Election authorities have called for Illinois voters to be on the lookout for misinformation in the lead-up to the March primary. For the state’s youngest voters, knowing what is and what is not legitimate information is being learned in the classroom.
It’s year two of a first-in-the-nation law requiring all Illinois public high schools to teach media literacy, teaching students how to access information; evaluate the source’s accuracy; making their own media messages; assessing how media messages trigger emotions and behavior; and social responsibility.
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In a Springfield High School classroom last month, librarian Michael Havener was teaching students in how to spot biases both in the media and those they hold internally.
Havener has been with Springfield School District 186 for 17 years now and is currently the librarian and media specialist. Beyond the hardback covers, his instruction in many ways is centered on where high schoolers increasingly access information: social media.
According to the Pew Research Center, 44% of U.S. adults ages 18-29 routinely rely on Tik Tok for news — by far the highest consumption of any age demographic. More Americans overall have come to the video-sharing platform for news, increasing by more than 20% between 2020 and 2023.
While social media sites say they are taking steps at countering its spread, the threat of misinformation and disinformation remains prevalent globally. Avoiding these sites is not the answer, Havener said, but rather emphasizing responsible use.
“I really think that if we don’t talk to students about this, if we don’t talk to them about using this technology responsibly, then they’re more prone to use it in ways that are abusive,” he told The State Journal-Register. “Or to be taken in by malicious intent, which is going to happen it’s already happening.”
Teaching media literacy became a requirement in 2021 through legislation signed by Gov. JB Pritzker. The Illinois State Board of Education partnered with the Illinois Media Literacy Coalition to create a framework, not a curriculum, for how media literacy could be taught.
By some accounts, the 2024 election is seen as ripe ground for misinformation to run rampant due to a growing presence of deepfakes created by artificial intelligence.
Already in this election cycle, political deepfakes have been created falsely depicting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropping out of the race months before actually doing so. In New Hampshire, an AI-generated robocall mimicking President Joe Biden’s voice went out before days before the state’s primary in January.
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State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, D-Bridgeview, said the Biden deepfake was “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“These can be made in a matter of minutes, and they are indistinguishable from reality,” he said. “And that’s a very serious danger for our elections.”
In response to the Biden robocall, the Federal Communications Commission outlawed them earlier this month. Other states such as Michigan and Minnesota have also regulated the use of AI in political advertising. Now, Illinois is looking to follow suit.
Rashid, a co-chair of the Generative AI and Natural Language Processing Task Force, is leading House Bill 4644, which would prohibit the use of political deepfakes that falsely represents a candidate intending to hurt their electability within 90 days of an election. Fellow state Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview, is leading similar legislation.
If passed, the bill would permit candidates depicted in a deepfake to seek legal action against the perpetuators. Penalties for violators range from a Class 3 misdemeanor all the way to Class 3 felony for subsequent offenders, a conviction of 5-10 years.
The legislation comes after lawmakers advanced deepfake legislation last year, allowing legal action for victims of deepfake “revenge porn.” That bill previously applied more broadly to all forms of digital forgeries, but was amended following First Amendment concerns to focus more narrowly to sexual images.
The ACLU of Illinois was among the opposition to the earlier version, but has yet to file a position on the pending legislation. Rashid said he crafted his bill with support from Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, and has held conversations with the Attorney General’s office to ensure its legality.
“We know that the First Amendment is not intended to undermine our democracy by having by having a person’s image and audio be used to deceive voters,” he said.
Deepfakes could still be allowed so long as political campaigns clearly disclose when they use AI in advertisements.
The legislation also would establish protections for parody use and news outlets that disseminate the material online and in newspapers, television and radio.
HB 4644 is in the House Ethics and Elections Committee but stands no chance of being passed prior to the March 19 primary. Rashid is optimistic that it will be signed into law before the November general election.
Contact Patrick M. Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter
