True Media, the 2020 election censorship agency, is being repositioned as an “AI deepfake” authority for the 2024 elections, with the backing of tech giant Microsoft.
Microsoft Positioning Positioning himself as an authority on fighting election-related “fakes” created by AI deepfakes Lobbying It has called for new regulation in this area, but a closer look at the company's anti-misinformation project reveals links to Democratic extremists with a history of pushing for political censorship.
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and a member of the Microsoft Board of Directors,Chief QuestionerTrevor Noah is working on a project in partnership with Microsoft. True Media — The organization is ostensibly focused on curbing deepfakes, but it is advised by the same far-left pro-censorship activists as the now-discredited Election Integrity Project, a Department of Homeland Security-linked consortium that played a leading role in censoring Republican speech during the 2020 presidential election.
Russell Dye, a spokesman for House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), said:
The House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government continue to conduct oversight of the manner and extent to which the Executive Branch is coercing or colluding with corporations and other intermediaries to censor lawful speech. As part of this oversight, the Committee and the Select Subcommittee have investigated the risks that artificial intelligence (AI) poses to free speech and have found that the Biden-Harris Administration is already attempting to influence the development of private AI models and is funding the development of AI-powered audio surveillance tools that could enable mass censorship of speech in the United States. Reports that the censorship-industrial complex is seeking to pressure AI companies, as well as social media companies, are deeply disturbing and represent a serious risk to free speech in our nation.
in Interview True Media CEO Oren Etzioni in conversation with Microsoft on the podcast “The Prompt” The Daily Show Host Trevor Noah (formerly It was revealed that they had not disclosed their relationship with Microsoft. Noah called the 2024 election “one of the most important in history” (during a softball interview with the company's executives). Reinforcing his argument that third parties should moderate and regulate the AI field, Etzioni said Americans “cannot figure this out on their own.”
Hoffman Linked Commenting on X's video, he added that he was “pleased to see new technology being developed to detect political deepfakes and help ensure that our elections are free and fair.”
The threat of “deepfakes” has emerged as a favorite narrative, with familiar rhetoric, among those pushing for strict top-down control over online content. According to According to True Media, “disinformation spread through social networks is emerging as the Achilles heel of 21st century democracy.”
True Media's “Scientific Advisory Board“It included several key players in the disinformation industrial complex, two of whom had direct ties to the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP).
- With Kate Starbird Jevin West Director of the Center for Information and the Public at the University of Washington. Report for the House Judiciary Committee's Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government, “Weaponizing Disinformation: Pseudo-Experts and Bureaucrats.” Explained Starbird is described as “one of the key figures involved in running EIP.” America First Legal Sued The center was accused of working with the Biden administration to censor “disinformation” about COVID, noting that “the Biden administration provided a $3 million federal grant to Kate Starbird's University of Washington Disinformation Lab (in collaboration with Stanford University) just months after Starbird's lab helped censor the Biden administration's political opponents during the 2020 election.”
- The director of the Stanford Internet Observatory is Renee Delista. The Weaponization Subcommittee report on pseudo-expertise noted that “the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a consortium of 'disinformation' scholars led by the Stanford Internet Observatory at Stanford University, worked directly with the Global Engagement Center, a multi-agency organization within the Departments of Homeland Security and State, to monitor and censor online speech by Americans ahead of the 2020 presidential election.” Michael Shellenberger said: explanation“Founded in June 2019 by Director Alex Stamos and Research Manager Renee DiResta, SIO monitors social media and promotes internet censorship.”
- Darrell West He is a fellow at the left-leaning Brookings Institution and focuses on the need for government action against so-called disinformation. Books Power Politics: Trump and the Attack on American Democracy.
After being exposed as quasi-government censors, these “experts” are poised to step in at new nodes of censorship and regulation, this time in the name of preventing the harms of AI deepfakes.
When it comes to disinformation, Hoffman, Noah and Microsoft don't have a great record. NY Post recently Exposure,former The Daily Show Host Noah quietly promotes Microsoft policies and products on his podcast without disclosing his affiliation to the company, effectively misleading the public about his own impartiality.
Dmitry Mekhor, a top political adviser to Reid Hoffman, floated a wild conspiracy theory, suggesting reporters consider the possibility that the assassination attempt on Trump “may have been encouraged, even staged so that Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash,” describing it as a “classic Russian tactic.”
The Russiagate furor has also been shared with Microsoft partner NewsGuard, whose co-founder suggested the 2020 Hunter Biden laptop story was a “hoax perpetrated by the Russians.”
And in 2017, Hoffman himself admitted to funding “fake Twitter accounts with Russian-sounding names” to follow Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, according to an internal campaign report. Obtained by The New York TimesThis has been described as a “false flag” operation intended to discredit Moore.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship.
