Disinfo Docket 20 May
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Highlights
How do you detect a deepfake video? And what impact can they have?
— Bellingcat (@bellingcat) May 18, 2024
Bellingcat researcher Aiganysh Aidarbekova takes you through a short checklist to determine whether a video is likely questionable. This is our news hygiene series where we're cleaning up social with @RFERL pic.twitter.com/vqTGnYZ0A7
I've done live fact-checking during breaking news events for years.
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) May 19, 2024
But the sheer volume of viral misinformation today regarding Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's helicopter crash posted by fake osint accounts and blue tick grifters for engagement has been something to behold.
- Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality (Pre-order, Renee DiResta)
- Georgian president vetoes ‘foreign influence’ law (Guardian, 18 May)
- European Commission welcomes new sanctions against disinformation and war propaganda (European Commission, 17 May)
1. Platforms & Technology
🚨BREAKING: Council of Europe adopts 1st international treaty on AI. Here's what you need to know:
— Luiza Jarovsky (@LuizaJarovsky) May 19, 2024
➡️The treaty - the Council of Europe Framework Convention on artificial intelligence and human rights, democracy, and the rule of law - was adopted in Strasbourg during the annual… pic.twitter.com/b73YRJGg79
- How a smear campaign against NPR led Elon Musk to feud with Signal (Guardian, 18 May)
- Elon Musk's X stirs free speech controversy from Australia to India to Brazil (Nikkei Asia, 18 May)
- OpenAI is making a risky bet on live translation (Rest of World, 16 May)
- EU warns Microsoft’s Bing could face probes over deepfakes and false news (Politico, 17 May)
- Drawing the Line: Japan’s Crackdown on Messenger App Signals Need for International Digital Rules (KEI, 17 May)
- See How Easily A.I. Chatbots Can Be Taught to Spew Disinformation (NYT, 19 May)
Meta
- Oversight Board's first new case from Threads involves Japanese Prime Minister (Oversight Board, 16 May)
TikTok
- French TikTok block in overseas territory sets ‘dangerous precedent,’ critics warn (Politico, 16 May)
- Taiwan, on China’s Doorstep, Is Dealing With TikTok Its Own Way (NYT, 16 May)
2. Asia & Australasia
- Thai youth activist charged with royal defamation dies in custody (Global Voices, 19 May)
- Cognitive warfare: The tip of China’s gray zone spear (Rappler, 19 May)
- How China is using AI news anchors to deliver its propaganda (Guardian, 18 May)
- ‘Designed to provoke anger’: Ministry of Education’s sex education disinformation warning (New Zealand Herald, 19 May)