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First lady Melania Trump called out congressional Democrats during a Capitol Hill Roundtable on Monday afternoon over a bill that would criminalize the sharing of intimate imagery online without consent. Why It Matters Monday's roundtable marks Melania's first major solo public appearance since resuming her role as first lady on January 20. She visited Capitol Hill to advocate for the "Take It Down Act," a bill aimed at criminalizing the non-consensual posting of intimate images online, including deepfakes. If the "Take It Down Act" becomes law, social media platforms would be required to remove such images within 48 hours of...

Lisa J. Stevenson, Acting General Counsel Federal Election Commission 1050 First Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20463 Ms. Stevenson, As Members of Congress, we are committed to the safety and integrity of our election and democracy. We are writing to offer our support for Public Citizen's Petition for Rulemaking to Clarify the Law Against Fraudulent Misrepresentation Public Citizen is petitioning the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to clarify that 52 U.S.C. § 30124 includes deep fakes of an election candidate as a fraudulent misrepresentation. As you know, 52 U.S.C. §30124 prohibits a candidate for federal office or an employee or agent campaign...

In the video Trump appears as saying: "I do think Putin is a strong leader, and I respect that, but he plays bad games. And that always ends badly. We all remember the story of Saddam, Ceausescu, and, of course, Gadhafi ... terrible death. I tell you, but that's how it ends. So, Vladimir, let's not let it come to that." The video went viral by Jan. 24, spilling over to other social media platforms and even news outlets. Then, BAZA, ce Hʼyuston Telegram channel’s SMM specialists announced in the comment to the original post that the video is a...

When all our lives are online, there is an abundance of content available for malicious actors to exploit with AI-powered tools, says RSIS’ Dymples Leong.News emerged in late November that over 100 Singaporean public servants, including five ministers, received extortionary emails with deepfake images. The messages demanded US$50,000 of cryptocurrency in return for not publishing “compromising” videos. The emails contained purported screenshots of those videos showing the victim’s faces, which seemed to be taken from public sources such as LinkedIn. This is not the first extortion plot against public servants in Singapore. Earlier this year, several members of parliament received...

In an bizarre twist, a Stanford University expert who studies misinformation appears to have created some of his own — while under oath.

Italy’s prime minister appeared in court on Tuesday to demand punishment for two men who allegedly created deepfake pornographic videos of her and posted them online. Giorgia Meloni, who dialled into the courtroom by videolink, has demanded 100,000 euros (£84,000) in compensation, which she said she will donate to a fund that helps female victims of domestic violence. Roberto Scurosu, 73, and his son Alessio Scurosu, 40, from Sardinia, are accused of creating the fake videos featuring Ms Meloni and posting them to American porn websites in 2020, two years before she became prime minister. The videos were viewed millions...

A former deputy Palm Beach County sheriff who fled to Moscow and became one of the Kremlin’s most prolific propagandists is working directly with Russian military intelligence to pump out deepfakes and circulate misinformation that targets Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, according to Russian documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post. The documents show that John Mark Dougan, who also served in the U.S. Marines and has long claimed to be working independently of the Russian government, was provided funding by an officer from the GRU, the country’s military intelligence service. Some of the...

The Babylon Bee filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Monday after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of “deepfake” laws that target outlets that publish satire and parody. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and shared exclusively with The Daily Wire, begins by noting that in July of this year, Newsom tweeted that a parody video of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris should be “illegal.” “The legislature heard the call and passed two laws that forbid political expression under the label of ‘materially deceptive content,’” the lawsuit asserts.

Billionaire Elon Musk is denying reports that said he is donating $45 million a month to a super PAC supporting former President Trump each month leading up to the November election. "What's been reported in the media is simply not true," Musk said in an interview with conservative commentator Jordan Peterson. "I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump."...The Tesla and SpaceX CEO followed up on his comments by saying on Tuesday that he does plan to make donations to America PAC but at a "much lower level."...Musk said he helped create America PAC, which he said would...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Releasing an audio recording of a special counsel’s interview with President Joe Biden could spur deepfakes and disinformation that trick Americans, the Justice Department said, conceding the U.S. government could not stop the misuse of artificial intelligence ahead of this year’s election. A senior Justice Department official raised the concerns in a court filing on Friday that sought to justify keeping the recording under wraps. The Biden administration is seeking to convince a judge to prevent the release of the recording of the president’s interview, which focused on his handling of classified documents. The admission highlights the...

The Department of Justice pushed back on the releasing of the audio tapes of special counsel Robert Hur's interview with President Joe Biden, citing "deep fake" concerns. The DOJ stated that if the audio tapes were released, they could potentially be altered by artificial intelligence and passed off as authentic. “The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and ‘deep fake’ technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files,” a Friday filing obtained by Politico states. “To be sure, other raw material to create a deepfake of President Biden’s voice is already available, but release of...

Dozens of prominent U.S. and state government officials, advocacy groups, and executives from big tech companies gathered in New York last month to participate in an important simulated election exercise. The war game exercise imagined a fictional crisis in which AI-generated photos and videos are released on social media immediately before the 2024 election. The images appear to show election officials in Florida dumping ballots, in an apparent attempt to manipulate the election’s outcome. If a deepfake election crisis does occur — and there are good reasons to think it will — Trump’s enemies will be ready to take advantage....

As technology has advanced, AI-generated deepfakes have become more convincing, says disinformation researcher Eileen Culloty.Disinformation caught many people off guard during the 2016 Brexit referendum and US presidential election. Since then, a mini-industry has developed to analyse and counter it. Yet despite that, we have entered 2024 - a year of more than 40 elections worldwide - more fearful than ever about disinformation. In many ways, the problem is more challenging than it was in 2016. Advances in technology since then are one reason for that, in particular the development that has taken place with synthetic media, otherwise known as...

A group of 20 leading tech companies on Friday announced a joint commitment to combat AI misinformation in this year’s elections. The industry is specifically targeting deepfakes, which can use deceptive audio, video and images to mimic key stakeholders in democratic elections or to provide false voting information. Microsoft , Meta , Google , Amazon , IBM , Adobe and chip designer Arm all signed the accord. Artificial intelligence startups OpenAI, Anthropic and Stability AI also joined the group, alongside social media companies such as Snap , TikTok and X. Tech platforms are preparing for a huge year of elections...

SNIPWhile the number of votes swayed by the leaked audio remains uncertain, two things are now abundantly clear: The recordings were fake, created using artificial intelligence; and US officials see the episode in Europe as a frightening harbinger of the sort of interference the United States will likely experience during the 2024 presidential election.“As a nation, we are woefully underprepared,” said V.S. Subrahmanian, a Northwestern University professor who focuses on the intersection of AI and security.Senior national security officials in the US have been gearing up for “deepfakes” to inject confusion among voters in a way not previously seen, a...

SAG-AFTRA deplored the AI-generated graphic images of Taylor Swift that went viral on X (formerly Twitter) this week, calling the content “upsetting, harmful, and deeply concerning” in a statement issued on Friday. “The development and dissemination of fake images — especially those of a lewd nature — without someone’s consent must be made illegal,” the union said, while also calling support to Congressman Joe Morelle’s Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act to combat the practice. “As a society, we have it in our power to control these technologies, but we must act now before it is too late. We support...

New York CNN — Pornographic, AI-generated images of the world’s most famous star spread across social media this week, underscoring the damaging potential posed by mainstream artificial intelligence technology: its ability to create convincingly real and damaging images. The fake images of Taylor Swift were predominantly circulating on social media site X, previously known as Twitter. The photos – which show the singer in sexually suggestive and explicit positions – were viewed tens of millions of times before being removed from social platforms. But nothing on the internet is truly gone forever, and they will undoubtedly continue to be shared...

New satellite images of Gaza show the extent of the destruction caused by Israel's intense aerial bombardment of the territory over the past three weeks. The pictures, released by Maxar Technologies, compare detailed images captured from space earlier this week with images from before the recent conflict began. They show three areas in the north of Gaza where aerial attacks have left dozens of tower blocks completely destroyed or badly damaged as well as large areas of tightly packed buildings reduced to piles of grey rubble.

Obama says he's been target of 'deepfakes,' predicts next election cycle will be rife with false infoFormer President Barack Obama suggested in a new interview the development of "digital fingerprints" to combat misinformation and distinguish between true and misleading news for consumers.Obama sat down with his former White House senior adviser David Axelrod for a conversation on the latter's podcast, "The Axe Files," on CNN Audio. During the interview, Axelrod noted he's seen "misinformation, disinformation, [and] deepfakes" targeting Obama."As I've told people, because I was the first digital president when I left office, I was probably the most recorded, filmed,...

Deep fakes are often very humorous but can be scary when you realize that you cannot trust what you see with your own eyes on any video these days. https://youtu.be/THOXG-5rSk8