Pop singer Pink says she is not separated from her husband, former pro motocross racer Carey Hart, despite reports suggesting otherwise.
People was first to report the story based on an unnamed source Thursday, under the headline, “Pink Separates from Carey Hart for Second Time After 20 Years of Marriage: Source (Exclusive).”
Shortly afterward, Pink posted a video to her official Instagram account, describing the story as “fake news, not true.”
“I was just alerted to the fact that I’m separated from my husband. I didn’t know. Thank you People Magazine. Thank you US Weekly. Thank you for letting me know,” she said in the clip. “I was wondering, would you also like to tell our children? My 14-year-old and 9-year-old are also unaware. Or do you want to talk about some real news?”
People updated its story to acknowledge the Instagram denial. Its story said Pink’s representatives declined comment, and Hart’s did not respond.
In the video, Pink listed a few current topics of conversation, including the Epstein files and the results of the 2026 Olympics, or the fact that she was nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
A representative for Pink directed The Associated Press back to Pink’s Instagram video without additional comment. A representative for People did not immediately answer an email seeking comment.
Pink and Hart were married in 2006. They separated in 2008 and reunited shortly thereafter. They have two children: Willow Sage Hart, 14, and Jameson Moon Hart, 9.
BRUSSELS — Belgium summoned the U.S. ambassador on Tuesday over a social media post where he accused the country of antisemitic prosecution of Jewish Belgians, the kingdom’s foreign minister said.
“Labeling Belgium as antisemitic is not just wrong, it’s dangerous disinformation that undermines the real fight against hatred,” said Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prévot in a post on X on Monday. The summons is a rare move between staunch allies.
“An ambassador accredited to Belgium has a responsibility to respect our institutions, our elected representatives, and the independence of our judicial system,” Prévot said. “Personal attacks against a Belgian minister and interference in judicial matters violate basic diplomatic norms.”
National broadcaster VRT said Belgian authorities are investigating whether three men in Antwerp were performing circumcisions without certified medical training.
U.S. Ambassador Bill White said on a post on X that this investigation was “unacceptable harassment of the Jewish community here in Antwerp and in Belgium.
He said he would visit the three accused men in Antwerp and asked Belgium’s minister of health to join him.
“You must make a legal provision to allow Jewish religious MOHELS to perform their duties here in Belgium,” he said, using a Hebrew term for a Jewish officiant trained in circumcision, a central tenet of the faith.
Without it, a Jewish person typically can’t have a bar mitzvah, a Jewish wedding or be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
Prévot, the foreign minister, said that “Belgian law permits ritual circumcision when performed by a qualified physician under strict health and safety standards” and that he would not comment on an ongoing investigation.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany summoned Russia’s ambassador Friday following accusations of sabotage, cyberattacks and election interference, an official said.
The German government has also accused Moscow of perpetrating disinformation campaigns.
“The goal of these Russian cyber and disinformation attacks is clear: It is to divide society, stir up mistrust, provoke rejection, and weaken confidence in democratic institutions,” German foreign ministry spokesperson Martin Giese said.
“This targeted manipulation of information is one of a wide range of activities by Russia aimed at undermining confidence in democratic institutions and processes in Germany,” he said during a government news conference.
German officials have previously accused Russia of hybrid warfare attacks to destabilize Europe. Moscow didn’t immediately return a request for comment Friday.
Giese said that the shadowy Russian military intelligence agency known as GRU was behind a 2024 cyberattack against German air traffic control. The foreign ministry says GRU, which has been sanctioned in other countries, was responsible for the attack that was allegedly perpetrated by hacker collective APT28, also known as Fancy Bear.
APT28 and GRU have also been linked to global cyber intrusions, including in the 2016 U.S. election, where they were accused of aiding U.S. President Donald Trump by leaking Democratic Party emails.
Giese also said investigators believe GRU also attempted to destabilize and influence Germany’s last federal election, held in February, through a campaign called “Storm 1516.”
“Our services’ analysis shows that the campaign spreads artificially generated, pseudo-investigative research, deepfake image sequences, pseudo-journalistic websites, and fabricated witness statements on various platforms,” he said.
Russia will face a series of countermeasures for its hybrid warfare, Giese said.
“The German government condemns the repeated and unacceptable attacks by state-controlled Russian actors in the strongest possible terms,” he said. “We will continue to strengthen our support for Ukraine and our deterrence and defense.”
The summons occurred Friday as the European Union indefinitely froze Russia’s assets in Europe to ensure that Hungary and Slovakia, both with Moscow-friendly governments, can’t prevent the billions of euros from being used to support Ukraine.
Using a special procedure meant for economic emergencies, the EU blocked the assets until Russia gives up its war on Ukraine and compensates its neighbor for the heavy damage that it has inflicted for almost four years.
It’s a key step that will allow EU leaders to work out at a summit next week how to use the tens of billions of euros in Russian Central Bank assets to underwrite a huge loan to help Ukraine meet its financial and military needs over the next two years.
They go by names like @TRUMP_ARMY— or @MAGANationX, and their verified accounts proudly display portraits of President Donald Trump, voter rallies and American flags. And they’re constantly posting about U.S. politics to their followers, sounding like diehard fans of the president.
But after a weekend update to the social media platform X, it’s now clear that the owners of these accounts, and many others, are located in regions such as South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
Elon Musk’s X unveiled a feature Saturday that lets users see where an account is based. Online sleuths and experts quickly found that many popular accounts posting in support of the MAGA movement to thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, are based outside the United States — raising concerns about foreign influence on U.S. politics.
Researchers at NewsGuard, a firm that tracks online misinformation, identified several popular accounts — purportedly run by Americans interested in politics – that instead were based in Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa.
The accounts were leading disseminators of some misleading and polarizing claims about U.S. politics, including ones that said Democrats bribed the moderators of a 2024 presidential debate.
What is the location feature?
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, announced Saturday that the social media platform is rolling out an “About This Account” tool, which lets users see the country or region where an account is based. To find an account’s location, tap or click the signup date displayed on the profile.
“This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square. We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X,” Bier wrote.
In countries with punitive speech restrictions, a privacy tool on X lets account holders only show their region rather than a specific country. So instead of India, for instance, an account can say it is based in South Asia.
Bier said Sunday that after an update to the tool, it would 99.99% accurate, though this could not be independently verified. Accounts, for instance, can use a virtual private network, or VPN, to mask their true location. On some accounts, there’s a notice saying the location data may not be accurate, either because the account uses a VPN or because some internet providers use proxies automatically, without action by the user.
“Location data will always be something to use with caution,” said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech and a former director of the International Fact-Checking Network. “Its usefulness probably peaks now that it was just exposed, and bad actors will adapt. Meta has had similar information for a while and no one would suggest that misinformation has been eliminated from Facebook because of it.”
Which accounts are causing controversy?
Some of the accounts supported slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk as well as President Donald Trump’s children. Many of the accounts were adorned with U.S. flags or made comments suggesting they were American. An account called “@BarronTNews_,” for instance, is shown as being located in “Eastern Europe (Non-EU),” even though the display location on its profile says “Mar A Lago.” The account, which has more than 580,000 followers, posted on Tuesday that “This is a FAN account, 100 % independent, run by one guy who loves this country and supports President Trump with everything I’ve got.”
NewsGuard also found evidence that some X users are spreading misinformation about the location feature itself, incorrectly accusing some accounts of being operated from abroad when they’re actually used by Americans. Investigators found several instances where one user created fake screenshots that appear to suggest an account was created overseas.
It’s not always clear what the motives of the accounts. While some may be state actors, it’s likely that many are financially motivated, posting commentary, memes and videos to draw engagement.
“For the most visible accounts unmasked this week, money is probably the main motivator,” Mantzarlis said. “That doesn’t mean that X — as documented extensively by prior work done by academic and nonprofit organizations that are being attacked and defunded — isn’t also a target for state actors.
Users were divided over the new ability to see an account’s location information, with some questioning whether it went too far.
“Isn’t this kind of an invasion of privacy?” One X user wrote. “No one needs to see this info.”
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Associated Press Writer David Klepper contributed to this story.
Voters cast their ballots on the UCLA campus Nov. 4, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
(AP) – As the leadup to the 2026 midterm elections begins, social media users — among them billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who briefly served as a top advisor to President Donald Trump — are using false information to advocate for more voter ID laws in the U.S.
“America should not have worse voter ID requirements than every democratic country on Earth,” Musk wrote in a recent X post, which had been liked and shared approximately 310,000 times as of Wednesday. “California and New York actually banned use of ID to vote! It is illegal to show your ID in those states. The only reason to do this is fraud.”
But voter registration requirements and guidance for poll workers paint a different picture.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: It is illegal for voters to show ID when casting a ballot in New York and California.
THE FACTS: This is false. Voters in both states need to show ID when it is necessary to complete their registration, but it is not required otherwise. Poll worker guidance published by New York and California instructs workers not to ask voters for ID unless records indicate that it is needed.
“There is nothing unlawful about that voter presenting a form of photo identification at a poll site in addition to fulfilling the signature verification requirement outlined in the state’s consitution,” Kathleen McGrath, a spokesperson for the New York State Board of Elections, said of voters whose identity has already been verified. “In fact, in some counties, voters are allowed to scan their license in an effort to expedite the looking up of their voter record on the e-pollbook, but this cannot be legally required.”
The California secretary of state’s office similarly said that “California law does not prohibit a voter from voluntarily presenting their identification.”
In New York, voters provide their Department of Motor Vehicles number or the last four digits of their social security number when registering to vote. They may also use another form of valid photo ID or a government document that shows their name and address, such as a utility bill or a bank statement. Voters will be asked for ID at the polls if their identify cannot be verified before Election Day, according to the state’s registration form.
Recent guidance for New York poll workers states: “Do not ask the voter for ID unless ‘ID required’ is next to their name in their voter records.”
California has similar identification processes. If voters do not provide a driver’s license number, a state ID number or the last four digits of their social security number when registering, another form of ID must be provided if they are voting for the first time in a federal election and registered by mail or online, according to the secretary of state’s office.
“Poll workers must not ask a voter to provide their identification unless the voter list clearly states identification is required,” reads recent guidance for California poll workers released by the state.
County election officials automatically mail ballots to all active registered voters. In the 2024 general election, 80.76% of voters voted by mail. Some counties in California do not offer in-person voting at all.
Musk’s post also includes an image that lists 114 countries under the title, “Full or partially democratic countries that require ID to register to vote or cast a ballot on election day in all districts.” All of them have a green checkmark to their left except for the U.S., which has a red “x.”
Although many countries listed in the image require ID for one or both of these actions, there are at least two exceptions — New Zealand and Australia. In New Zealand, voters can register without ID by filling out a signed enrollment form and do not need to present ID at the polls. Australian voters do not need ID to cast a ballot and may have someone who is already registered confirm their identity when submitting an enrollment form.
Representatives for Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
A Border Patrol Agent keeps watch while other agents make an arrest on Sharonbrook Drive in Charlotte on Sunday morning, Nov. 16.
Khadejeh Nikouyeh
Knikouyeh@charlotteobserver.com
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security quietly corrected false information it published after The Charlotte Observer reported it incorrectly said a Honduran man charged in a Charlotte murder was released “back onto North Carolina’s streets… after authorities failed to honor the ICE detainer.”
The man has never been released, the Observer reported. DHS did not reply to requests for comment, but it corrected its statement online. The updated statement does not have a correction line or indicate any changes have been made.
DHS — the department that oversees Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — released a statement after Border Patrol agents landed in Charlotte on Nov. 15. It listed “a handful of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, and pedophiles — who were RELEASED back onto North Carolina’s streets because of sanctuary policies.”
The department said “Jose Ulloa-Martinez, a criminal illegal alien from Honduras, was arrested for murder” and “released after authorities failed to honor the ICE detainer.”
A review of court and jail records showed that was false. Ulloa-Martinez, 43, has been in the Mecklenburg County Detention Center since he was arrested in Texas and extradited to Charlotte in June 2024. Police say he killed Kevin Merlos-Saravia in east Charlotte on May 26.
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden said the federal government’s information was “simply untrue.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security incorrectly said a Honduran man charged with murder was released from jail when authorities failed to honor an ICE detainer. U.S. Department of Homeland Security
An updated version of a news release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security does not include Jose Ulloa-Martinez. The federal agency claimed he was charged with murder and released when North Carolina officials failed to honor an ICE detainer, but that isn’t true. U.S. Department of Homeland Security
DHS has previously criticized McFadden for not “honoring” ICE detainers; McFadden has complied with state law. A judge received an ICE detainer in September and ordered McFadden to continue to hold him for 48 hours. But sheriff’s office spokesperson Bradley Smith said ICE agents never came for Ulloa-Martinez.
The Observer previously reported that another man, Jose Rivera-Martinez, was arrested and charged with being accessories in the murder by helping Ulloa-Martinez flee to Texas. A magistrate briefly released him from jail after what the sheriff described as a document mix-up.
Misinformation from federal agencies
The falsehood in the DHS statement comes as court proceedings across the country unearth misinformation spread by federal immigration agents. In Chicago, Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol supervisor, admitted he lied under oath about being hit in the head with a rock before deploying tear gas at protesters.
In Charlotte Thursday, video played in court contradicted statements by federal agents that Miguel Angel Garcia Martinez assaulted them with his car in a Nov. 16 incident that left one officer injured. Martinez fled from a “voluntary stop,” and agents ran into him, video played in court shows.
Charlotte homicide
Police started looking for Ulloa-Martinez after his wife called 911. She told police he and Merlos-Saravia had been drinking for hours on May 25, 2024 — a Saturday evening. She woke up to gunshots at 3 a.m. the next day and found Merlos-Saravia “lying on his back by the stairs and Jose’s vehicle no longer in the parking lot,” according to the arrest affidavit.
She said her husband was “known to shoot” when drinking.
Texas police arrested Ulloa-Martinez in Houston weeks later, on June 3, 2024, and he was extradited to Charlotte June 24, 2024.
Julia Coin covers courts, legal issues, police and public safety around Charlotte and is part of the Pulitzer-finalist team that covered Tropical Storm Helene in North Carolina. As the Observer’s breaking news reporter, she unveiled how fentanyl infiltrated local schools. Michigan-born and Florida-raised, she studied journalism at the University of Florida, where she covered statewide legislation, sexual assault on campus and Hurricane Ian in her hometown of Sanibel Island. Support my work with a digital subscription
A Republican gubernatorial candidate is spreading misinformation and stoking anti-Muslim sentiment ahead of a planned march in Dearborn that he’s calling the “American Crusade.”
Anthony Hudson, a truck driver from Grand Blanc Township and self-described “America First” candidate, has used his social media platforms to portray Dearborn as a threat, falsely suggesting the Detroit suburb is facing “Muslim infiltration” and “Sharia law.”
In a series of posts on X, Hudson announced plans for a “peaceful assembly” in Dearborn on Tuesday, calling on “patriots” to join him at Schaefer Road and Michigan Avenue at 4 p.m. He has repeatedly invoked Christian nationalist language, writing, “CHRIST WILL NOT BE MOCKED.” He also vowed to “expose Dearborn for what it is.”
Hudson has also claimed that the National Guard, Marines, and a “Patriot Militia” will attend the march, though no official agencies have confirmed any involvement.
The group plans to pray and sing gospel music before attending a Dearborn City Council meeting at 7 p.m.
“we won’t be leaving until a peace treaty is reached,” Hudson wrote. “Mark my words. The world is watching. We need all patriots there.”
He continued, “No backing down. No surrender. We the people will not be mocked, & neither will Christ.”
In another post, Hudson wrote that “Sharia law will be banned.”
Despite Hudson’s claims, Sharia law has never been practiced in Dearborn, nor would it be legally permissible under the U.S. Constitution. The city’s roughly 106,000 residents include Christians, Muslims, and non-religious people, with about 55% of Arab descent and an estimated 50,000 residents who are not Muslim.
Other X users have mocked Muslims or encouraged bigotry in replies to Hudson’s posts. One suggested, “Bring bacon bits….it’s like sprinkling holy water on a demon.”
Hudson responded, “They are demons lol.”
Another X user suggested bringing dogs, while others used pejoratives to describe Muslims.
The planned march follows the arrest of three young Dearborn men accused of plotting an ISIS-inspired attack on an LGBTQ+-friendly venue in Ferndale. Federal prosecutors say the men discussed the idea online but were stopped before carrying out any violence. Defense attorneys maintain there was no plan and that the defendants were engaging in online bravado.
Using the isolated and yet-proven case to justify his divisive rhetoric, Hudson falsely claimed there was Muslim “infiltration everywhere.”
Hudson insisted, “CHRIST WILL PREVAIL. LIGHT WILL WIN.”
“REMEMBER: THIS IS HOW THEY REALLY TREAT CHRISTIANS,” Hudson fumed. “DON’T LET THEM FOOL YOU. THEY HATE YOU. THEY DO NOT WANT PEACE. LIGHT WILL WIN.”
Since the FBI arrests, many right-wingers have been stoking fears with baseless and outrageous claims about Dearborn and Muslims. In a series of videos posted by conspiracy theorist Mellissa Carone, who was parodied on Saturday Night Live for her outlandish testimony as Rudy Giuliani’s “star” witness during a legislative election-fraud hearing, the bombastic Trump supporter alleged Muslims are intolerant and violent. She also inflated the Muslim population in Dearborn.
“A woman cannot walk down the street of east Dearborn and not get harassed in some way or even spit on,” Carone claimed. “I’ve seen friends of mine get spit on for not covering their hair and their face. You will not pass a building that is not written in Arabic. You cannot read anything. It’s like being in a third world country.”
Others mocked Hudson for his absurd, conspiratorial claims.
“Just looks like a fat guy with cardiovascular issues making his beard go grey prematurely,” Anthony Jorah wrote on X. “What’s he protecting us from, dessert?”
Hudson’s remarks have also drawn concern from civil rights advocates who warn that such language can incite harassment and deepen divisions.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Hudson is playing the politics of fear to apparently gain himself publicity,” Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), tells Metro Times. “Every city in Michigan, including Dearborn, is under the jurisdictions of the American and Michigan constitutions. We encourage the citizens of Dearborn not to take the bait of this individual and his acolytes who will attempt to provoke angry responses in order to demonize Muslims.”
Whether Hudson’s vitriolic, inflammatory, and divisive rhetoric can drum him up some votes isn’t yet clear. He has no statewide name recognition, and he’s facing well-known Republicans, including former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, U.S. Rep. John James, former Michigan House of Representatives Speaker Tom Leonard, and Michigan Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt. Other GOP candidates are construction manager William Null, Pastor Ralph Rebandt, and political organizer Karla Wagner.
Beyond his odious rhetoric, Hudson is pushing a platform that would gut funding for schools, universities, police, health care, parks, libraries, and infrastructure. He has vowed to eliminate both the state income tax and property taxes, a proposal that economists say would devastate Michigan’s ability to fund essential services. The state income tax, which generates roughly $9 billion a year, accounts for most of the state’s general fund and a significant share of the School Aid Fund, which supports K-12 education. Without that revenue, lawmakers would have to slash spending or find new sources of funding for numerous resources and services.
Property taxes bring in about $18.8 billion annually, according to the Michigan Tax Commission, and serve as the lifeblood of local governments. They fund police and fire departments, libraries, parks, local road repairs, and public schools. Eliminating property taxes would strip cities, counties, and school districts of their primary revenue source and leave them unable to pay for basic operations unless the state imposed new taxes elsewhere.
Combined, property and income taxes make up more than half of Michigan’s total tax revenue. Scrapping both would create a multibillion-dollar hole in the state’s budget and cripple services.
Hudson declined to comment for this story, saying he wasn’t available until Friday.
Neither Dearborn police nor Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud returned calls for comment.
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Artificial intelligence is design — not destiny.
That’s the message from ten philanthropic foundations aiming to loosen the grip that the technology’s moneyed developers, fueled by an investing frenzy, hold over its evolution. Launched Tuesday under the name Humanity AI, the coalition is committing $500 million across the next five years to place human interests at the forefront of the technology’s rapid integration into daily life.
“Every day, people learn more about the ways AI is impacting their lives, and it can often feel like this technology is happening to us rather than with us and for us,” MacArthur Foundation President John Palfrey said in a statement. “The stakes are too high to defer decisions to a handful of companies and leaders within them.”
Humanity AI seeks to take back agency by supporting technology and advocates centering people and the planet. Members must make grants in at least one of five priority areas identified by the coalition: advancing democracy, strengthening education, protecting artists, enhancing work or defending personal security.
The alliance of a broad range of philanthropies underscores the widespread concern. Its ranks include humanities supporters such as the Mellon Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; tacklers of inequality such as the Ford Foundation and Omidyar Network; equitable technology funders such as Mozilla Foundation and the Siegal Family Foundation; as well as charitable behemoths in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
“We can choose participation over control. The systems shaping our lives must be powered by people, open by design, and fueled by imagination,” Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Nabiha Syed said in a statement. “And Humanity AI will support exactly that, by resourcing those taking back human agency in how tech evolves.”
They’re not the first philanthropic coalition to emerge this year with the goal of ensuring everyday people don’t get left behind. The Gates Foundation and Ballmer Group were among the funders who announced in July that they’d spend $1 billion over 15 years to help create AI tools for public defenders, parole officers, social workers and others who help Americans in precarious situations. Other efforts seek to improve AI literacy and expand access for entrepreneurs in low-income countries.
Humanity AI hopes to expand its coalition. Parters will begin coordinating grants this fall and pool their money next year in a fund managed by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
Omidyar Network Michele L. Jawando emphasized that humans have the power to ensure artificial intelligence amplifies, and doesn’t erode, their needs. But she said we’re at that crossroads now.
“The future will not be written by algorithms,” Jawando said in the release. “It will be written by people as a collective force.”
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
YouTube creators whose accounts were banned for violating previous policies against COVID-19 and election misinformation will be given the chance to rejoin the platform, said Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, on Tuesday.
In a letter submitted in response to subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee, attorneys for Alphabet said the decision to bring back banned accounts reflected the company’s commitment to free speech.
“No matter the political atmosphere, YouTube will continue to enable free expression on its platform, particularly as it relates to issues subject to political debate,” the letter read, noting that a number of accounts were kicked off the platform between 2023 and 2024 for violating misinformation rules that don’t exist anymore. Now, it said, “YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”
The company in its letter also said it “values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse” and added that YouTube “recognizes these creators are among those shaping today’s online consumption, landing ‘must-watch’ interviews, giving viewers the chance to hear directly from politicians, celebrities, business leaders, and more.”
The move is the latest in a cascade of content moderation rollbacks from tech companies, who cracked down on false information during the pandemic and after the 2020 election but have since faced pressure from President Trump and other conservatives who argue they unlawfully stifled right-wing voices in the process.
It comes as tech CEOs, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, have sought a closer relationship with the Republican president, including through high-dollar donations to his campaign and attending events in Washington.
YouTube in 2023 phased out its policy to remove content that falsely claims the 2020 election, or other past U.S. presidential elections, were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or glitches.” Claims of fraud in the 2020 election have been debunked.
The platform in 2024 also retired its standalone COVID-19 content restrictions, allowing various treatments for the disease to be discussed. COVID-19 misinformation now falls under YouTube’s broader medical misinformation policy.
Among the creators who have been banned from YouTube under the now-expired policies are prominent conservative influencers, including Dan Bongino, who now serves as deputy director of the FBI. For people who make money on social media, access to monetization on YouTube can be significant, earning them large sums through ad revenue.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and other congressional Republicans have pressured tech companies to reverse content moderation policies created under former President Joe Biden and accused Biden’s administration of unfairly wielding its power over the companies to chill lawful online speech.
In Tuesday’s letter, Alphabet’s lawyers said senior Biden administration officials “conducted repeated and sustained outreach” to coerce the company to remove pandemic-related YouTube videos that did not violate company policies.
“It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content, and the Company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds,” the letter said.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also accused the Biden administration of pressuring employees to inappropriately censor content during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elon Musk, the owner of the social platform X, has accused the FBI of illegally coercing Twitter before his tenure to suppress a story about Hunter Biden.
The Supreme Court last year sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.
Asked for more information about the reinstatement process, a spokesperson for YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NEW YORK — YouTube will offer creators a way to rejoin the streaming platform if they were banned for violating COVID-19 and election misinformation policies that are no longer in effect, its parent company Alphabet said Tuesday.
In a letter submitted in response to subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee, attorneys for Alphabet said the decision to bring back banned accounts reflected the company’s commitment to free speech. It said the company values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes their reach and important role in civic discourse.
“No matter the political atmosphere, YouTube will continue to enable free expression on its platform, particularly as it relates to issues subject to political debate,” the letter read.
The move is the latest in a cascade of content moderation rollbacks from tech companies, who cracked down on false information during the pandemic and after the 2020 election but have since faced pressure from President Donald Trump and other conservatives who argue they unlawfully stifled right-wing voices in the process.
It comes as tech CEOs, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, have sought a closer relationship with the Republican president, including through high-dollar donations to his campaign and attending events in Washington.
YouTube in 2023 phased out its policy to remove content that falsely claims the 2020 election, or other past U.S. presidential elections, were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or glitches.”
The platform in 2024 also retired its standalone COVID-19 content restrictions, allowing various treatments for the disease to be discussed. COVID-19 misinformation now falls under YouTube’s broader medical misinformation policy.
Among the creators who have been banned from YouTube under the now-expired policies are prominent conservative influencers, including Dan Bongino, who now serves as deputy director of the FBI. For people who make money on social media, access to monetization on YouTube can be significant, earning them large sums through ad revenue.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and other congressional Republicans have pressured tech companies to reverse content moderation policies created under former President Joe Biden and accused Biden’s administration of unfairly wielding its power over the companies to chill lawful online speech.
In Tuesday’s letter, Alphabet’s lawyers said senior Biden administration officials “conducted repeated and sustained outreach” to coerce the company to remove pandemic-related YouTube videos that did not violate company policies.
“It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content, and the Company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds,” the letter said.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also accused the Biden administration of pressuring employees to inappropriately censor content during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elon Musk, the owner of the social platform X, has accused the FBI of illegally coercing Twitter before his tenure to suppress a story about Hunter Biden.
False claims, conspiracy theories and posts naming people with no connection to the incident spread rapidly across social media in the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing on Wednesday, some amplified and fueled by AI tools.
CBS News identified 10 posts by Grok, X’s AI chatbot, that misidentified the suspect before his identity, now known to be southern Utah resident Tyler Robinson, was released. Grok eventually generated a response saying it had incorrectly identified the suspect, but by then, posts featuring the wrong person’s face and name were already circulating across X.
The chatbot also generated altered “enhancements” of photos released by the FBI. One such photo was reposted by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Utah, which later posted an update saying, “this appears to be an AI enhanced photo” that distorted the clothing and facial features.
One AI-enhanced image portrayed a man appearing much older than Robinson, who is 22. An AI-generated video that smoothed out the suspect’s features and jumbled his shirt design was posted by an X user with more than 2 million followers and was reposted thousands of times.
On Friday morning, after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced that the suspect in custody was Robinson, Grok’s replies to X users’ inquiries about him were contradictory. One Grok post said Robinson was a registered Republican, while others reported he was a nonpartisan voter. Voter registration records indicate Robinson is not affiliated with a political party.
CBS News also identified a dozen instances where Grok said that Kirk was alive the day following his death. Other Grok responses gave a false assassination date, labeled the FBI’s reward offer a “hoax” and said that reports about Kirk’s death “remain conflicting” even after his death had been confirmed.
Most generative AI tools produce results based on probability, which can make it challenging for them to provide accurate information in real time as events unfold, S. Shyam Sundar, a professor at Penn State University and the director of the university’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, told CBS News.
“They look at what is the most likely next word or next passage,” Sundar said. “It’s not based on fact checking. It’s not based on any kind of reportage on the scene. It’s more based on the likelihood of this event occurring, and if there’s enough out there that might question his death, it might pick up on some of that.”
X did not respond to a request for comment about the false information Grok was posting.
Meanwhile, the AI-powered search engine Perplexity’s X bot described the shooting as a “hypothetical scenario” in a since-deleted post, and suggested a White House statement on Kirk’s death was fabricated.
Perplexity’s spokesperson told CBS News that “accurate AI is the core technology we are building and central to the experience in all of our products,” but that “Perplexity never claims to be 100% accurate.”
Another spokesperson added the X bot is not up to date with improvements the company has made to its technology, and the company has since removed the bot from X.
Google’s AI Overview, a summary of search results that sometimes appears at the top of searches, also provided inaccurate information. The AI Overview for a search late Thursday evening for Hunter Kozak, the last person to ask Kirk a question before he was killed, incorrectly identified him as the person of interest the FBI was looking for. By Friday morning, the false information no longer appeared for the same search.
“The vast majority of the queries seeking information on this topic return high quality and accurate responses,” a Google spokesperson told CBS News. “Given the rapidly evolving nature of this news, it’s possible that our systems misinterpreted web content or missed some context, as all Search features can do given the scale of the open web.”
Sundar told CBS News that people tend to perceive AI as being less biased or more reliable than someone online who they don’t know.
“We don’t think of machines as being partisan or bias or wanting to sow seeds of dissent,” Sundar said. “If it’s just a social media friend or some somebody on the contact list that’s sent something on your feed with unknown pedigree … chances are people trust the machine more than they do the random human.”
Misinformation may also be coming from foreign sources, according to Cox, Utah’s governor, who said in a press briefing on Thursday that foreign adversaries including Russia and China have bots that “are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence.” Cox urged listeners to spend less time on social media.
“I would encourage you to ignore those and turn off those streams, and to spend a little more time with our families,” he said.
Podcaster and former UFC commentator Joe Rogan isn’t exactly known for his scientific expertise, but Rogan’s recent claim that the Earth is cooling—ignoring decades of empirical evidence for global warming—is so egregious that climate experts are straight up roasting him for it.
In several recent episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan has used a temperature graph in a Washington Post article in order to claim that global temperatures are actually plummeting. The graph in question comes from a 2024 study published in the journal Science, in which researchers show a record of Earth’s global mean surface temperature over the last 485 million years. The problem, according to one of the study’s own authors—as well as a host of other experts—is that Rogan has completely misinterpreted the chart.
“It’s dumb the way he’s interpreting this graph and if he wants to talk about it he should invite me onto the show instead of talking about it to Mel Gibson or Bernie Sanders,” study co-author Jessica Tierney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona, told The Guardian.
Rogan’s risky misinterpretation
The graph demonstrates how Earth’s climate has experienced tremendous shifts since the dawn of the Paleozoic era some 540 million years ago, including periods that were indeed much hotter than the planet is today. Indeed, Rogan appears to have fixated on the sharp temperature decline toward the end of the graph’s timeline, citing it in six podcast episodes as evidence that climate change is a hoax.
“There’s a lot of horseshit that’s involved in climate change, I’ve studied that,” Rogan told Mel Gibson on The Joe Rogan Experience earlier this year. “The temperature on Earth is plummeting. Look at the drop at the end, that’s where we are. That’s the reality.”
What Rogan failed to grasp, however, is the admittedly small—but staggeringly steep—uptick at the very end of the graph. That remarkable uptick marks the current period of rapid warming driven by human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.
Earth is warming faster than ever before
Since 1850, Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by an average of 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit (0.06 degrees Celsius) every decade, according to NOAA. That rate is unprecedented. Today, Earth’s climate is warming so fast, it is increasing in temperature roughly 30 times faster than immediately before the largest mass extinction event in our planet’s history, a cataclysm known as “the great dying” that occurred some 250 million years ago and was caused by extreme global warming.
“It’s all about the speed and we’ve never seen carbon dioxide and temperature rise as fast as now—even in big extinction events it was slower than this,” Tierney said. “We evolved in a cooler climate and now we are rapidly warming it up and putting life on this planet in danger. It’s scary.”
By failing to grasp this critical context or communicate it to his legion of followers, Rogan is spreading a false narrative, experts said.
“It’s almost impressive how incorrect he’s able to be about an article he’s looking directly at,” climate science and policy expert Rollie Willams said of Rogan during a recent episode of his YouTube show Climate Town.
“It’s also an incredible example of how climate misinformation sneaks into extremely popular media and then gets absorbed into the brains of millions of Americans.”
Artificial intelligence, apparently, is the new “fake news.”
Blaming AI is an increasingly popular strategy for politicians seeking to dodge responsibility for something embarrassing — among others. AI isn’t a person, after all. It can’t leak or file suit. It does make mistakes, a credibility problem that makes it hard to determine fact from fiction in the age of mis- and disinformation.
And when truth is hard to discern, the untruthful benefit, analysts say. The phenomenon is widely known as “the liar’s dividend.”
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump endorsed the practice. Asked about viral footage showing someone tossing something out an upper-story White House window, the president replied, “No, that’s probably AI” — after his press team had indicated to reporters that the video was real.
But Trump, known for insisting the truth is what he says it is, declared himself all in on the AI-blaming phenomenon.
“If something happens that’s really bad,” he told reporters, “maybe I’ll have to just blame AI.”
He’s not alone.
On the same day in Caracas, Venezuelan Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez questioned the veracity of a Trump administration video it said showed a U.S. strike on a vessel in Caribbean that targeted Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang and killed 11. A video of the strike posted to Truth Social shows a long, multi-engine speedboat at sea when a bright flash of light bursts over it. The boat is then briefly seen covered in flames.
“Based on the video provided, it is very likely that it was created using Artificial Intelligence,” Ñáñez said on his Telegram account, describing “almost cartoonish animation.”
Blaming AI can at times be a compliment. (“He’s like an AI-generated player,” tennis player Alexander Bublik said of his U.S. Open opponent Jannik Sinner’s talent on ESPN ). But when used by the powerful, the practice, experts say, can be dangerous.
Digital forensics expert Hany Farid warned for years about the growing capabilities of AI “deepfake” images, voices and video to aid in fraud or political disinformation campaigns, but there was always a deeper problem.
“I’ve always contended that the larger issue is that when you enter this world where anything can be fake, then nothing has to be real,” said Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “You get to deny any reality because all you have to say is, ‘It’s a deepfake.’”
That wasn’t so a decade or two ago, he noted. Trump issued a rare apology (“if anyone was offended”) in 2016 for his comments about touching women without their consent on the notorious “Access Hollywood” tape. His opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, said she was wrong to call some of his supporters “a basket of deplorables.”
Toby Walsh, chief scientist and professor of AI at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said blaming AI leads to problems not just in the digital world but the real world as well.
“It leads to a dark future where we no longer hold politicians (or anyone else) accountable,” Walsh said in an email. “”It used to be that if you were caught on tape saying something, you had to own it. This is no longer the case.”
Danielle K. Citron of the Boston University School of Law and Robert Chesney of the University of Texas foresaw the issue in research published in 2019. In it, they describe what they called “the liar’s dividend.”
“If the public loses faith in what they hear and see and truth becomes a matter of opinion, then power flows to those whose opinions are most prominent—empowering authorities along the way,” they wrote in the California Law Review. “A skeptical public will be primed to doubt the authenticity of real audio and video evidence.”
Polling suggests many Americans are wary about AI. About half of U.S. adults said the increased use of AI in daily life made them feel “more concerned than excited,” according to a Pew Research Center poll from August 2024. Pew’s polling indicates that people have become more concerned about the increased use of AI in recent years.
Most U.S. adults appear to distrust AI-generated information when they know that’s the source, according to a Quinnipiac poll from April. About three-quarters said they could only trust the information generated by AI “some of the time” or “hardly ever.” In that poll, about 6 in 10 U.S. adults said they were “very concerned” about political leaders using AI to distribute fake or misleading information.
Trump’s history of misinformation and even lies to suit his narrative predates AI. He’s famous for the use of “fake news,” a buzz term now widely known to denote skepticism about media reports. Leslie Stahl of CBS’ “60 Minutes” has said that Trump told her off camera in 2016 that he tries to “discredit” journalists so that when they report negative stories, they won’t be believed.
Trump’s claim on Tuesday that AI was behind the White House window video wasn’t his first attempt to blame AI. In 2023, he insisted that the anti-Trump Lincoln Project used AI in a video to make him “look bad.”
In the spot titled ” Feeble,” a female narrator taunts Trump. “Hey Donald … you’re weak. You seem unsteady. You need help getting around.” She questions his ”manhood,” accompanied by an image of two blue pills. The video continues with footage of Trump stumbling over words.
“The perverts and losers at the failed and once-disbanded Lincoln Project, and others, are using A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) in their Fake television commercials in order to make me look as bad and pathetic as Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
The Lincoln Project told The Associated Press at the time that AI was not used in the spot.
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Associated Press writers Ali Swenson in New York, Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, Linley Sanders in Washington and Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.
Some people spent Labor Day weekend soaking up the last of summer’s rays. Others took to social media to speculate President Donald Trump was at death’s door, or worse.
On X, the hashtags #trumpisdead and #whereistrump trended. Millions of people made or watched videos on TikTok speculating Trump had died or suffered a stroke or other serious medical emergency.
The president is not dead. Trump spoke live at the White House on Sept. 2. Even as rumors of his death went viral, he had been photographed by news outlets and his Truth Social posts racked up thousands of interactions.
“How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Trump, who stood before reporters in the Oval Office on Sept. 2. “Did you see that?”
Trump said he hadn’t heard claims alleging his death.
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“I didn’t see that. I have heard. It’s sort of crazy, but last week I did numerous news conferences. All successful, they went very well. Like this is going very well,” Trump said. “And then I didn’t do any for two days and they said ‘There must be something wrong with him.’”
Trump has a real, albeit non life-threatening, health condition. But the false notion that Trump was dead or dying gained traction through a combination of factors: a Vice President JD Vance quote that was mischaracterized on social media; political left-leaning influencers’ scrutiny of Trump’s low-key holiday weekend with no public scheduled events; and exaggerations of the president’s known health history alongside images showing some of his health condition’s symptoms.
A partial comment from Vance was taken out of context
The rumors started swirling following an Aug. 28 USA Today interview with Vance.
USA Today White House correspondent Francesca Chambers asked Vance whether he is “ready to assume the role of commander in chief,” noting that Trump is the oldest president to have been sworn in.
Vance answered, “I feel very confident the president of the United States is in good shape, is going to serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people. And if, God forbid, there’s a terrible tragedy, I can’t think of better on-the-job training than what I’ve gotten over the last 200 days.”
Even though Vance said multiple times that Trump is in good health, social media users jumped on his comments about being ready to assume the presidency as evidence that something was awry.
The phrase “Trump is dead” appeared at least 5,616 times from Aug. 28 to Sept. 2 across X, Reddit, YouTube and Bluesky, according to data from Rolli IQ, a social media monitoring tool. X users based in other countries, including Brazil and Australia, also posted the phrase, Rolli IQ data showed.
The X posts containing the phrase generated the most engagement, with more than 2 million likes and 122,000 shares in total.
News of Vance’s quote was widely shared on X, with millions of views and otherinteractions. The next day, an Aug. 29 X post viewed 13.8 million times went further, saying, “Trump is dead. He died on Wednesday.” It provided no evidence. Google searches for the phrase “is Trump dead” started increasing the same day, peaking at 3 a.m. ET on Aug. 30.
Social media used Trump’s schedule and health history as fodder for speculation
Online posts pointed to Trump’s schedule as further evidence that something must be wrong. Following a three-hour televised Cabinet meeting on Aug. 26, Trump had no public events for six days. The lack of facetime for a president who is often on camera fueled claims that Trump’s health was in decline.
On Aug. 29, Laura Rozen, a Washington, D.C.-based diplomatic correspondent for news website AL-Monitor, posted on X, “Trump has no public events scheduled all weekend. Don’t believe he was seen today either.” That post gained 33.9 million views. An X account called “Did Donald Trump Die Today?” existed before the Labor Day weekend rumor; it’s been posting “no” answers to its namesake question since December 2024. But when the account reposted Rozen’s observation with the caption, “Yeah he likely died LOL,” it garnered 14.3 million views.
But some on social media persisted. They pointed to photos of Trump’s swollen ankles and bruised hands, and a July letter from his doctor diagnosing Trump with chronic venous insufficiency, a common condition that can cause leg swelling. It is not typically life-threatening.
“Here’s how I know the president has had a stroke and the White House is lying about it,” one user who identified himself as a physical therapist said in a Sept. 1 TikTok with more than 3 million views that has since been taken down. The user analyzed Trump’s April medical report, saying his medications are evidence that “Trump has had a stroke, or maybe even a heart attack in the past.”
Jeffrey Blevins, a University of Cincinnati professor who teaches media law and ethics, said Vance’s comment may have been innocuous, but in combination with the bruises, questions about Trump’s health and lack of public events, it “gives spark to these (kinds) of ideas.”
On Truth Social, Trump posted Aug. 31 that he has “never felt better” in his life.
Trump is not the first world leader to be the subject of rumors of his alleged death. Cliff Lampe, University of Michigan School of Information professor, said that in the 1940s, rumors of former Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin’s death circulated. Stalin died in 1953.
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini also “had rumors of death before they had actually died,” he said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also was a subject of death hoaxes. Russian President Vladimir Putin has beenrumoreddead on several occasions.
“In all of these cases, rumors are fueled where the leader purposely constrains access to a free press, or is otherwise secretive. It’s also more likely where the leader has enemies who want to destabilize their legitimacy,” Lampe said.
In June, Trump himself reshared a post on Truth Social that baselessly claimed former President Joe Biden had been executed in 2020.
Before that, people also speculated Biden was dying or dead after he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. At the time, conservative social media users circulated the rumor.
“The difference is that theory was really fringe, while the current one is more in the mainstream of questioning Trump’s health,” Blevins said.
Liberal influencers stirred suspicions about Trump’s health
Liberal social media influencers who specialize in political news fed into the Labor Day weekend craze. They made videos that amassed millions of views questioning Trump’s health, demanding answers from the White House.
Some influencers clarified that Trump was not dead, calling that a conspiracy theory and pointing to reporters’ photos of Trump leaving the White House to play golf at his Virginia golf course.
President Donald Trump walks at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., Aug. 30, 2025. (AP)
“But folks, there’s no conspiracy about whether or not Trump is alive. He’s alive. Stop spreading that,” influencer Aaron Parnas said in a Sept. 1 TikTok. “These are literally from White House pool reporters today. But that does not change the fact that questions still remain about the president’s health and we should still keep asking them.”
Other influencers scrutinized photos of Trump, saying he looked “frail and weak.”
“Very, very sickly looking as well. Something is going on there,” said Ben Meiselas, a lawyer and podcast host for liberal news website MeidasTouch in an Aug. 31 TikTok. “It appears to be, and again this is just an opinion, I’m not a doctor, some serious either cardiovascular, kidney or liver issue based on medical professionals I’ve spoken to.”
One influencer speculated based on a video the White House posted Sept. 1 on X, titled “11 Lessons.”
“The White House just posted what appears to be an in memoriam reel for Donald Trump,” influencer V Spehar said in a TikTok with 3 million views. “As you know, we haven’t seen Trump on video since his cabinet appearance. And there has been speculation that perhaps the president suffered a stroke.”
The White House’s video showed clips of Trump at all stages of his life as inspirational music played behind audio of Trump.
“Never let anyone tell you that something is impossible,” Trump said at the end. “In America, the impossible is what we all do best.”
People share conspiracy theories in response to an unfulfilled psychological need, Lampe said. When people circulated rumors about Biden’s health, he said, they likely exaggerated the extent of his cognitive decline because “it offers an ‘escape’ from a leader they don’t like.”
“For people who may not like the current administration, the overall theory is probably a release valve,” he said.
PolitiFact Senior Audience Engagement Producer Ellen Hine and Staff Writer Maria Briceño contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES — The former Los Angeles fire chief filed a legal claim Wednesday against the city, alleging that her ouster by Mayor Karen Bass was followed by an orchestrated effort to smear her conduct and decision-making during the most destructive wildfire in LA history.
Former Chief Kristin Crowley’s dismissal a month after January’s Palisades Fire was followed by finger-pointing between her and City Hall over the blaze’s devastation and the fire department’s funding. In March, Crowley lost an appeal to the City Council to win back her job.
Crowley’s legal claim this week alleges that Bass led “a campaign of misinformation, defamation, and retaliation” to protect the mayor’s political reputation following the fire.
The mayor’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on “an ongoing personnel claim.” A message seeking comment was also sent to the LA City Attorney’s office.
Crowley accuses the first-term Democrat of defaming her to distract from criticism of the mayor for being in Africa as part of a presidential delegation when the blaze started, even though weather reports had warned of dangerous wildfire conditions in the days before she left.
In the filing, the former chief demands “that Bass immediately cease and desist her defamatory and illegal public smear campaign of Crowley, retract her false statements about Crowley, and apologize for lying about Crowley.”
Such legal claims are often precursors to lawsuits. Crowley’s legal team wouldn’t say if a lawsuit was imminent or what it might seek.
Bass fired Crowley on Feb. 21, six weeks after the LA fire started. She praised Crowley in the firefighting effort’s early going, but she said she later learned that an additional 1,000 firefighters could have been deployed on the day the blaze ignited. Furthermore, she said Crowley rebuffed a request to prepare a report on the fires that is a critical part of investigations into what happened and why.
Crowley’s legal filing disputes both those claims.
The Palisades Fire began Jan. 7 in heavy winds. It destroyed or damaged nearly 8,000 homes, businesses and other structures, and it killed at least 12 people in the Pacific Palisades, an affluent LA neighborhood. Another fire started that day in Altadena, a suburb east of LA, killing at least 17 people and destroying or damaging more than 10,000 homes or other buildings.
LOS ANGELES, November 4, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Ahead of US elections on Tuesday 5 November 2024, The Rundown Studio, in collaboration with world-recognized Intelligence Expert Candyce Kelshall has released “Election Interference and Information Integrity: a Newsroom Blueprint”. Within the newly published handbook, media experts provide background on what to look out for when analysing content, as well as signpost to AI-powered tools to help fact check and dispel fake news.
Newsrooms around the world are battling unprecedented levels of AI-generated content, however they do not yet have the tools and apparatus to counter it. The interactive online handbook has been developed by global news anchor Zain Verjee and Product and Design lead Thomas Brasington, co-founders of The Rundown Studio and the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies Vancouver. It provides a practical and critical resource for newsrooms worldwide as journalists, commentators and bloggers continue to battle fake news. The Newsroom Blueprint offers comprehensive guidelines and speedy checklists to help media professionals accurately cover elections, in a bid to strengthen the integrity of electoral reporting across the globe.
“In an age where the very nature of truth is under attack, journalists must embrace critical and structured thinking akin to intelligence experts,” said Candyce Kelshall Executive Chair, Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies Vancouver who specializes in intelligence analysis and tradecraft. “Our goal is to transform newsrooms into trusted guardians of truth, ensuring that the public receives accurate and reliable information vital for democracy. In a true democracy, we all deserve access to fair and truthful news, so we can make informed decisions about our futures.”
“Election Interference and Information Integrity: a Newsroom Blueprint” addresses the increasing difficulty newsrooms face in verifying information in a polarized media landscape. In it, Kelshall outlines strategies drawn from intelligence agencies to counter misinformation effectively, emphasizing structured analysis, information assessment techniques and strict verification protocols.
The Rundown Studio co-founder and former CNN anchor Zain Verjee says “We are committed to advancing media trust through innovation and collaboration. The handbook is a vital tool amid escalating threats posed by AI-manipulated content to equip journalists with the skills needed to navigate this complex landscape.”
By adopting these information assessment best practices, newsrooms can rebuild audience trust and ensure the reliability of their election coverage.
Rundown co-founder Thomas Brasington adds “Our tools demonstrate how AI can handle the time-consuming aspects of communications work, freeing professionals to focus on strategy and creativity.”
Elon Musk’s political action committee has created a group on his platform X that has become a repository for election misinformation, galvanizing more than 58,000 members to report instances of “voter fraud or irregularities” that are often unsubstantiated, misleading or flat-out fabricated.
The “Election Integrity Community,” which launched in late October, has hundreds of new posts each day, many of which contain misleading or false claims, CBS News found. Misinformation experts are concerned that mobilizing people to gather unverified claims of election fraud is fueling the spread of false narratives that undermine trust in election security.
Musk has become a prominent voice in the 2024 election with his outspoken public and financial support of former President Donald Trump, and he frequently uses his X account to amplify election misinformation. A CBS News investigation found that half of Musk’s posts on election security this year contained false or misleading claims.
Many of the claims originate elsewhere on X and are reposted onto the community page. Some of the posts falsely claimed that voting machines are “flipping votes” from Trump to Harris. Other posts reshared a fabricated video that officials say was likely created by a Russian troll farm. Another recirculated a debunked claim that Michigan voters were casting multiple ballots.
Max Read, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said the X community could serve as a “one stop shop” for users looking to amplify election fraud claims.
“The X community is sort of a consolidation point of a lot of different false, unverified claims about the election process,” Read said.
Some users in the community have attempted to dox individuals they falsely accuse of election fraud. In one instance, users tried to identify a postal worker dropping off ballots at an election office who they falsely claimed was illegally “harvesting” votes. A county executive told NBC News the postal worker was being harassed as a result of the video.
Musk’s X community echoes the “Stop the Steal” efforts on Facebook during the 2020 election, where Trump supporters spread false claims and organized protests that culminated in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The X group is part of a broader effort “built on years of the Big Lie from 2020 and 2021,” said Nora Benavidez, a civil rights attorney at Free Press helping to monitor social media platforms’ preparedness to handle election misinformation.
“Efforts to intimidate voters or make them feel like there could be violence is really a way to already plant the seeds that a Trump loss is illegitimate,” Benavidez said.
Since Musk took over X, formerly Twitter, in October 2022, he has reinstated accounts previously suspended for violating the platform’s policies and fired the department responsible for content moderation, opting instead for a crowdsourced method that often fails to quickly debunk false claims.
“He has a ton of power over the platform and over a platform that has a lot of users,” said Steven Rathje, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University who has studied changes on X since Musk’s takeover. “He’s changing the information diet we experience on a daily basis.”
SAN FRANCISCO — X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking program, called Community Notes, isn’t addressing the flood of U.S. election misinformation on Elon Musk’s social media platform, according to a report published Wednesday by a group that tracks online speech.
The nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed the Community Notes feature and found that accurate notes correcting false and misleading claims about the U.S. elections were not displayed on 209 out of a sample of 283 posts deemed misleading — or 74%.
Misleading posts that did not display Community Notes even when they were available included false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that voting systems are unreliable, CCDH said.
In the cases where Community Notes were displayed, the original misleading posts received 13 times more views than their accompanying notes, the group added.
Community Notes lets X users write fact checks on posts after the users are accepted as contributors to the program. The checks are then rated by other users based on their accuracy, sources, how easily they are to understand, and whether they use neutral language. The program was launched in 2021 by the previous leadership of the site — then known as Twitter — and was called Birdwatch. Musk renamed it Community Notes after he took over the site in 2022.
Last year, X sued CCDH, blaming the group for the loss of “tens of millions of dollars” in advertising revenue after it documented an increase in hate speech on the site. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge in March.
Keith Coleman, a vice president of product at X who oversees Community Notes, said in a statement that the program “maintains a high bar to make notes effective and maintain trust across perspectives, and thousands of election and politics related notes have cleared that bar in 2024. In the last month alone, hundreds of such notes have been shown on thousands of posts and have been seen tens of millions of times. It is because of their quality that notes are so effective.”
Imran Ahmed, the CEO of CCDH, however, said the group’s research “suggests that X’s Community Notes are little more than a Band Aid on a torrent of hate and disinformation that undermines our democracy and further polarizes our communities.”
NEW YORK (AP) — The video was seen millions of times across social media but some viewers were suspicious: It featured a young Black woman who claimed Vice President Kamala Harris left her paralyzed in a hit-and-run accident in San Francisco 13 years ago.
In an emotional retelling from a wheelchair, the alleged victim said she “cannot remain silent anymore” and lamented that her childhood had “ended too soon.”
Immediately after the video was posted on Sept. 2, social media users pointed out reasons to be wary. The purported news channel it came from, San Francisco’s KBSF-TV, didn’t exist. A website for the channel set up just a week earlier contained plagiarized articles from real news outlets. The woman’s X-ray images shown in the video were taken from online medical journals. And the video and the text story on the website spelled the alleged victim’s name differently.
The caution was warranted, according to a new Microsoft threat intelligence report, which confirms the fabricated tale was disinformation from a Russia-linked troll farm.
The tech giant’s report released Tuesday details how Kremlin-aligned actors that at first struggled to adapt to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race have now gone full throttle in their covert influence efforts against Harris and Democrats.
It also explains how Russian intelligence actors are collaborating with pro-Russian cyber “hacktivists” to boost allegedly hacked-and-leaked materials, a strategy the company notes could be weaponized to undermine U.S. confidence in November’s election outcome.
The findings reveal how even through dramatic changes in the political landscape, groups linked to America’s foreign adversaries have redoubled their commitment to sway U.S. political opinion as the election nears, sometimes through deeply manipulative means. They also provide further insight into how Russia’s efforts to fight pro-Ukrainian policy in the U.S. are translating into escalating attacks on the Democratic presidential ticket.
Russia-linked actors have spent several months seeking to manipulate American perspectives with covert postings, but until this point, their efforts saw little traction. Notably, some of the recent examples cited in the Microsoft report received significant social media engagement from unwitting Americans who shared the fake stories with outrage.
“As the election approaches, people get more heated,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center said in an interview. “People tend to take in information from sources they don’t really know or wouldn’t even know to evaluate.”
Microsoft explained that the video blaming Harris for a fake hit-and-run incident came from a Russian-aligned influence network it calls Storm-1516, which other researchers refer to as CopyCop. The video, whose main character is played by an actor, is typical of the group’s efforts to react to current events with authentic-seeming “whistleblower” accounts that may seem like juicy unreported news to U.S. voters, the company said.
The report revealed a second video disseminated by the group, which purported to show two Black men beating up a bloodied white woman at a rally for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The video racked up thousands of shares on the social platform X and elicited comments like, “This is the kind of stuff to start civil wars.”
What to know about the 2024 Election
Microsoft’s report also pointed to another Russian influence actor it calls Storm-1679 that has recently pivoted from posting about the French election and the Paris Olympics to posting about Harris. Earlier this month, the group posted a manipulated video depicting a Times Square billboard that linked Harris to gender-affirming surgeries.
The content highlighted in the report doesn’t appear to use generative artificial intelligence tools. It instead uses actors and more old-school editing techniques.
Watts said Microsoft has been tracking the use of AI by nation states for more than a year and while foreign actors tried AI initially, many have gone back to basics as they’ve realized AI was “probably more time-consuming and not more effective.”
Asked about Russia’s motivation, Watts said the Russia-aligned groups Microsoft tracks may not necessarily support particular candidates, but they are motivated to undermine anyone who “is supporting Ukraine in their policy.”
At a forum in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to suggest jokingly that he would support Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. election. Intelligence officials have said Moscow prefers Trump.
The Harris campaign declined to comment. The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
Earlier this summer, Microsoft found that Iranian groups have also been laying the groundwork to stoke division in the election by creating fake news sites, impersonating activists and targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack.
U.S. intelligence officials are preparing criminal charges in connection with that attack, which targeted the Trump campaign, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Microsoft’s new report also touches on how a Chinese-linked influence actor has used short-form video to criticize Biden and Harris and to create anti-Trump content, suggesting it doesn’t appear interested in supporting a particular candidate.
Instead, the company said, the China-aligned group’s apparent goal is to “seed doubt and confusion among American voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election.”
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WASHINGTON — Groups in Russia created and helped spread viral disinformation targeting Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.
The content, which includes baseless accusations about the Minnesota governor’s time as a teacher, contains several indications that it was manipulated, said the official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Analysts identified clues that linked the content to Russian disinformation operations, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the office of the director.
Digital researchers had already linked the video to Russia, but Tuesday’s announcement is the first time federal authorities have confirmed the connection.
The disinformation targeting Walz is consistent with Russian disinformation seeking to undermine the Democratic campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz, her running mate. Russia also has spread disinformation aimed at stoking discord and division ahead of voting, officials said, and may seek to encourage violent protests after Election Day.
Last month, analysts at Microsoft revealed that a viral video that baselessly claimed Harris left a woman paralyzed in a hit-and-run accident 13 years ago was Russian disinformation. More recently, a video surfaced featuring a man claiming to be a former student of Walz’s who accused the candidate of sexual misconduct years ago. Private researchers at firms that track disinformation, including NewsGuard, already have concluded the video was fake and that the man in the footage isn’t who he claimed to be.
The Associated Press contacted a former employer of the man whose identity was used in the video. The employer, Viktor Yeliohin, confirmed the man shown in the video was an impostor.
Some researchers have also suggested the video may contain evidence that it was created using artificial intelligence, but federal officials stopped short of the same conclusion, saying only that the video contained multiple indications of manipulation.
There is no indication that Russia, China or Iran are plotting significant attacks on election infrastructure as a way to disrupt the outcome, officials said Tuesday.
Russia, China and Iran have all rejected claims that they are seeking to meddle with the U.S. election. Messages left with the Russian Embassy seeking comment on the Walz video were not immediately returned Tuesday.
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Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin contributed to this report from New York.
