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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Deepfake War

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the impact of social media and campaign technology.

Josh Archote at the Tampa BayTimes :
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political campaign’s apparent use of fake, artificial intelligence-generated photos of former President Donald Trump hugging and kissing Anthony Fauci has raised concerns among experts about the new technology’s ability to deceive voters.

The pictures were part of a 40-second video posted last week by @DeSantisWarRoom on Twitter criticizing Trump — DeSantis’ chief rival for the GOP presidential nomination — for not firing Fauci, an infectious disease expert who was a part of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Many Republicans say Fauci advised keeping businesses and schools closed unnecessarily throughout the pandemic.

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In May, Trump shared a two-minute parody video on Truth Social and Instagram of DeSantis’ presidential announcement that made it look like DeSantis was making his announcement alongside the devil, Adolf Hitler and others. And Donald Trump Jr. days later shared a video that replaced Steve Carell’s character from the hit show “The Office” with a figure that looked and sounded like DeSantis. In the scene, the characters of the sitcom mock Carell’s character for unknowingly wearing a woman’s suit.