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Your Social Magazine. Curating the world's stories to inform and inspire your day. Get the app to explore your interests all in one place: https://about.flipboard.com/download-flipboard Creator of @surf.social.

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It's time to tune into the midterms! 🗳️ Today we're launching Vote 2026 — your destination for trusted election coverage, fact checks and analysis. Explore Vote 2026: flipboard.com/@electioncen... Read more from Flipboard's @carlsullivan.bsky.social: about.flipboard.com/inside-flipb...

about.flipboard.comTime to Tune In for the MidtermsThe midterm elections are just weeks away and we need informed voters casting their ballots. At Flipboard, we are continuing our mission to bring fact-based journalism to the public.

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Flipboard Tech Desk
@techdesk.flipboard.social.ap.brid.gy

As photorealistic political deepfakes circulate on the internet, OpenAI attempts to put some guardrails in place to stop us from being fooled ahead of the U.S. midterms. https://flip.it/02tCmh #Politics #AI #Deepfakes

cnet.comOpenAI Has a Surprising Defense Against Election DeepfakesOne of the biggest problems of the AI age is that AI deepfakes are now so realistic that they’re practically indistinguishable from real photos. That matters a lot during election season, when voters are looking for reliable, truthful information on their candidates and polling sites. OpenAI is implementing a new safeguard to prevent people from making political deepfakes. The US midterm election is only a week away on Nov. 3. Tech issues are taking center stage in many races, especially as AI and data center concerns rise for folks across the country. (Check out CNET’s guide to spotting political scams.) If you were to go into ChatGPT today and ask it to generate an image “depicting election interference or that may discourage voting,” as OpenAI put it in an Oct. 20 update, the chatbot would create the image, given it doesn’t violate any other content guidelines. But it will be in an illustrated or cartoon style — all requests to have the image appear photorealistic should be ignored. More from CNET For example, CNET asked ChatGPT to create an image of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers standing outside a polling location. Every such prompt generated an image in a cartoon style. A photorealistic version of this kind of image would likely spark anxiety, if not outright panic, for voters. Every edit request for ChatGPT to make an image of ICE officers outside a polling location generated a picture in a cartoon style to avoid confusion for people who see it.Screenshot by Katelyn Chedraoui/CNET The idea is to make it harder for bad actors to create realistic political deepfakes that could interfere with or question the integrity of an election without stymying people’s ability to create political content in general. In another example, CNET Managing Editor Jon Reed couldn’t trick ChatGPT into creating a photojournalist-style image that showed a voting machine recording the wrong choice. Voting machines recording results other than a voter’s selection is a common election myth.Screenshot by Jon Reed/CNET “The problem with deepfakes isn’t social commentary, it’s deception. So our aim is to degrade the evidentiary value of an image, while preserving room for illustrations and social commentary,” Josh Lawson, OpenAI’s head of elections, told CNET. The goal is to “make our platform less useful to bad actors by adding another layer of friction,” he said. This cartoonification of AI images is a practical way to make political deepfakes a little harder to create. Improving AI image models, like ChatGPT Images 2.5, is a double-edged sword. Newer models make fewer errors or hallucinations, making better content for creators. But removing those flubs makes it even harder for everyone else to identify AI-created content with the naked eye. Verification or AI labeling methods have tried to help, but those methods aren’t industry-wide nor foolproof. When I asked Gemini maker Google about any precautions it is taking specifically for AI images, a spokesperson pointed me to its midterm election policy, which says the company is “rolling out additional protections to limit the creation of misleading election-related images” but doesn’t include any details on how. Anthropic doesn’t have a traditional image or video generator, and a spokesperson told CNET that any attempts to use Claude to deceive voters or disrupt elections violate its policies. The company also posted this general election guidance earlier this month. Claude refused to make a photorealistic image with potentially “sensitive election-related” content.Screenshot by Katelyn Chedraoui/CNET There’s no guarantee that OpenAI will keep this system in place once the election cycle is over. But it’s a solid sign from one of the biggest AI labs that it is taking its role in safeguarding American elections’ integrity at least somewhat seriously. For more, check out what to do when you’ve been deepfaked and everything to know about the Take It Down Act. Katelyn Chedraoui Reporter 2 Katelyn is a reporter with CNET covering artificial intelligence, including chatbots, image and video generators. Her work explores how new AI technology is infiltrating our lives, shaping the content we consume on social media and affecting the people behind the screens. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in media and journalism. You can reach her at kchedraoui@cnet.com. See full bio ### The Latest from Katelyn * OpenAI Has a Surprising Defense Against Election Deepfakes * Canva Chases AI Domination With a New AI Image Model for Designers * Why You Shouldn’t Use AI Chatbots to Decide Who to Vote For ## LATEST IN NEWS See all news ### Daylight Saving Time Ends This Weekend. Here’s When (and Why) the Clocks Go Back ### Walter Koenig, Star Trek’s Original Chekov, Dies at 90: ‘He Loved You Too’ ### Rivian Halloween Update Turns R1, R2 Into Ghostbusting EVs Through Nov. 2 ### Apple’s ‘Pro and Tell’ Event: Everything Announced So Far This Week
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Skip the chatbot when trying to decide who to vote for. @cnet.com explains why. Find that story and more in our Vote 2026 hub, tracking key races nationwide and the issues shaping the election, from AI to the economy. flipboard.com/@electioncen... #Vote2026 #Midterms

flipboard.comVote 2026 | @ElectionCentral | FlipboardEverything you need to know about the U.S. midterm elections, from the issues to the potential impact on the Trump agenda. Curated by Flipboard's human editors. Follow this Magazine to get the Politic...
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Catch up on a wild NFL Week 7. Seattle beats Kansas City 20-3, Atlanta hands San Francisco its first loss and Minnesota stands alone at 6-0. The Sports Desk breaks it down. 🏈 flipboard.com/@thesportsde...

flipboard.comNFL Week 7 Roundup: Defense Prevails on Wild SundayHow in the world is Minnesota 6-0? The Vikings’ defense once again showed why it may be the league’s best. But is it historically great? Here’s what to know after a Sunday that started with 42-year-ol...

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Flipboard Tech Desk
@techdesk.flipboard.social.ap.brid.gy

ChatGPT is creating intimate digital profiles of its users including personal data and "psychological insights." @Gizmodo has the details: https://flip.it/g4XQWE #ChatGPT #AI

gizmodo.comgizmodo.comHyperpersonalization has become the name of the game in AI chatbots. A chatbot’s ability to learn and remember a user’s specific wants and needs, then tailor its responses accordingly, is a big part of what makes it so appealing. But that personalization isn’t just a product of sophisticated technology. It also depends on the vast amount of personal information users willingly share with chatbots. Most of the time, they might not be completely aware of the extent and implications of the data they provide. Although conversations with AI chatbots may seem like isolated exchanges, systems like ChatGPT can retain information from past interactions and use it to personalize future responses through memory processes that aren’t always transparent to users. The AI memory then uses this to build a detailed profile of the user, a mechanism researchers in a study published earlier this year call “the algorithmic self-portrait.” “Memory creates what we refer to as the algorithmic self-portrait —a new form of personalization derived from users’ self-disclosed information divulged within private conversations,” the researchers wrote in the study. The team included scientists from Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Software Systems and Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, along with several other institutions. To better understand how these algorithmic self-portraits take shape, the researchers examined ChatGPT conversation histories donated by 80 users who obtained copies of their data under European privacy laws. They identified 2,050 memory entries across conversations from 65 of those participants. They found that, most of the time, memories were created unilaterally by the AI chatbot. In 96% of the cases they studied, ChatGPT created or updated memories without the user explicitly asking it to do so. The researchers also discovered that most of these memories were drawn directly from information users had shared in conversations. But some were based on inferences that weren’t necessarily correct. For example, when one user asked ChatGPT to recommend bands similar to Nirvana, the chatbot created a memory stating that the user liked Nirvana, even though they had never explicitly said so. Since the researchers conducted their study, ChatGPT’s memory system has become even more complex. In June, OpenAI introduced an upgraded system that automatically synthesizes information from past conversations to maintain an evolving profile of users’ preferences, goals, and personal circumstances. Rather than simply compiling individual memories, the system continually updates its understanding of users based on what it considers relevant information. Users can review a summary of what ChatGPT remembers about them, but OpenAI acknowledges that the summary doesn’t necessarily include everything the system knows or uses to personalize responses. Data has always been central to Silicon Valley’s business. For years, internet giants like Google and Meta have made enormous fortunes collecting information about users and using it to sell targeted advertising. So the collection of personal data and its general implications are not a new problem, but the proliferation of AI chatbots changes the dynamic a bit. While people may be accustomed to the idea that social media platforms track their posts, likes, and other activity, conversations with AI chatbots can feel much more private, even when the companies operating them retain and analyze those exchanges. Chatbots are specifically designed to feel both human-like and like a private space. So when you’re conversing with it, it could feel like talking to a trustworthy stranger that could give you advice as an unbiased third party distant to your life, but that’s where the privacy dangers lie, according to Lorrie Cranor, director of Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab Security and Privacy Institute. “Humans will sit next to a stranger on a plane or a bus or a train and tell them things they would never tell people that they’re going to see again, and I think some people think of AI in a similar way,” Cranor said. “But the difference is the stranger is unlikely to be recording the conversation —occasionally that does happen, but very rarely. The AI definitely is recording the conversation.” In a prior study, the researchers had found that users were increasingly turning to chatbots like ChatGPT to get advice on sensitive topics like health, finance, mental health, and employment, so much so that it was “now becoming more like a social partner than just a tool,” lead author Abhisek Dash said. Building upon that finding, this time around they also looked into what kinds of sensitive information get stored by the chatbot and just how. They found that 52% of the memory entries contained information about users’ psychological states, including their desires, intentions, emotions, and beliefs. “Earlier, the platforms had one objective: to sell you ads and to mediate an interaction between you and an advertiser,” Dash said. “But now, they are actually talking to you, so they may want to know more about you so that they can have an effective conversation.” Those two business models are no longer mutually exclusive. OpenAI began introducing advertising to ChatGPT in February, and the company says it can use information from users’ past conversations and memories to personalize the ads they see, provided they’ve enabled personalized advertising. OpenAI says that advertisers do not have access to users’ conversations or memories, and that ads do not influence the chatbot’s responses. But the arrangement illustrates how the detailed personal profiles chatbots build can also become valuable advertising tools. So the AI chatbots’ ability to gather and hold information about you to create a detailed profile is what makes the technology work. But it brings new risks that at times go beyond the usual internet privacy conundrum. When people think of data privacy concerns, what immediately comes to mind is the leaking of users’ sensitive information to third parties. Cyberattacks are not necessarily a problem that plagues AI chatbots more than other corners of the internet, the experts said. But there is more that should give users pause. For some AI chatbots, a concern could be that users’ sensitive data can be fed into the general system and used for training new models. “By default, for a lot of these systems, it’s fair game to train models with anything that you give it,” Cranor said. If you don’t have a license with explicit guardrails, like one you have through your employer, then Cranor said you should assume that the company is using your data to train its models. Even if the information you give doesn’t get transferred between models or chatbots, it might leak between contexts. For example, if you take health advice from the chatbot, it could implicitly use that context later to give you financial advice. “There are ways that it could subtly be giving you advice that might not be to your benefit,” Cranor said. “If it knows that you’re wealthy, maybe it’s suggesting you buy more expensive things, and if it knows that you’re on fixed income and living paycheck to paycheck, maybe it’s advising you to buy crappy, cheap things…Then you wonder, how many things is it not explicitly mentioning, but taking into account in the advice it’s giving you?” There are also problems with this data collection that go beyond the traditional ways we think about online privacy. AI companies want their chatbots to be a one-stop shop for user requests. Google is undergoing a major AI overhaul, including integrating AI into its principal function, Search. OpenAI executives, on the other hand, have talked about the company’s work to develop a product that can help you “across everything in your life.” “That is the privacy risk which is sort of emerging, because there is no boundary anymore; the system is acting as your advisor, your friend, your doctor, your lawyer, and so it has information on everything,” Dash said. “If the system knows you so well, and if its objective is to cater to your beliefs and validate your thoughts sycophantically to have you come back to it time and again, then it can have disastrous broader implications, anywhere from extreme political polarization to reinforcement of prejudices and biases.” In another study published earlier this year, researchers proposed that hyperpersonalization and sycophancy, together with a chatbot’s tendency to mirror users’ language, could contribute to the development or reinforcement of AI-associated delusions. Both Dash and Cranor advise users to be more cautious about what information they give AI chatbots, even if the instant gratification of a quick response feels too tempting to pass up. “Nowadays everybody is offloading everything to these conversational systems, so you probably have to get back some of that cognitive load yourself,” Dash said. In a small experiment, Dash and his colleagues found that rephrasing questions to remove personally identifying details could reduce the amount of sensitive information users reveal to chatbots. They call the technique the “attribution shield,” though its effectiveness over longer conversations remains unclear. It basically involves interacting with AI chatbots the same way you would search something on Google. For example, if you are diabetic and looking to get advice, Dash suggests that you don’t start your inquiry with “I’m diabetic, what should I do about X” and instead, rephrase it as “what should a diabetic person do about X.” ChatGPT also offers users some control over what it remembers. They can turn off memory in their settings, review and correct a summary of the information the chatbot has collected about them, or use an unpersonalized Temporary Chat that won’t access or create memories. Users can also separately opt out of having their conversations used to train future AI models. But these protections have limitations. OpenAI says its memory summaries don’t necessarily include everything the chatbot knows about a user, and deleting a conversation doesn’t necessarily erase the information the chatbot has remembered from it. But there is only so much that users can do to protect themselves. Dash thinks some of that responsibility should lie with the chatbot operators as well. For example, AI companies could give users more control over memory formation by asking permission before saving information from their conversations.
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@flipboard.com

ICE agents violently detained a U.S. citizen with disabilities on his way to high school. He suffered a broken wrist and was left to walk to school alone. School officials called an ambulance. Read more in The ICE Election: flipboard.com/@electioncen... #ICE

flipboard.comThe ICE Election | @ElectionCentral | FlipboardImmigration policy and enforcement are big issues in the 2026 midterm elections. Read the latest on the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, curated by Flipboard's human editors.
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Guess who’s back in Seattle. Eight months after his Super Bowl MVP run, Kenneth Walker brings the NFL’s rushing lead and 5-0 Chiefs to Lumen Field. Can the Seahawks slow him down? Here's what we know about Week 7: flipboard.com/@thesportsde... #NFL

flipboard.comNFL Week 7: Seattle's Loss Turning Into Kansas City's GainWelcome back, Kenneth Walker. The Chiefs’ game-changing (perhaps season-changing?) RB returns to Seattle to face his old team eight months after winning the Super Bowl MVP Award with the Seahawks. Can...

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Who is Big Oil supporting this election cycle? Where are Democratic candidates getting their funding? Check out @levernews.com and @sludge.bsky.social's joint Surf feed and take advantage of @trustfnd.com's bundle pass to get essential politics news now. surf.social/feed/surf%2F...

surf.socialSludge x The Lever by Trustfnd on SurfSurf - Two investigative powerhouses at the price of one. Get a year of access to The Lever and Sludge with a Bundle Pass: https://trustfnd.com/collaboration/bundle-pass-sludge-x-the-lever--94V2Ixml...
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Meet the midterms’ newest wild card: chatbots. Google’s AI steered some Talarico donors to a page funding someone else, per @theatlantic.com. Read more reporting on how AI is shaping the 2026 elections: flipboard.com/@electioncen... #AI #Midterms #Vote2026

flipboard.comThe AI Election | @ElectionCentral | FlipboardData centers are one of the few issues that seem to cross the political divide. See how artificial intelligence policy is playing out in the 2026 midterm elections, curated by Flipboard's human editor...
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Catch up on what people are saying about Apple’s iPhone Duo, out today. Our editors rounded up takes from @joannastern.bsky.social, @mkbhd.com, @wired.com and @macrumors.bsky.social. Plus, a peek at Flipboard on the Duo. flipboard.com/@tech/everyt...

flipboard.comEverything to Know About the iPhone DuoApple's highly-anticipated iPhone Duo hits stores today, with long waiting lists despite the $2,000 price tag. See what all the excitement is about, read the first reviews and get tips for using the p...
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End a drought. That’s the job for Milwaukee and Tampa Bay, two small-market clubs still chasing a first ring. See the matchups, MVP picks and the lockout looming over it all: flipboard.com/@thesportsde... #MLB

flipboard.comWait 'Til This Year! Misery Will End for One World Series TeamTampa Bay and Milwaukee are alike in this key area — neither has won a title. They’re also small-market teams that are turning the analytics world on its head with their ‘80s style of ball: opposite-f...
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We get it. There are endless places to follow the news and the publications you love. But here’s a question: Which platforms can you actually trust? Our values haven’t changed. We stand for quality journalism and the outlets producing it. Come join us. about.flipboard.com/inside-flipb...

about.flipboard.comFlipboard’s Commitment: Truth, Quality Journalism, and Healthy CommunitiesOur team works hard every day to preserve quality journalism and create a safe environment for the people who choose to spend time here.
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Need a break from reality? 🛳️ A cruise could be a good move. Explore country music voyages, dinners by James Beard Award-winning chefs and a true crime adventure. Featured in this week’s Wanderlust newsletter. flipboard.com/@travel/do-y... #Travel

flipboard.comDo You Want to Go on a Cruise Right Now?Put me on a boat, and push me out to sea: There's something very appealing about getting as far away as possible from everything right now. Cruises provide not only that feeling of escape, but genuine...

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Flipboard Tech Desk
@techdesk.flipboard.social.ap.brid.gy

Two critical flaws have left some web servers vulnerable and may have led to a number of sites going dark ahead of a major fix set to be released today. The Next Web has the latest: https://flip.it/71rFM- #Cybersecurity

thenextweb.comEU cybersecurity team says unpatched PHP sites may need to go offlineCERT-EU says firms that cannot patch two critical PHP flaws should consider taking sites offline. PHP releases fixes at 14:00 UTC on October 21.

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Flipboard Culture Desk
@culturedesk.flipboard.social.ap.brid.gy

In Oct. 10's opening monologue for "Saturday Night Live," performer Shane Gillis made a misogynistic remark about women in the gym. On Saturday, "SNL UK" responded. @TheWrap has the story. https://flip.it/HkoVYv #Television #SNL #Comedy

thewrap.com'SNL UK' Flames Shane Gillis With an F-Bomb After His Controversial Hosting GigThe British program's "Weekend Update" co-anchor Ania Magliano does not hold back in response to Gillis' jokes about women.

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Rick Turoczy
@turoczy.co

While it's incredibly difficult to recreate the town square of Twitter, our friends at @graze.social and @flipboard.com are using AT Proto magic to extract the latest midterm info from @bsky.app siliconflorist.com/2026/10/20/s...

siliconflorist.comStressed about the midterms…? Election Night 2026 from Graze will keep you up-to-date on Bluesky chatter – Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and communityIn two weeks, we’ll be on Election Day for the 2026 midterms. All of which will decide governors, city councilors, and the balance of power at the federal level. There’s a lot on the li…