related misinformation worldwide. Images generated with the company’s DALL-E 3 tool will be encoded with a classifier providing a digital watermark to clarify their origin as AI-generated pictures. The ChatGPT maker said it would also work with journalists, researchers and platforms for feedback on its provenance classifier. It also plans to prevent chatbots from impersonating candidates.

“We’re committed to protecting the integrity of elections by enforcing policies that prevent abuse and improving transparency around AI-generated content,” Anna Makanju, Vice President of Global Affairs at OpenAI, wrote in the group’s joint press release. “We look forward to working with industry partners, civil society leaders and governments around the world to help safeguard elections from deceptive AI use.”

Notably absent from the list is Midjourney, the company with an AI image generator (of the same name) that currently produces some of the most convincing fake photos. However, the company said earlier this month it would consider banning political generations altogether during election season. Last year, Midjourney was used to create a viral fake image of Pope Benedict unexpectedly strutting down the street with a puffy white jacket. One of Midjourney’s closest competitors, Stability AI (makers of the open-source Stable Diffusion), did participate. Engadget contacted Midjourney for comment about its absence, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.

Only Apple is absent among Silicon Valley’s “Big Five.” However, that may be explained by the fact that the iPhone maker hasn’t yet launched any generative AI products, nor does it host a social media platform where deepfakes could be distributed. Regardless, we contacted Apple PR for clarification but hadn’t heard back at the time of publication.

Although the general principles the 20 companies agreed to sound like a promising start, it remains to be seen whether a loose set of agreements without binding enforcement will be enough to combat a nightmare scenario where the world’s bad actors use generative AI to sway public opinion and elect aggressively anti-democratic candidates — in the US and elsewhere.

“The language isn’t quite as strong as one might have expected,” Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told The Associated Press on Friday. “I think we should give credit where credit is due, and acknowledge that the companies do have a vested interest in their tools not being used to undermine free and fair elections. That said, it is voluntary, and we’ll be keeping an eye on whether they follow through.”

AI-generated deepfakes have already been used in the US Presidential Election. As early as April 2023, the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran an ad using AI-generated images of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The campaign for Ron DeSantis, who has since dropped out of the GOP primary, followed with AI-generated images of rival and likely nominee Donald Trump in June 2023. Both included easy-to-miss disclaimers that the images were AI-generated.

In January, an AI-generated deepfake of President Biden’s voice was used by two Texas-based companies to robocall New Hampshire voters, urging them not to vote in the state’s primary on January 23. The clip, generated using ElevenLabs’ voice cloning tool, reached up to 25,000 NH voters, according to the state’s attorney general. ElevenLabs is among the pact’s signees.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) acted quickly to prevent further abuses of voice-cloning tech in fake campaign calls. Earlier this month, it voted unanimously to ban AI-generated robocalls. The (seemingly eternally deadlocked) US Congress hasn’t passed any AI legislation. In December, the European Union (EU) agreed on an expansive AI Act safety development bill that could influence other nations’ regulatory efforts.

“As society embraces the benefits of AI, we have a responsibility to help ensure these tools don’t become weaponized in elections,” Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith wrote in a press release. “AI didn’t create election deception, but we must ensure it doesn’t help deception flourish.”

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