Oregon, My Oregon

Natalia Mittelstadt at JTN, Oregon uses AI to flag election 'misinformation,' raising fresh concerns about censorship

The Oregon secretary of state’s office used artificial intelligence in the 2022 election that flagged election fraud concerns as mis-, dis-, and malinformation (MDM) and may use it again this year, similar to how Arizona monitored online election information. The effort is already facing a lawsuit.

Oregon flagged election information online during the 2022 midterms, with an AI targeting concerns regarding mail-in ballots. Arizona also worked with social media companies to take down social media posts that allegedly contained election misinformation.

During the 2022 election cycle, the Oregon secretary of state at the time hired a U.K. artificial intelligence company for a pilot project “to help provide a suite of products to identify and disarm harmful information online as it relates to elections (mis-, dis-, and mal-information, or ‘MDM’),” according to a bid solicitation.

Oregon State Rep. Ed Diehl (R) provided Just the News with documents he received from the secretary of state’s office via a public records request.

The company, Logically AI, sent reports to the Oregon secretary of state regarding “MDM narratives” found online, including during the 2022 election. Some MDM narratives in 2022 that Logically AI flagged, according to its own report, were:“

• Mail-in ballots are used to commit voter and election fraud in Oregon;"
• “Future elections can’t be trusted due to the fraudulent 2020 elections;"
• And “voter and election fraud has been happening in Oregon for decades,”

There were also “high risk potential MDM narratives” flagged by Logically AI in August 2022, such as “Oregon should eliminate mail-in voting and hold in-person voting that requires voter ID” and “people should not trust mail-in ballots because signature verification is ineffective," the report said.

Funny how they never look for  such false election information as Trump won due to Russian election interference, or that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation.

State legislators filed a lawsuit last month against state executives, requesting a preliminary injunction that would halt “any performance of work pursuant to" the anti-MDM contract. The case is currently pending.

Earlier this month, the Oregon state House Republican Office sent questions to the secretary of state’s office related to Logically AI and monitoring information on social media platforms.

According to answers sent from the secretary of state’s office, the “office reported instances of verifiably false information about election operations during the 2022 election. We ceased that practice after November 2022 because our reports were ignored by social media companies.

"We are not aware of a single instance in which our reports resulted in action by a social media company. Multiple administrations, the current SOS included, have reported threats to life and infrastructure to social media companies and as well as [sic] law enforcement," it added.