Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, briefed reporters on how artificial intelligence is being used by foreign actors to manipulate messaging to US voters. He believes the US is more vulnerable to global election interference than it was in 2020.
“Our adversaries, China, Russia, Iran in particular, have realized it is effective and cheap to spread misinformation and disinformation at a greater level than before,” said Warner, a Democrat who represents Virginia in the Senate. Social media and technology platforms in general are devoting fewer resources in terms of monitoring their content, generating a flow of false information that can change the way a candidate is perceived without being real. He said even with more traditional platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others, content moderation efforts have been cut back dramatically.
The reason U.S. elections are secure is due to its decentralized system, Warner said. Counting takes place at individual polling locations, then it’s reported to a county and the state, leaving no way for a foreign adversary to hack into a national system and disrupt the national vote. Warner is concerned that some states have changed their laws to require hand counting.
Historically, many countries have had a history of government interference in disinformation for their own purposes, however, the United States has worked to have better monitoring and tools to protect the information handled on various platforms with the aim of ensuring that real and truthful information is greater and gains more ground in the digital area.
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