This election cycle, I received a ton of flyers from both parties in my mailbox. Some of the content came in envelopes and was marked as sensitive or triggering. I opened them out curiosity. They contained salacious pictures of one of the candidates with a lot of quotes from various dubious sources that were meant to vouch for the images. The woman was depicted as immoral and having sexual interests that did not conform to family values one seeking public office should uphold. My first instinct was to think of the whole thing as AI generated and fake. Just not worth wasting any time over. I threw it in trash where it properly belonged.
Given the high likelihood that information that seeks to influence election outcomes is false, my strategy has been to filter out all information with no exception. The average person will not have the time or resources to sift real from fake news. If there is a significant probability of the news being fake, seems like a good enough strategy to discard it all. That leaves voter in an information void - not the worst thing given the alternatives. They need to work out for themselves how they want to research the candidates and make up their minds.
If a candidate has a voting record, that would be a good place to start. If they are a new entrant in the field, learning about their life before politics is useful - preferably looking at stories that are 5-10 years old. It is a time-consuming process but probably the best bet if you don't want to be manipulated by deep-fakes of all kinds. I have started to apply the same standard to most content these days. If there is any way that piece of content could influence anyone's thinking on any important issue, its worth being skeptical and treating it as fake until a person can (if they care enough or have the time) independently verify the facts.
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