A video of a Florida governor candidate was AI slop. People spread it anyway.
The manipulated clip targeting Byron Donalds spread across X with help from politicians, activists and users who ignored warnings that it was fake
Politicians and other X users shared a manipulated clip appearing to show U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the leading Republican candidate in the Florida gubernatorial race, supporting insider trading as a way to live with luxury.
Chris Nelson, a conservative activist and writer, shared the video on X with the caption, “Byron Donalds says insider trading should ABSOLUTELY BE ALLOWED for members of Congress.” The post got thousands of shares.
Related Knowledge Center: Artificial intelligence
On top of a failing business model, newsrooms must navigate the powerful — and not fully reliable — new capabilities of artificial intelligence and the deployment of large language models.
State of the business model | Copyright and intellectual property
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors