Washington (CNN)– Taylor Swift did not support former President Donald Trump last weekend. Ryan Reynolds was not photographed wearing a pro-Kamala Harris t-shirt. And the Communist Party USA never endorsed President Joe Biden’s now-defunct campaign.
But these false claims about the 2024 campaign, and dozens of other posts with similar false endorsements, have spread on social media in the run-up to the election, according to researchers at the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan educational group that launched a new database this Thursday which collects more than 550 unique cases of disinformation related to the elections.
The latest and most visible example of these false claims emerged on Sunday, when Trump shared a post on his Truth Social platform that contained images created with the use of artificial intelligence that suggested a wave of support from Swift fans calling themselves “Swifties for Trump.” In response to the iconic pop star’s implicit endorsement, Trump wrote: “I’m in!”
Swift, who He had already criticized Trump for “fanning the fires of white supremacy and racism” during his presidency, supported Joe Biden in 2020, but has not yet endorsed any presidential candidate in the 2024 elections.
Although one of the images in the collage posted by Trump, in which Swift appears dressed as “Uncle Sam,” was obviously manipulated, another in which a young woman appeared at a rally appeared authentic.
The other images that appeared to show large groups of smiling supporters celebrating Trump contained some of the hallmarks of AI-generated images, according to Lucas Hansen, co-founder of CivAI, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the growing ability and the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI).
Those images look “very retouched, have great camera quality” and “everyone is very good-looking,” says Hansen. The images use a “deep bokeh and blurred background” effect, common features of AI-generated images.
The News Literacy Project launched its misinformation panel on Thursday to raise awareness about viral falsehoods that it believes pose an “existential threat to democracy” and are best examined through mass analysis of hundreds of examples. than through individual checks.
The database, which will be updated periodically, tracks several categories of political misinformation — conspiracy theories, lies about candidates’ political views and false endorsements — but the group does not measure how many times these viral posts are shared.
About 1 in 10 viral messages analyzed by the News Literacy Project contained false endorsements, according to data provided exclusively to CNN. Those messages described alleged endorsements – or public snubs – of celebrities such as NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, actor Morgan Freeman, he musician Bruce Springsteen and political figures such as former first lady Michelle Obama.
Messages invoking these four figures accumulated at least 10 million views, according to the database.
On occasion, researchers discovered that separate posts were circulating on social media simultaneously claiming that the same celebrity had endorsed and denounced a candidate, underscoring the chaotic and misleading environment that users are encountering.
“As a general rule, if a celebrity is wearing a T-shirt with an explicit political message, it is most likely fake,” says Dan Evon, director of the News Literacy Project.
The proliferation of fake endorsements on social media comes as tech platforms dismantle security barriers and moderation policies designed to reduce the spread of dangerous misinformation.
Thiss changes have been most acute informerly known as Twitter, after tycoon Elon Musk bought the company and dismantle internal teams who were working to stop the spread of election misinformation, and restore the banned accounts of prominent conspiracy theorists and extremists.
Experts say the problem has been exacerbated by X’s chatbot, Grok, which has alreadyhas drawn the ire of election officials for spreading false information about Harris’ eligibility in the 2024 election. Last week, X began allowing users to use Grok to create AI-generated images from text messages, unleashing an avalanche of fake content about Trump and Harris.
“In the future, Grok is likely to be one of the main sources of these types of images, as it generates high-quality images, is easily accessible and was intentionally made to have a low rejection rate,” Hansen said, adding that he was able to use Grok to create “Swifties for Trump” images that closely resemble the ones Trump shared.
X did not respond to requests for comment about the creation of misleading images related to political candidates.
Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, also cut some staff from its election integrity teams, as previously reported by CNN. The social media giant stated last year that “no tech company does more or invests more to protect elections,” and announced that it would require political advertisers toThey would reveal whether they used AI to create or alter any images.
But even as some online platforms scramble to label AI-generated images and fact-checkers debunk the latest viral lies, the deluge of fabricated material may have an impact.
“If you repeatedly see these falsehoods that exaggerate a candidate’s popularity, they may stick with you, even though you know they are illegitimate as you walk past them in your “feed”Peter Adams, vice president of research at the News Literacy Project, explains to CNN.
Although the emergence of publicly accessible artificial intelligence tools has made it easier to create misleading claims, such as many of the false endorsements identified by the News Literacy Project, other fake images circulating on social media use rudimentary Photoshop techniques.
The use of AI to concoct political disinformation “has not been as prevalent and pernicious as originally feared,” Adams said, adding that traditional image and video manipulation methods remain, for now, “much cheaper but equally effective.”
