This has been in the works for a couple of months.
Lebanese research & comms consulting firm Influeanswers discovered that Israel is using smartbots to wage an online battle against Pro-Palestinian talking points
www.aljazeera.com/features/lon...
To not lose the online war, these bots swarm pro-Palestinian viral tweets or accounts with counter narratives (many respond with false information).
“the pro-Israeli bots they found…aim to sow doubt and confusion about pro-Palestinian narratives rather than make users trust them instead”
“The ability of AI to create these larger bot networks … has a massively deleterious effect on truthful communication, but also freedom of expression because they have the ability to drown out human voices,” said Jillian York of EFF
What’s next? Like so much, this comes back to big tech - or finding ways to regulate them.
Digital rights groups are trying to hold big tech companies accountable for their negligence & failure to protect elections and citizens' rights. But York says it is a “David and Goliath situation”
