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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Rachel Leingang

X’s AI chatbot spread voter misinformation – and election officials fought back

Elon Musk in suit points a finger
Elon Musk, the owner of X. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Soon after Joe Biden announced he was ending his bid for re-election, misinformation started spreading online about whether a new candidate could take the president’s place.

Screenshots that claimed a new candidate could not be added to ballots in nine states moved quickly around Twitter, now X, racking up millions of views. The Minnesota secretary of state’s office began getting requests for factchecks of these posts, which were flat-out wrong – ballot deadlines had not passed, giving Kamala Harris plenty of time to have her name added to ballots.

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