Oregon’s Secretary of State recruited an artificial intelligence firm to monitor social media for “threats” to election security as part of a program that frequently flagged conservative opinions, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Throughout the 2022 midterm election cycle, the firm Logically AI sent state officials weekly “misinformation” reports that would routinely flag posts from conservatives on a variety of hot-button issues, including mail-in ballots, voter ID and “dark money” in elections, according to slides reviewed by the DCNF. Now, the Secretary of State’s office is looking to re-hire Logically AI to monitor social media chatter during the 2024 election cycle — a move that faces stiff resistance from state Republicans, voters and even talk show hosts.
“It’s not the role of the state to be the arbiter of truth and to suppress speech that they disagree with,” said Republican Oregon State Representative Ed Diehl, who obtained hundreds of internal documents on the state’s social media monitoring program through a public records request. He shared those documents with the DCNF.
“Oregonians expect the Secretary of State to improve election transparency and integrity. Stifling debate only fuels more doubt and uncertainty about our elections,” Diehl told the DCNF.
Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade opened up about the 2022 pilot project in a November letter to state lawmakers. Griffin-Valade said her agency used Logically’s reports to monitor online information “threats,” adding they forwarded content posing risks to “life and safety” to law enforcement agencies and used messaging channels to counter what they deemed false narratives.
“During our pilot project in 2022, we identified threats to the lives of both Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates, and we were able to elevate those to the appropriate authorities,” Griffin-Valade wrote in the letter.
But Griffin-Valade also disclosed that her office was soliciting another contract for “online media monitoring,” which she wrote, “will be an important part of that security plan during the 2024 election cycle.”
The Secretary of State’s new contract solicitation details plans to send problematic posts to social media companies for removal on a “case-by-case basis.” In November, Griffin-Valade’s office signaled its intent to award the contract to Logically, a memo obtained by the DCNF shows. A separate cost proposal shows Logically offered Oregon a “discounted rate” of $130,000 to renew social media monitoring efforts.
Oregon lawmakers, GOP officials, voters and talk show hosts filed a court motion in December to block the contract solicitation, alleging it would lead to unlawful suppression of free speech. Oregon’s attorney general filed its opposition to the motion in January. The case is still pending in court.
‘Anti-Government Sentiment’
Logically’s Oregon-commissioned misinformation, disinformation and malinformation (MDM) reports often included conservative opinions regarding elections, such as posts criticizing election administration in the state, censorship and money in politics.
Griffin-Valade asserts her office has “no authority, ability, or desire to censor speech” and stresses her commitment to combatting “false” content, but documents obtained by the DCNF show its reports repeatedly targeted opinions rather than focusing only on false claims.
For instance, one August 2022 report categorized anti-mail-in voting and pro-voter ID views as examples of a “high” risk “MDM narrative” to combat.
“Twitter users called for Oregon to eliminate mail-in ballot voting because the system is insecure and vulnerable to voter fraud,” it states. “These users expressed support for voting in person that requires voter IDs … This narrative could decrease Oregon voters’ confidence in the legitimacy of mail-in ballots as an election procedure.”(RELATED: Zuckerberg-Backed Nonprofit Launches Campaign On AI ‘Misinformation’ In 2024 Election, Targeting Key Dem Voters)
Many flagged posts were about mail-in voting creating a Democratic election monopoly in Oregon. The state implemented universal mail-in voting in 1998, and it has not had a Republican governor since 1987.
“Oregon isn’t as Blue as everyone thinks we’ve just been mail in voting longer than any other state. Haven’t had a republican governor since,” one post flagged by Logically states.
Logically also tracked social media users who posted favorably about the “Twitter files,” which it characterized as a worrisome MDM trend in a December 2022 report to state officials. The “Twitter Files” refers to a series of stories documenting Twitter employees coordinating with government officials to censor largely conservative viewpoints on social media. But Logically flagged posts mentioning this meticulously reported storyline as threatening.
“This discourse could lead to increased anti-government and anti-Big Tech sentiment and therefore increased dissemination of related MDM narratives,” the December 2022 report states. “Users claimed that the ‘Twitter files’ exposed how the DNC [Democratic National Committee], FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], and Big Tech (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and Google) interfered in the 2020 election by suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story … Users also claimed that POTUS 45 [former President Donald Trump] would have won the 2020 election if the information was not suppressed.”
Moreover, Logically flagged posts positing that donations from Democratic megadonors were influencing Oregon elections as “high risk,” according to an October 2022 report.
“Users on Twitter and Facebook implied that Oregon’s elections are being controlled by money from out-of-state individuals, companies, or countries (e.g., George Soros, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, China),” the report states. “Some accused Oregon US Senator Jeff Merkley and other democratic politicians of receiving ‘dark money’ donations. All posts within this narrative were replies to posts by Oregon US Senator Jeff Merkley. This narrative increased to high risk this reporting period (previously low risk) due to increased dissemination. This narrative could decrease Oregon voters’ confidence in the outcomes of elections.”
This report included a screenshot of a tweet that claimed George Soros contributed $128 million to the “DNC” in the 2022 cycle. Merkley, who’s now a Democratic senator, benefited from $178,000 in “dark money” spending from outside groups in his 2014 congressional run, according to OpenSecrets.
Soros contributed $178.8 million to Democrats and $0 to Republicans during the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to OpenSecrets. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative sent hundreds of millions of dollars, dubbed “Zuckbucks,” to an organization called the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which used the funds to help administer elections in 2020 in largely Democratic districts in multiple states.
Logically advised against responding to this narrative, instead suggesting to “monitor” it.
In a September 2022 report, Logically flagged the narrative that “Democrats rely on illegal immigrants’ votes to win elections” as “medium risk.”
“This narrative originated from national-level discourse and was amplified by users that self-identify as being from Oregon or from users containing ‘Oregon’ in their social media handle,” reads the report. “This narrative could negatively impact Oregon voters’ trust in Oregon’s electoral procedures and outcomes.”
Logically advised the Secretary of State’s office to put out information regarding Oregon voter eligibility to counter this narrative.
‘Censoring Of Citizens’
Several Oregon GOP lawmakers sent a letter to Griffin-Valade’s office in November, pushing back against her office’s dealings with Logically on free speech grounds.
“The Secretary of State’s Office has chosen to monitor and encourage the censoring of citizens who voice legitimate concerns, some of which may question government practices or policies, on public platforms such as social media,” the lawmakers wrote. “We reject the idea that any elected official or agency has the authority to constantly surveil, track, and attempt to suppress or manipulate the free speech of Oregon’s citizens.”
Griffin-Valade denied the project would infringe on free speech in her November response letter to lawmakers.
“I share your concerns about Oregonians’ first amendment rights, and you will be pleased to learn that nothing in this [contract solicitation] impacts free speech,” Griffin-Valade wrote. “The purpose of the proposed system will be to review publicly available information on websites, social media, and blogs, and notify us of threats and misinformation in a manner similar to a Google news alert.”
“We will do two things with these notifications: 1) when there is a threat to life or infrastructure, we will notify the relevant law enforcement agencies, and 2) when there is false information about our elections, we will use our communications channels to share accurate information with voters,” Griffin-Valade wrote.
Logically aimed to combat MDM during the Oregon 2022 midterm elections by leveraging its “preferred status” as a “trusted entity” with social media platforms, according to its proposal to receive the 2022 contract. The status appears to grant the company the ability to submit an unlimited number of content removal requests.
The Secretary of State’s office, in an email response to lawmaker queries, recently acknowledged it “reported instances of verifiably false information about election operations during the 2022 election” to social media platforms. It added it only stopped this practice after November 2022 because its “reports were ignored by social media companies,” asserting it is unaware of any social media censorship occurring as a result of the reports.
Logically uses AI to gather data from 100 million internet sources, constantly monitoring over a million domains and dozens of social media platforms, according to its proposal. It claims it has the world’s biggest fact-checking team and keeps a database that updates “factual information and debunked pieces of content.”
“Any suggestion that we engage in censorship, surveillance, or the limiting of free speech is inaccurate and wrong,” a Logically spokesperson told the DCNF. “Logically works for governments to identify threats to life and property and narratives containing threats to the election process. Our sole focus is to identify threats and emerging to election officials and the election process.”
Logically “serves on” the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Election Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), including its misinformation and disinformation subcommittee, the company’s proposal states.
The DCNF previously reported that CISA’s misinformation and disinformation subcommittee enlisted left-wing research groups and pro-censorship organizations, including former Twitter chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde. Gadde faced criticism for censoring conservatives on Twitter and played a key role in the platform censoring the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.
“The CISA-funded EI-ISAC was used … during the 2020 election cycle as ‘a single point of reporting and tracking for misinformation across all channels and platforms,'” according to a House Judiciary Committee report in November.
Wow.
I attempted to set up a meeting with the @OregonSOS to discuss my letter and the Secretary of State’s responses regarding Mis-, Dis-, and Malformation (MDM) and the proposal with the AI surveillance company Logically.
Here’s their response:
“The Secretary declines the…
— Rep. Real Diehl (@Real_EdDiehl) December 30, 2023
The Oregon Secretary of State’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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