Social media feeds are awash with an unprecedented flood of AI-driven disinformation ahead of November’s US midterm elections, according to experts, who warn many posts are likely “slipping through the cracks”. As tens of millions of Americans prepare to cast their vote, social media companies have scaled back their efforts to protect voters from lies meant to manipulate elections. While the backlash against Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal prompted social media giants to bolster their trust and safety operations, a counter-backlash from the right over fears of speech restrictions – which intensified after Elon Musk’s takeover of X, formerly Twitter, and the election of Donald Trump in 2024 – has led to significant layoffs from relevant teams.
Artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to launch a disinformation campaign. And platforms are increasingly relying on AI, rather than human intervention, to respond. Operatives playing dirty tricks can get around content moderation rules “because you can just keep tweaking the post a little bit each time you create them, and some of them are going to get through”, she said.
Campaigns from Pennsylvania to Texas have been scrambling to respond to lies that have surfaced, and spread rapidly, online. Unlike previous elections, they find themselves in a quandary: who, exactly, do they turn to when fabrications and falsehoods propagate? Meta Platforms, the Facebook and Instagram owner, and X did not respond to requests for comment.
YouTube, owned by Google, said all its users are subject to the same guidelines. James Talarico, the high-flying Democrat running for US Senate in Texas, took time off from campaigning earlier this month to recover from the flu. But many social media feeds hosted another – false – reason for his absence: that he was supposedly being treated at a mental health facility in Ohio.
The claim was a complete fabrication, pushed by a rightwing “provocateur” who published a deceptively edited phone call with a hospital staffer. Talarico’s campaign released security-camera video showing him at home in Texasand the candidate publicly clarified he had never even been to Ohio. But the lie circulated – and was stoked – for several days.
The Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA) tracked its propagation, and how the misinformation mutated as it was picked up by conservative Spanish-language media. What began as a viral lie about Talarico being hospitalized in Ohio became a false claim in Spanish that he had attempted suicide. The case “illustrates a recurring challenge in countering election disinformation”, DDIA’s researchers wrote.
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