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Wednesday, March 11, 2026 |
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Welcome to Wednesday. Here's the latest on David Ellison, Smartmatic, "The View," TIME, Anthropic, the Meta Oversight Board, "Project Hail Mary," and more. But first... |
How AI fakes cloud the Iran war |
Fake videos and images purporting to show Iran war scenes have "racked up tens of millions of views on social media platforms" this month, Daniel Dale reports in this detailed new piece for CNN.
"One fake video shows a fictional barrage of Iranian missiles supposedly striking Tel Aviv, Israel," he writes. "A second fake video depicts panicked people fleeing a supposed Iranian attack on an airport in Tel Aviv. A third fake video purports to show captured US special forces personnel being held at gunpoint by Iranian troops. Another fake video claims to show clips from security camera footage of Iranian military facilities being blown up."
Three of those clips, Dale writes, "appear to be AI, while one is real but from last year." He lists examples of phony still images, too.
Hany Farid, a University of California, Berkeley, professor specializing in digital forensics, sums up the situation this way: "The content is more realistic, the volume is higher, the penetration is deeper — this is our new reality. And it's really messy."
X's Grok is making things even messier by hallucinating info and making up AI images, as WIRED's David Gilbert wrote yesterday. So, the fakes are getting "better" while content moderation efforts are getting "worse." Check out Dale's full story here.
>> Related: CNN's Leila Gharagozlou says in this video report that hundreds of AI images have been circulating of Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public since taking over.
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This remains the best advice 👇🏻 |
I want to highlight this key line from Dale's story before turning to other topics: "Farid said the best way to remain accurately informed is to make a choice to get your news from credible journalistic outlets instead of scrolling through posts from 'random accounts' on social media."
I feel like a homer when I offer that type of advice. But it remains true: Established media outlets are at least trying to get things right and share real videos, while many of the "random accounts" either don't try at all, or outwardly are trying to mislead...
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Oversight Board urges Meta to do more |
The Meta Oversight Board found that the company's "methods for identifying deepfakes are 'not robust or comprehensive enough' to handle how quickly misinformation spreads during armed conflicts like the Iran war," Jess Weatherbed reports for The Verge. The "semi-independent body that guides the company’s content moderation practices" is "now calling on Meta to overhaul how it surfaces and labels AI-generated content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads."
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Trump officials vent to the NYT |
Well, leaking to The New York Times is one way to get through to the president:
"Inside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war. But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success," Mark Mazzetti, Tyler Pager and Edward Wong reported overnight.
>> Speaking of the NYT, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt earned some eyerolls yesterday when she said "we're not going to be harassed by The New York Times, who's been putting out a lot of articles" about the Iranian elementary school blown up by a missile. Does she think the Trump administration is the real victim here?
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"It just seems so insane based on what he ran on," Joe Rogan said to guest Michael Shellenberger on the latest episode of his podcast.
"I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?" Rogan said. "He ran on 'No more wars,' 'end these stupid, senseless wars,' and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it." TheWrap's Alyssa Ray has more here...
>> Judging from Rogan, who's always had an independent streak, Trump's all-over-the-map answers are creating some angst. The aforementioned Daniel Dale fact-checked Trump's "false, unproven and contradictory claims about the Iran war" here.
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Judge scolds Live Nation and DOJ |
Yesterday, the judge overseeing the antitrust trial against Live Nation "scolded attorneys for the Justice Department and Live Nation for secretly negotiating a settlement to resolve allegations the ticket giant operated as a monopoly while the trial was underway," CNN's Kara Scannell reports. There are some juicy quotes here...
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Smartmatic blames indictment on 2020 election lies |
Marshall Cohen reports: Voting technology company Smartmatic claimed Tuesday it was "vindictively" indicted last year by the Justice Department as part of Trump's "campaign of retribution" against perceived enemies he blames for his 2020 defeat. The company also claimed Trump’s DOJ went after them because they sued Trump's "allies and media defenders," including Fox News, for defamation.
The DOJ under Joe Biden charged Smartmatic executives in an alleged foreign bribery scheme related to the 2016 Philippines elections — not the 2020 US election. Last year, the Trump DOJ added Smartmatic as a new defendant. (Smartmatic denies wrongdoing, and all defendants pleaded not guilty.)
Smartmatic said its lawsuits against pro-Trump outlets are "putting it squarely in the crosshairs for retribution," and asked a judge to dismiss the "unconstitutional" charges. CNN reached out to the DOJ and White House for comment. There is a high bar for this motion to succeed — and unlike some other major Trump-era prosecutions, this case has been led by career DOJ lawyers, not Trump appointees.
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David Ellison visits Warner Bros. |
Paramount CEO David Ellison "made his first public appearance in front of an expectant Warner Bros. Discovery crowd Tuesday, speaking about his company’s impending acquisition of the Burbank-based studio," THR’s Borys Kit reports. He says Ellison "was dismissive of reports of huge layoffs."
>> Asked about CNN, Ellison "praised the outlet's recent coverage of the Iran war, saying he has the network on '24 hours a day,' either in his office or at his home," per Status. Ellison also said, "CNN has always had an incredible legacy and that's what we want to honor and maintain."
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FCC chair plays media critic again |
FCC chair Brendan Carr acted more like an armchair media critic during an appearance at a Breitbart event in DC yesterday. But Carr did reveal a bit about his action against ABC's "The View," which falls under the ABC News division.
"We have an enforcement proceeding underway right now, where Disney is continuing to maintain and defend that 'The View' is [a] bona fide news program, and we are working that matter up as an enforcement case right now," Carr said. For now this still seems to be just a nuisance for Disney and a pressure tactic by Trump's FCC...
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Thomson Reuters staffers protest ICE contract |
More than 200 Thomson Reuters employees "have signed a letter to management asking that the company not renew" a $22.8-million contract with ICE when the contract expires in May, the NYT's Kashmir Hill reports.
The parent company of Reuters news service provides ICE with "investigative software to pull public and private information about individuals, and to track license plates." Earlier this month, more than 200 staffers at Law360 and MLex signed a letter similarly requesting their parent company, RELX, drop a DHS contract…
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Press freedom groups call on ICE to release journalist |
A coalition of 41 press freedom organizations have published a letter calling for the release of Estefany Rodriguez, while "Rodriguez's attorneys have filed an emergency petition, seeking an immediate review of whether her detention is legal." A judge has set a March 17 hearing date. The attorneys claim "ICE's arbitrary actions serve to punish her for her public criticism of ICE," per the Tennessee Lookout...
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>> The AP Fund for Journalism added 50 more news organizations to its "landmark local news program" yesterday. (APFJ)
>> Dish TV owner Echostar says Gray Media has "cut off its customers' access to 226 channels in 113 markets as a result of a fee dispute." (Bloomberg)
>> With Disney Experiences chair Josh D'Amaro moving up to CEO next week, Disneyland president Thomas Mazloum has been tapped to replace him. (CNBC)
>> Correction: Yesterday, I misstated Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling's rank when he retired from the Army. Thank you, Dave, for writing in with the correction. Hertling's new book has broken into the top 20 on Amazon's new releases list, by the way.
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TIME goes inside Anthropic |
The new cover of TIME features Billy Perrigo and Harry Booth's story about the fight between Anthropic and the Pentagon and what it portends for the future. The reporters "spent three days interviewing executives, engineers, product heads, and safety leaders" at Anthropic to "figure out how what was once the eccentric little brother in the race for artificial intelligence has suddenly become the pacesetter." Here's the cover story...
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CNN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate "conducted conversations with 10 of the most popular AI chatbots" to see if the bots would help teen users plan violence.
"Across hundreds of tests, CNN and CCDH presented as two teen users" and "asked questions that indicated a troubled state of mind and potential intent to carry out acts of violence. Eight out of the 10 chatbots assisted them a majority of the time." Read all the findings from Katie Polglase, Allegra Goodwin and Allison Gordon here...
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More of today's tech talk |
>> Meta has acquired Moltbook, "the social media network where AI agents interact with one another autonomously," Hadas Gold reports. (CNN)
>> Nielsen's metadata/ID services company Gracenote "has sued OpenAI for copyright infringement," Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
>> X Money, "the social media platform's digital payment system, will enter early public access next month." (Reuters)
>> ICYMI: Following pushback from authors and others, Grammarly said it will allow writers to opt out of its new "expert review" feature, Casey Newton wrote. (Platformer)
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'Project Hail Mary' is a critical hit |
Liam Reilly writes: The review embargo is up on Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's "Project Hail Mary" for Amazon MGM Studios, and the critics are raving. Several say it's the first great movie of 2026. TheWrap's William Bibbiani called it an "awe-inspiring sci-fi spectacle," and THR's David Rooney labeled it a "thrilling space odyssey warmed by humanity and hope." The flick boasts 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 80% on Metacritic. It opens March 20...
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A few more Hollywood headlines |
>> CNN and Variety are teaming up for special Oscars night coverage, starting with a red carpet pre-show hosted by Elizabeth Wagmeister and Ramin Setoodeh. The show starts Sunday at 4 p.m. ET. (Variety)
>> The WGA negotiating committee's co-chair says "the union will seek to affirm the principle that writers should be paid for derivative uses of their work, including AI training." (Variety)
>> Universal Pictures is developing a Bon Jovi biopic. (TheWrap)
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