Tag Archives: Anthony Fauci

Primary Season Is Here, But Still No FEC Action on Campaign Deepfakes

A consumer advocacy group warns that deceptive images generated by AI are “one of the biggest threats to our elections.”

By Julia Conley. Published 1-16-2024 by Common Dreams

Image: ApolitikNow/flickr/CC

As consumer advocacy group Public Citizen marked three months since the Federal Election Commission closed its public comment period on regulating artificial intelligence-generated “deepfake” images in election ads, the group on Tuesday questioned whether the FEC itself is “just a computer-generated illusion.”

“Do we have a real Federal Election Commission?” asked Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, eight months after the group submitted its first petition asking the FEC to establish new rules banning deepfakes in campaign materials.

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Experts ‘Terrified’ of AI-Driven Misinformation ‘Tsunami’ in 2024 Election

“If people don’t ultimately trust information related to an election, democracy just stops working,” said a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 1226-2023 by Common Dreams

An ad for a deepfake video maker. Screenshot: OpenAISee

As 2024 approaches and with it the next U.S. presidential election, experts and advocates are warning about the impact that the spread of artificial intelligence technology will have on the amount and sophistication of misinformation directed at voters.

While falsehoods and conspiracy theories have circulated ahead of previous elections, 2024 marks the first time that it will be easy for anyone to access AI technology that could create a believable deepfake video, photo, or audio clip in seconds, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

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‘Just a First Step’: FEC Advances Petition Calling for Ban on Deepfakes in Political Campaigns

“The need to regulate deepfakes and other deceptive uses of AI in election ads becomes more urgent with each passing day,” said Lisa Gilbert of -Public Citizen.-

By Julia Conley Published 8-10-2023 by Common Dreams

Deepfake of Barack Obama Screenshot: CBS News

Government watchdog Public Citizen on Thursday urged U.S. voters to help “ramp up pressure” on the Federal Elections Commission and pressure the panel to open an official rulemaking process regarding the use of deepfakes—false video content generated by artificial intelligence—in 2023 election campaign ads, after the FEC announced it would advance the group’s related petition.

After two separate requests by Public Citizen in recent months, the FEC unanimously voted to open a 60-day public comment period on the petition, which calls for rulemaking to clarify the meaning of “fraudulent representation” in federal law, making clear that campaigns that use “deliberately deceptive AI-produced content” will be penalized.

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‘Appalled’ by Vaccine Booster Plans, WHO Chief Rebukes Big Pharma, Rich Nations

“I will not stay silent when the companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world’s poor should be satisfied with leftovers,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams.  Published 9-9-2021

Photo: U.S. Secretary of Defense/flickr

With the Biden administration expected to begin offering third doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to the U.S. public in less than two weeks despite vocal pushback from many experts, the head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday demanded a moratorium on booster shots until at least the end of the year in order to free up supply for low-income nations.

During his weekly press briefing, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he is “appalled” that rich nations are moving ahead with booster campaigns as billions of people across the globe lack access to a single dose. Less than 2% of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to Our World in Data. Continue reading

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Trump lost the election, but he won the online disinformation war

Social media platforms have allowed US conservatives to delegitimise the election and sow mistrust of democracy.

By Peter Geoghegan. Published 11-9-2020 by openDemocracy

Screenshot: WNCT

In late August, roughly five weeks before Americans went to the polls, a story appeared in The New York Times reporting new data about the reach of fringe US conservative outlets on Facebook. The numbers were staggering.

Posts by far-right news site Breitbart had been shared three times as often as posts from the official pages of every Democratic member of the US senate combined in the previous 30 days. Conservative firebrand Ben Shapiro had chalked up 56 million interactions, more than the main pages of ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR put together. Continue reading

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Quietly Signed Trump Order Denounced as ‘Declaration of War’ Against Federal Employees

The order sets up Trump’s “cronies to burrow into permanent jobs in the U.S. government,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-23-2020

Photo: AFGE

After years of complaining that career federal employees are part of the “deep state” and aim to undermine his administration, President Donald Trump this week took a major step toward remaking the federal government as one without nonpartisan civil servants—signing a little-noticed executive order that would strip potentially hundreds of thousands of government employees of their job security.

Under the order, signed late Wednesday, career federal employees could be fired with little or no cause, lose their right to due process, and potentially lose union representation. Continue reading

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Emails Show How Trump Official at HHS Tried to Get Fauci to Downplay Covid-19 Threat to School Children

“This sort of story will be recalled years from now as an example of the government interfering with science, with predictably disastrous results.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-9-2020

Screenshot: ABC News

Reporting from Politico Wednesday revealed that a Trump-allied official within the Department of Health and Human Services tried to censor Dr. Anthony Fauci from communicating to the press dangers the coronavirus may pose to school children.

According to Politico, the messaging directives came from Paul Alexander, a Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services. Alexander is a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, a Trump ally and assistant HHS secretary for public affairs. Continue reading

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‘Completely Out of Control’: China Says ‘US Epidemic’ Threat to Rest of the World

In the coming fall and winter, the US epidemic will likely run rampant, and more countries and regions will be forced to suffer because of the US.’

By Common Dreams   Published 7-5-2020

New Florida Daily COVID-19 Infections: March 1, 2020 to July 4, 2020. (NY Times screenshot)

A Chinese state-controlled newspaper has blamed the Trump administration’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic to cause the spread of the virus to go “completely out of control.”

Describing the disease as a “U.S. epidemic”, the paper warned that the administration’s failure poses a threat to the rest of the world. “Lies are dominating US society’s recognition of the epidemic,” the Global Times wrote. Continue reading

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‘This President Has Blood on His Hands’: Trump Again Urges Public to Take Anti-Malaria Drug for Coronavirus, Despite Reports of Danger

“‘What do you have to lose?'” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) asked. “They can lose their life, you imbecile.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-5-2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday told Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” that scientific evidence does not support President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that hydroxychloroquine can prevent the coronavirus. (Photo: Alliance for Health Policy/Flickr/cc)

The nation’s top expert on infectious diseases was forced once again on Sunday to negate President Donald Trump’s latest claim that an anti-malaria drug can treat coronavirus, which the president made at his Saturday evening press conference.

On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Dr. Anthony Fauci told host Margaret Brennan that “in terms of science, I don’t think we could definitively say it works,” regarding the use of hydroxychloroquine for the virus. Continue reading

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