All the tech news from the 2024 election

3 months ago

Technology was a mere footnote in previous election cycles, but the 2024 US elections are happening in the wake of the very contentious TikTok ban bill. At the same time, this electoral cycle may be the most divorced from substantive policy than any other cycle in living memory. Still, the federal government is in a regulatory mood, and the question of which political party controls the White House after January 2025 will determine tech policy issues ranging from net neutrality to the rapidly expanding scope of tech antitrust.

In the meantime, the specter of misinformation — particularly AI-generated misinformation — looms over an election that is particularly vulnerable to rhetorical attacks on the legitimacy of the democratic process.

Here’s all our 2024 election coverage in one place.

How to watch Biden vs. Trump in the first 2024 presidential debate
The first debate of the 2024 presidential race will see sitting President Joe Biden and his challenger, former President Donald Trump, face off in CNN’s Atlanta studio. They come into the debate with Trump tracking slightly ahead in most polling averages, with the gap narrowing in recent weeks after Trump’s felony convictions.
It will be an unusual debate. There won’t be an audience, and the network says it will mute candidates’ mics when it’s not their turn to speak. The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) instituted a similar policy for the final 2020 Trump and Biden debate, which ended up being far calmer than the chaotic, interruption-filled first one that year. This time, the call was made by CNN, which organized this debate, rather than the nonprofit CPD, which has taken on that duty since 1988.
Read Article >
Political ads could require AI-generated content disclosures soon
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
The chair of the Federal Communications Commission introduced a proposal Wednesday that could require political advertisers to disclose when they use AI-generated content on radio and TV ads.
If the proposal is implemented, the FCC will seek comment on whether to require on-air and written disclosure of AI-generated content in political ads and will propose to apply these disclosure requirements to certain mediums. In a press release, the FCC notes that the disclosure requirements wouldn’t prohibit such content but would instead require political advertisers to be transparent about their use of AI.
Read Article >
Election officials are role-playing AI threats to protect democracy
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes led a tabletop exercise for journalists to role-play as election officials to understand the speed and scale of AI threats they face.
Photo by Ash Ponders for The Verge
It’s the morning of Election Day in Arizona, and a message has just come in from the secretary of state’s office telling you that a new court order requires polling locations to stay open until 9PM. As a county election official, you find the time extension strange, but the familiar voice on the phone feels reassuring — you’ve talked to this official before.
Just hours later, you receive an email telling you that the message was fake. In fact, polls must now close immediately, even though it’s only the early afternoon. The email tells you to submit your election results as soon as possible — strange since the law requires you to wait an hour after polls close or until all results from the day have been tabulated to submit.
Read Article >
RFK Jr. sues Meta for ‘election interference’ after it temporarily removed a campaign video
Photo by Lev Radin / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images
Independent presidential candidate and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing Meta for allegedly violating the First Amendment and engaging in “election interference” because it removed a video about him.
The lawsuit is not likely to advance far, considering that the First Amendment bars the government — not companies — from censoring speech. Plus, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act effectively insulates online platforms from being sued for how they choose to remove or limit content on their sites.
Read Article >
The great conundrum of campaigning on TikTok
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images
Joe Biden faces the camera, casually dressed for a US president in khaki slacks and a quarter zip. He jovially answers a series of questions about the Super Bowl happening that day: Chiefs or Niners? Jason Kelce or Travis Kelce? And finally: Trump or Biden?
“Are you kidding? Biden,” the president says with a smile.
Read Article >
Cheryl Hines’ husband chooses Sergey Brin’s ex-wife as running mate
Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Independent presidential candidate and notable anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tapped Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer, as his running mate. Shanahan previously contributed $4 million to Kennedy’s super PAC, helping to bankroll a 30-second campaign ad during this year’s Super Bowl.
Shanahan, who was formerly married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, has donated heavily to Democratic candidates in the past. In the campaign announcement speech, Kennedy called his running mate “exactly the right person,” as someone who “shared my passion for wholesome healthy foods, chemical-free for regenerative agriculture, for good soils.” He called her a “technologist at the forefront of AI” who uses “neural nets” to “identify abuses in our government.” He also praised her use of “cutting-edge technologies, including AI, to calculate the catastrophic health consequences of toxins in our soil, our air, our water, and our food.”
Read Article >
How AI companies are reckoning with elections
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
The US is heading into its first presidential election since generative AI tools have gone mainstream. And the companies offering these tools — like Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft — have each made announcements about how they plan to handle the months leading up to it.
This election season, we’ve already seen AI-generated images in ads and attempts to mislead voters with voice cloning. The potential harms from AI chatbots aren’t as visible in the public eye — yet, anyway. But chatbots are known to confidently provide made-up facts, including in responses to good-faith questions about basic voting information. In a high-stakes election, that could be disastrous.
Read Article >
AI deepfakes are cheap, easy, and coming for the 2024 election
Image: The Verge
Our new Thursday episodes of Decoder are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and this week, we’re continuing our miniseries on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI.
Last week, we took a look at the wave of copyright lawsuits that might eventually grind this whole industry to a halt. Those are basically a coin flip — and the outcomes are off in the distance, as those cases wind their way through the legal system. A bigger problem right now is that AI systems are really good at making just believable enough fake images and audio — and with tools like OpenAI’s new Sora, maybe video soon, too.
Read Article >
How social networks gave up on 2020 election lies
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
On tech platforms these days you can get away with just about anything, as long as you’re running for president.
Take Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. A leading anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, Kennedy lost his Instagram account in January 2021 when he tried to scare people away from getting the covid-19 vaccine. His nonprofit organization, Children’s Health Defense, lost its account the following year for falsely warning that the covid vaccine harmed people’s organs and was dangerous to pregnant women.
Read Article >