Staff Reports
In a move that’s got freedom-loving folks across Oregon up in arms, Republican lawmakers slammed the state’s secretary of state for hiring a shady U.K. company to police the internet during the 2022 midterm elections. That’s right, the former Oregon secretary of state thought it was a good idea to bring in Logically AI to flag what they call “misinformation.” But who really gets to decide what’s true and what’s not? That’s the big question here.
Oregon Republicans sue secretary of state for using AI to tag 'election-related misinformation' – Washington Examiner https://t.co/T1GEyxyKzv
— Fearless45 (@Fearless45Trump) January 22, 2024
This whole mess started when the secretary of state’s office decided to launch a pilot program aimed at sniffing out so-called “mis-, dis-, and mal-information” online. And what were they so worried about, you ask? Well, it turns out they were all in a tizzy over talk about mail-in ballots and election fraud. But the real kicker is that they were trying to silence folks who were pushing for voter ID and questioning the integrity of our elections. Can you believe that?
So, of course, some smart state legislators saw right through this nonsense and demanded that the secretary of state cut it out with the AI spying. They even made a stink about it in a letter, calling out the blatant violation of Oregonians’ First Amendment rights. I mean, who does the secretary of state think they are, playing internet police and squashing free speech like this?
But the secretary of state tried to weasel their way out of this mess, claiming they weren’t actually trampling on anyone’s rights because they weren’t removing anything from the internet. Yeah, right! Like that makes it okay to use AI to snoop around and slap warning labels on what people are saying about elections and mail-in ballots.
And get this — this isn’t the first time a secretary of state has tried to flex their censorship muscles. Those power-hungry types in Arizona pulled a similar stunt during the 2022 midterms, and it didn’t go over too well for them either. Seems like these left-leaning state officials just can’t help themselves when it comes to trying to silence the voices of everyday Americans.
Now, these Oregon Republican lawmakers aren’t taking this sitting down. They’ve gone and filed a lawsuit, saying that the secretary of state’s little AI project is trampling all over free speech. And can you blame them? It’s one thing to keep tabs on real threats, but trying to control what people think and say about our elections is a whole new level of Big Brother nonsense.
Let’s hope the courts see through this charade and put a stop to the secretary of state’s AI censorship dreams once and for all. After all, free speech is a pretty big deal, and messing with that is a surefire way to get folks riled up.
