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AI labels are coming to Instagram and Facebook. Will they work?
Sir Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, announced Tuesday their platforms would begin labeling AI-generated images.
Meta is working with AI image generators like Midjourney and Shutterstock to add metadata to images that have been created by artificial intelligence, which will then automatically trigger a label when posted. Clegg framed it as a crucial safety measure and said the company would build the technology over the next year.
There are some drawbacks. First, the technology won’t work on video or audio yet, but Clegg says Meta will take down any unlabelled AI-generated clip that “creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of importance.”
Second, even still images may be able to get around Meta’s detector by doing something as simple as processing it through photo editing software to generate new metadata, according to experts.
And as far as AI-generated text, Clegg says it would be pointless to try to identify and label it all. “That ship has sailed,” he told Reuters.
Hard Numbers: Facebook turns 20, DeSantis’ vote cost, Eurozone inflation falls, Dark money Down Under, Paris’ Grape Escape
20: On Sunday, Facebook turns 20 years old. Take a moment to look back at the social network’s early days – when it was a platform for dorky teens playfully “poking” each other. That was before the Obama 2008 campaign demonstrated its political utility, before young Egyptians showed dictators its threat to their power in 2011, and long before the site became a dumpster fire of Boomer conspiracy theories. And as for the teens? On Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to families who had been victimized on his platforms during a Congressional hearing on online child safety.
7,169: How much does getting your vote cost? Well, if you caucused for Ron DeSantis in Iowa, it came out to about $7,169 after the once-hopeful rival to Donald Trump spent a staggering $168 million on his campaign, only to flame out and quit after he wound up 30 percentage points behind the GOP front-runner.
2.8: Inflation in the Eurozone fell to 2.8 after rising in December, but don’t get too excited about a possible rate cut from the European Central Bank. The index is still running well ahead of its 2% target, and prices for services in particular remain stubbornly high.
57 million: Nearly AU$57 million (~US$37 million) donated to Australian political parties in 2022 and 2023 was of unknown origin, according to an analysis by the Australian Electoral Commission published Thursday. The so-called “dark money” represents about a quarter of all funding to major political parties Down Under, where the identities of donors below AU$15,200 are not subject to compulsory disclosure. (~US$9988).
1.6 million: French police are investigating the theft of 83 wine bottles from one of Paris’ finest restaurants in a $1.6 million caper. The loss was noticed when the sommelier of the 442-year-old Tour d’Argent restaurant did an inventory of his 300,000 bottles and could have occurred anytime between 2020 and 2024. GZERO sends our condolences *hic* – we have no idea what happened *hic*. 🥴😬Canada averts a Google news block, US bills in the works
The act, which is modeled on Australian legislation, led Google to threaten to de-index news from its search engine. In protest of the law, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked links to Canadian news in the country on both platforms. It’s currently holding out on a deal as Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge tries to get the company back to the bargaining table.
The Online News Act kerfuffle is a symptom of a bigger issue: the power of governments to regulate large tech firms – a fight that is playing out in Canada, the US, and around the world. California is considering a law similar to Australia's and Canada’s. The bill passed the Assembly but is now on hold in the state senate until 2024. In March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Sens. Mike Lee and Amy Klobuchar, introduced a similar bill in the Senate, casting it as an anti-trust, pro-competition measure. Meta has made similar threats to pull news in response to the US push to mirror the Australian and Canadian laws.
Tech giants are resisting attempts to extract funds from them to support news media, a tactic that is part of a broader strategy to oppose regulation. But the Australian and Canadian successes may encourage California, the US Congress, and other states to move forward with similar efforts. The coming months will be a test of whether governments are able – and willing – to regulate these powerful companies. All eyes should be on the progress, or not, of the California and Congressional bills along with Canada’s negotiations with Meta since these cases will help decide the future of tech regulation itself.
Google throws Trudeau a lifeline
Canada’s Online News Act, introduced last summer to force revenue-sharing on tech giants, backfired badly when Meta decided to block Canadian news outlets from their platforms rather than pay up.
Bill C-18 and the tech giants’ response to it spelled trouble for a media industry already in crisis – traffic and revenue plummeted. It was bad news for PM Justin Trudeau, whose revenue-sharing law was intended to improve things for media outlets, not make things worse, and it opened him to criticism that he was incompetently wrecking an industry he was trying to help.
But this week brought a turn in fortune. Canada reached a deal with Google that will see the tech giant compensate Canadian news outlets for linking to their stories. The deal, which requires Alphabet to pay between $100 million and $172 million a year, is a huge relief to Trudeau after months of withering criticism.
Facebook and Instagram are still blocking news links from Canadian publishers, and there is no indication that Meta wants a deal under any circumstances.
Google and Meta were undoubtedly nervous about an open-ended requirement to pay what could set a pricey precedent for them in other jurisdictions. However, according to the CBC, Ottawa will introduce regulations allowing Google to negotiate with a group representing all media organizations, thereby limiting its arbitration risk. Similar laws are being considered in Washington state and California.
The money in question – well below $200 million – is not huge considering that Google has about half of all of the $14-billion digital advertising revenue in Canada in 2022.
Reaction in Canada is mixed. The deal comes as a relief, but it will not save the industry. In both Canada and the United States, the rise of digital advertising has bled revenue from traditional media, leading to job losses and growing news deserts, or areas without a local newspaper. The Trudeau government responded with this bill and with government subsidies: The recent fall economic statement included $129 million, for example, for news organizations through a tax credit for up to $29,750 per journalist.
But such government backing may come at a price. Increasingly, Conservatives are warning that news organizations will be motivated to support the Liberal government in order to keep the money flowing.
Graphic Truth: Where does the US get its online news?
The site has a well-documented history of being a breeding ground for misinformation, which continues to be a topic of concern in Washington with the 2024 election on the horizon.
Pew found that half of US adults get their news from social media at least some of the time, while 30% regularly get their news from Facebook. Next up was YouTube, followed by Instagram, TikTok, and X, formerly known as Twitter. Like Facebook, all of these platforms have also faced issues with the spread of disinformation as well as rampant hate speech.
New rules for political ads
Meta wasn’t the first Big Tech platform to introduce such a policy. Google, the largest advertising company in the world, announced a similar stance in September. But Facebook and Google are encouraging ad agencies and small companies to use their generative AI tools for commercial marketing campaigns – drawing a line in the sand when it comes to politics.
Proposed legislation: In doing so, they’re likely front-running future regulation. In May, a group of US senators including Amy Klobuchar introduced legislation to mandate disclosures when AI technology is used in political ads. Klobuchar and Rep. Yvette Clarke, the bill’s House sponsor, sent letters to Meta — along with X, formerly known as Twitter — asking why they were not requiring these disclosures. One month later, Meta voluntarily implemented the policy.
In September, Klobuchar introduced a separate bipartisan bill with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley aimed at explicitly prohibiting the use of AI-generated content in political ads. In October, she told Bloomberg she thinks there’s a “good chance” Congress will pass legislation regulating AI in political ads before the end of the year.
Will voters care? The issue seems to have gained support among the public too: A recent poll by Axios and Morning Consult found that 78% of Americans surveyed think political advertisers who use AI should be “required to disclose how AI was used to create the ad.” By contrast, only 64% said the same when it came to how AI is used “in professional spaces.” So if candidates play fast and loose with generative AI in their campaigns, it could backfire on them at the voting booth.
Ian Bremmer: Algorithms are now shaping human beings' behavior
Everyone is a product of their environment. But where once the influences on young people were largely shaped by their physical community, algorithmic content online has opened a new and dangerous pathway to radicalization and violence, says Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer in a recent Global Stage livestream, from the sidelines of the 78th UN General Assembly.
That’s why the Christchurch Call’s work has resonated. The organization, founded by former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the wake of a heinous livestreamed mass shooting in the eponymous city, addresses a pressing need that was not handled before it had cost too many lives: online radicalization.
Watch the full Global Stage Livestream conversation here: Hearing the Christchurch Call
TikTok, Huawei, and the US-China tech arms race
“When the Chinese get good at something, all of the sudden, the United States says, ‘This is a national security risk.’”
That’s what Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group, argued on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer while discussing the increasingly hostile geopolitical environment between the two superpowers.