Tech

Left-Wing Groups Urge Congress To Help Censor ‘Climate Disinformation’

(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Accountable Tech)

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Jason Cohen Contributor
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Left-wing groups are demanding that Congress create legislation to censor “climate disinformation” produced by artificial intelligence (AI), according to a letter sent by Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD).

The letter, sent to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, is signed by pro-censorship groups like Accountable Tech, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and Check My Ads, demanding strict AI regulations, including mandated assessments on its impact regarding “climate disinformation.” On Wednesday, Schumer will host the first of nine AI insight forums to establish bipartisan legislation to regulate AI, featuring technology and civil society experts as speakers.

The letter cites the threat of “the ease and speed with which people and organizations can use [AI models] to produce and distribute climate disinformation threatens to perpetuate climate denialism and slow efforts to fight climate change.”

Furthermore, the groups demand that legislation include “implementing rigorous safeguards against the mass production of disinformation” and supplying “the sources of evidence for factual claims [AI models] make,” according to the letter. (RELATED: Chuck Schumer Lays Groundwork For Artificial Intelligence Regulation)

Accountable Tech is a registered trade name of Democrat-linked consultant firm Arabella Advisors’ affiliate North Fund, and also receives funding from left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network. Accountable Tech recently released a report citing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a model for how federal agencies should regulate AI, asserting the technology may worsen “bias and discrimination.”

The group additionally led an effort to boycott advertising on Twitter after billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company.

CCDH advocates for demonetizing “disinformation,” and published a report titled “The Toxic Ten” calling on Facebook and Google to remove advertisements from ten news publication websites that the group asserts espouse climate “misinformation,” including Breitbart, Newsmax, The Washington Times, The Federalist Papers and The Daily Wire.

Check My Ads is an organization that urges advertisers to leave right-leaning media such as Fox News in order to “defund hate speech and disinformation,” according to its website.

Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) helped found CAAD, which is now a coalition of over 50 groups, according to its website.

The State Department is sending the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) almost $250,000 for a program to fight “hate and polarization” in Eastern Europe. The ISD is a British nongovernmental organization funded by Omidyar’s Omidyar Group and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as well as European government agencies.

ISD frequently classifies conservative discourse and journalism as hate and/or disinformation, including “abortion misinformation,” “COVID-19 disinformation” and “climate disinformation,” according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of the organization’s materials.

CAAD, Accountable Tech, CCDH, Check My Ads, ISD and Schumer did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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