AI Chatbots Are Making LA Protest Disinformation Worse

Amid fast-moving events in Los Angeles, users are turning to chatbots like Grok and ChatGPT to find out what’s real and what’s not—and getting inaccurate information.

Disinformation about the Los Angeles protests is spreading on social media networks and is being made worse by users turning to AI chatbots like Grok and ChatGPT to perform fact-checking.

As residents of the LA area took to the streets in recent days to protest increasingly frequent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, conservative posters on social media platforms like X and Facebook flooded their feeds with inaccurate information. In addition to well-worn tactics like repurposing old protest footage or clips from video games and movies, posters have claimed that the protesters are little more than paid agitators being directed by shadowy forces—something for which there is no evidence.

In the midst of fast-moving and divisive news stories like the ...