105 Joseph Menn, “Viral Pentagon Explosion Hoax Took Off from Pro-Russian Accounts,” Washington Post, June 10, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/09/viral-hoax-pentagon-twitter.
106 In 2018, researchers observing the growing sophistication of generative AI capabilities argued that the mere existence of the technology (then still difficult for most people to access) would exacerbate the growing crisis of trust. Creating convincing faked video or audio was not the only potential risk, we argued—rather, the existence of the technology itself could be used to impugn reality. Law professors Danielle Citron and Robert Chesney subsequently termed this the liar’s dividend, describing ways in which a person—particularly a politician—could deny that a real event had happened by claiming that the evidence had actually been generated by AI. See Charlie Warzel, “Believable: The Terrifying Future of Fake News,” BuzzFeed News, February 12, 2018, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/the-terrifying-future-of-fake-news; Robert Chesney and Danielle Keats Citron, “Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security,” California Law Review 107, no. 6 (2019): 1753-1820, https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38RV0D15J.
107 Casey Tolan et al., “Slain Hamas Militants’ Body Camera Videos Show the Preparation and Tactics Behind Their Terror Attack on Israel,” CNN, October 26, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/middleeast/hamas-attack-body-cam-videos-invs-dg.
108 Miles Klee, “Verified Hate Speech Accounts Are Pivoting to Palestine for Clout and Cash,” Rolling Stone, November 1, 2023, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/twitter-hate-speech-accounts-palestine-clout-1234867382.
109 Kevin Liptak, “White House Says Biden’s Remark on Photos of Children Was Intended to ‘Underscore the Utter Depravity’ of Hamas Attack,” CNN, October 12, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/politics/joe-biden-photos-children-hamas-israel/index.html.
110 Alice Speri, “‘Beheaded Babies’ Report Spread Wide and Fast—but Israel Military Won’t Confirm It,” The Intercept, October 11, 2023, https://theintercept.com/2023/10/11/israel-hamas-disinformation.
111 Tiffany Hsu and Stuart A. Thompson, “A.I. Muddies Israel-Hamas War in Unexpected Way,” New York Times, October 28, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/business/media/ai-muddies-israel-hamas-war-in-unexpected-way.html.
112 Christopher Mims, “Is Anything Still True? On the Internet, No One Knows Anymore,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/deepfake-video-is-anything-still-true-on-the-internet-89843150.
113 Requirements and means of verification vary by country; see “About Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics,” Meta Business Help Center, accessed December 19, 2023, https://www.facebook.com/business/help/167836590566506?id=288762101909005.
114 “Inauthentic Behaviour,” Meta Transparency Center, accessed December 19, 2023, https://transparency.fb.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/inauthentic-behavior.
115 Cory Dunton, “Get Helpful Context with About This Image,” Google Blog, May 10, 2023, https://blog.google/products/search/about-this-image-google-search.
116 Samantha Bradshaw, Renée DiResta, and Christopher Giles, “How Unmoderated Platforms Became the Frontline for Russian Propaganda,” Lawfare, August 17, 2022, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-unmoderated-platforms-became-frontline-russian-propaganda-0.
117 Interestingly, as Twitter has undergone a change of ownership and fired most of its integrity teams, it is not pursuing investigations into foreign influence operations as thoroughly as it once did.
118 Three Kid Rock pages on Gettr, Gab, and Truth Social had nearly identical bios and were likely from the same user. Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory, “Suspected Russian Actors Leverage Alternative Tech Platforms in Continued Effort to Covertly Influence Right-Wing U.S. Audiences,” Graphika, December 13, 2022; Donald J. Trump (@donaldjtrumpjr), “Yup,” Instagram, June 15, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce1j3F2u5nY.
119 Trump, “Yup.”
120 Vittoria Elliott, “Telegram’s Bans on Extremist Channels Aren’t Really Bans,” Wired, November 28, 2023, https://www.wired.com/story/telegram-hamas-channels-deplatform.
121 Marianna Spring, “Marianna Vyshemirsky: ‘My Picture Was Used to Spread Lies About the War,’” BBC, May 17, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61412773.
122 Maayan Lubell, “Exclusive: Facebook Removes More Russia Posts Claiming Children’s Hospital Bombing a Hoax,” Reuters, March 16, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-removes-more-russia-posts-claiming-childrens-hospital-bombing-2022-03-16.
