this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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The call, an apparent imitation or digital manipulation of the president's voice, says, "Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again."

A prominent New Hampshire Democrat plans to file a complaint with the state attorney general over an apparent robocall that appears to encourage supporters of President Joe Biden not to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary.

The voice in the message is familiar — even presidential — as it’s an apparent imitation or digital manipulation of Biden’s voice.

“What a bunch of malarkey,” the voice message begins, echoing a favorite term Biden has uttered before.

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 161 points 9 months ago (32 children)

I feel like these types of things will be especially bad this year. They won't be able to catch those responsible fast enough to prevent impact on the primaries, but they should be looking to tie these to the Republicans, and disqualify them from the actual election. We know it's them. It's always them.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 82 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This kind of thing should be treated as sedition because it's a direct attempt to undermine democratic processes. People should be scared shitless to even think about fucking with an election.

Or if it's a foreign country it should be considered an act of war just as much as an airstrike.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 28 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don't know about sedition, but there are already a ton of more specific laws regarding election interference. Things like deliberately telling voters the wrong date, location, or eligibility are usually covered.

The only thing new here is the highly convincing impersonation, which may (or may not) be covered by other laws.

Of note, this will almost entirely be state laws rather than federal. With a few restrictions, each state runs its own elections by its own rules. Which means the (criminal) charge in New Hampshire is different from the one in South Carolina, the one in Texas, etc. Rarely do the feds get involved.

[–] ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

That type of impersonation could be argued as civil fraud. Whoever did this deserves to catch RICO charges because what they're doing is basically racketeering.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

imo its all that plus counts of impersonating a public official /identity theft

[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 34 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 77 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah, that's what he said. The GOP.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

Essentially the same thing.

[–] Neato@ttrpg.network 30 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Why is it so hard for phone companies to stop this? They explicitly allow unverified numbers to just call whoever on their networks. Is there really no way to stop number spoofing?

[–] highenergyphysics@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The same reason 5-6 model years of Hyundais are worth $0 now

It would be a minuscule cost to the company and they’re not legally required to implement it

Except due to the FCCs complete regulatory capture, the telecoms have now completely ruined voice calls as a form of communication to the extent that nobody even picks up calls on their personal lines anymore.

Remember when you could answer the phone and reasonably expect it would be relevant to your life?

[–] Neato@ttrpg.network 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Indeed. I screen every call now and check the voicemails.

The same reason 5-6 model years of Hyundais are worth $0 now

What is this referencing?

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Hyundai and Kia cut costs by excluding industry standard engine immobilizers in their vehicles.

Most cars have a chip in the key, which is read by the car when you insert it into the keyhole, to verify the key is legit. Even if you cut a new copy of the key, the engine won’t start without that chip. That’s an engine immobilizer. It also prevents people from just brute-forcing the keyway into turning, with something like a screwdriver. Because again, no chip means the car won’t start.

Hyundai and Kia decided to forego these, as a cost cutting measure. And now those Hyundais and Kia’s are virtually worthless (and nearly impossible to insure,) because car thieves know how easy they are to steal. In the past few years, as the methods have gotten posted on places like YouTube and TikTok, anyone with a screwdriver can go steal a Hyundai or Kia. And theft rates have skyrocketed, to the point that some insurance companies are outright refusing to issue policies for them because they know it’ll eventually be stolen.

As for why it was referenced here, my guess is that they were making a parallel about how the technology to prevent spoofed phone numbers already exists. But the companies have decided not to implement them, as a cost-cutting (and anti-competition) measure.

Currently, some phone carriers already offer caller verification. But that only works for internal numbers. For instance, an AT&T caller dialing another AT&T phone. But the companies have refused to cooperate, and allow competitors to access their internal verification systems. So for instance, if an AT&T customer calls a T-Mobile customer, both AT&T and T-Mobile can verify internal calls. But neither company wants to play nice with the other, so they refuse to verify each others’ numbers. So when a spammer spoofs a number, any kind of verification would only be effective if the spammer has the same carrier as the target.

[–] Neato@ttrpg.network 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Wooow. Holy shit. Those car makers really fucked up. Those class action suits should have mandates to replace the cars or install immobilizers.

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

I think that they did. My brother in law had an affected model, and I know he brought it in to get one installed. Not sure if he went out of pocket, but pretty sure it was covered.

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[–] atp2112@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

The fact that Hyundai and Kia chose not to include an industry standard anti-theft system, leading to them being piss easy to steal

[–] platypus_plumba@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I have my phone set to block all unknown number calls. I was getting around 40 calls per day.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh, it’s not gonna be just robocall stuff. It’s gonna be a full-on inundation of deepfake videos, and they’re going to be pushing from one side way harder than the other.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago

Also, it allows you to say whatever you want and then claim it was a deep fake if someone calls you out. E.g. Roger Stone calling for the murder of Eric Stalwell and Jerry Nadler.

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[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 36 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It starts... This will be the year to decide if we can have functioning information systems and safe, democratic elections in the emerging age of easy AI manipulation.

It's a bad sign that there are no widely, commercially available free tools (from governments or otherwise) to help us confirm the validity of these things. We likely need something as ubiquitous as "googling" to stand against the incoming avalanche of truly fake information.

There will be elections across the globe this year to truly test humanity. I'm hopeful, but I fear we aren't close to ready. Think about what you would do if you suspected a political manipulation was AI generated today? That's one aspect, and you're on Lemmy so you're likely a bit more capable with technology generally (and you probably still don't know what to do). Now, think about your grandmother in Milwaukee... what will she do?

[–] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com 13 points 9 months ago

Yea, that's not happening.

Most of the incompetent morons in both the judicial sector and the lawmaking sector don't understand how a phone works or router functions let alone a grasp of the current eras technology and how it can be abused.

Serious public education with critical thinking at its core was the only way to combat this and it's way too late for that.

Sit back and enjoy the show, there's no going back now and we're all going to burn for the incredible amount of idiocy that has been allowed to fester.

[–] DontMakeMoreBabies@kbin.social 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Someone should do this for Trump - his dumbass supporters would probably fall for it.

[–] Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world 39 points 9 months ago (7 children)

There’s nothing you could make a fake Trump say that could be worse than what he has already said. Conservatives like the fact that he’s a piece of shit. It gives them permission to be pieces of shit, too.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't have to be worse; it just has to reach a different conclusion. In this example, you don't need to convince a Trump voter to abandon him, just not vote for him.

To be clear, I don't support such a move. I'm just discussing the effectiveness of a strategy.

[–] ThePantser@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Have Trump say he has decided to support abortion and gay marriage. There will be enough outrage from the simpletons that it might sway a few.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 9 points 9 months ago

In my experience, they are more likely to convince themselves that they've always supported those, and it's the "demonrats" that opposed it.

Or else they'll dismiss it as saying what people want to hear, and that when he said the opposite is when he was being honest.

Trump supporters rarely care about actual policy.

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[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

deleted by creator

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago (4 children)

These traitors should be prosecuted just like Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman did when they did the same type of traitorous bullshit.

[–] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

But with actual jail this time, right?

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

One would dream but highly doubtful. Still having that conviction on their record is good to mark them as traitors.

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[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 6 points 9 months ago

According to Wikipedia they didn't even get jail time. Weak sauce.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

It's unlikely that it's a United States citizen making these robocalls. Anyone stupid enough to break multiple federal and state laws doing this would be indoctrinated enough to think Trump would win without their help.

My money is on foreign interference.

[–] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Meanwhile James O'Keefe is still walking free

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 18 points 9 months ago

See when I asked my lawyer friend if we could do something like this to suppress Republican votes she said it would be multiple kinds of illegal! I guess I didn't ask enough about "would I be caught and punished?"

[–] ynthrepic@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ironic how the reverse will never happen. Only the right-wing benefit from less people voting. It's such a shit asymmetry.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 8 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


MANCHESTER, N.H. — A prominent New Hampshire Democrat plans to file a complaint with the state attorney general over an apparent robocall that appears to encourage supporters of President Joe Biden not to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary.

Biden’s name does not appear on Tuesday’s ballot, a consequence of state elections officials setting the date of the primary ahead of South Carolina’s on Feb. 3, the first sanctioned contest of the 2024 nominating race under new Democratic National Committee rules.

“I want them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible because this is an attack on democracy,” said Sullivan, an attorney, who believes the call could violate several laws.

She said she also plans to engage federal law enforcement in addition to the state attorney general’s office.

Sullivan served as party chair in 2002, when a so-called phone-jamming effort was carried out during a hotly contested U.S. Senate race.

The Biden campaign, which says it is not involved in the write-in effort in New Hampshire, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


The original article contains 621 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

Nice and legal!

[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

This is some nasty work. I didn't factor in AI being used like this.

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