Meta announces that AI-driven political campaign ads must come with a disclaimer
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
META TAKES STEPS TO COUNTER AI-DRIVEN ONLINE CAMPAIGN ADS
Election season is upon us, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced Wednesday that it is taking steps to cut down on deceptive artificial intelligence (AI)-driven campaign ads.
The social media giant said that come Jan. 1, digital political ads created by, or altered with, AI must come with a disclaimer.
The policy also will require that political ads depicting people doing or saying things that they did not do or say, or events that did not happen, could run afoul of Meta’s advertising policy and be rejected or taken down.
“If we determine that an advertiser doesn’t disclose as required, we will reject the ad and repeated failure to disclose may result in penalties against the advertiser,” according to a Meta statement.
Erin McPike, a Meta spokeswoman, told The Bee that AI is “obviously all the rage” that will be a major topic in 2024, “particularly with respect to political ads.”
“Voters are always saying that they want more information so that they can make a more informed decision ... this is Meta’s effort to be as transparent as possible and to provide as much information as possible,” McPike said.
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLY ISSUES ENDORSEMENTS
At its Costa Mesa meeting this week, the California Republican Assembly voted to endorse former President Donald Trump for president. The vote was nearly unanimous, according to a statement from the organization.
The volunteer organization, which President Ronald Reagan once called the “conscience of the Republican Party,” voted for Trump despite his being under felony indictment in multiple state and federal cases.
The assembly also voted 67% in favor of endorsing Republican attorney Eric Early in the race for the California Senate seat which was held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein until her death. It is currently held by Laphonza Butler, who has chosen not to run for a full term.
The assembly supported Early over fellow Republican and baseball great Steve Garvey, despite the fact that Garvey is leading Early in the polls. Both Early and Garvey fall well behind Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff in voter surveys.
“The California Republican Assembly is the most important gathering of true Republicans in our state. There are no ‘Republican’ Democrat wannabes here,” Early said in a statement following the endorsement.
CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMEMBERS VOICE CONCERN ABOUT LARA’S PLAN
Dozens of California Democratic members of Congress have written to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, expressing concern about his proposal to alter the regulatory environment in the state in a bid to keep insurers from fleeing.
The 32 lawmakers, led by Reps. John Garamendi — California’s first elected insurance commissioner — and Zoe Lofgren, wrote that Proposition 103, a 1988 ballot measure requiring insurance companies to submit changes to the commissioner for review before being approved, gives Lara the power to stabilize the state’s insurance market.
“It would greatly benefit our constituents across California for you to use that power to immediately and quickly review the proposed rate increases under any new risk modeling to determine if they are necessary, adequate, and not excessive for consumers,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
They voiced worry that Lara’s proposed changes could weaken the state’s authority to rein in costs.
“Proposals such as using proprietary forward-predicting models, expediting rate reviews that limit public comment, allowing insurance companies to abandon certain regions of the state, and incorporating reinsurance costs into Californian rates could threaten the important consumer protections established in Proposition 103 and in place since 1988,” they wrote.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Let’s be clear: Moms for Liberty has never represented America’s mothers and families — and its effort to ‘mom-wash’ an agenda of hate is failing.”
- Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, CEO of MomsRising, a national parent organization, in response to Tuesday night’s drubbing at the ballot box in several states of Moms for Liberty candidates and issues.
Best of The Bee:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t the only prominent Democrat losing ground with state voters. President Joe Biden is seeing dwindling support in the Golden State, according to the latest survey from the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, via Andrew Sheeler.
Rep. David Valadao is facing a tough reelection. He’s also got a potential $53.4 million in local public works projects, funded by federal dollars, that he can brag about when he goes home, via David Lightman.
There was a time when the two special elections in Shasta County Tuesday would have made scarcely a ripple. The school board race and the contest for three seats on the fire protection district affected fewer than 9,500 voters. But in 2023, there is no such thing as a minor election in this MAGA-charged corner of the rural north state, where many residents believe President Donald Trump was cheated out of second term in 2020. In a country with more than a little queasiness over the prospect of political violence in 2024, many eyes were on Shasta as a kind of bellwether, via Jenavieve Hatch.
Seventeen months after Shasta County deputies and fair officials tracked down a 9-year-old girl’s pet goat and had it slaughtered after the girl backed out of a 4-H auction, California officials are countersuing, placing the blame on the girl’s mother, via Sam Stanton.
In October 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the workers voted to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers, but they have yet to ink a contract with their employer. Union members told The Sacramento Bee that the company has withheld pay raises since they joined the union and has been understaffing their facility for years, via Cathie Anderson.
A third of California’s adult prisons provide an “inadequate” level of medical care to their inmate patients, according to the most recent inspections from the state’s prison watchdog, via Maya Miller.
