Alexa cited a source popular with rightwing commentators.
Elaine Thompson/AP Photo
Amazon’s Alexa has been falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen.The voice assistant cited Rumble and Substack for its claims, The Washington Post reported.Amazon told the publication the issue was “quickly fixed when brought to our attention.”
Amazon’s Alexa has made false claims about the 2020 presidential election.
The Washington Post reported that the voice assistant cited Rumble, a YouTube alternative popular with rightwing commentators, to claim the 2020 election was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud.”
President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the November 2020 presidential election with 306 electoral college votes. At the time, Trump baselessly said widespread fraud in the election system had led to the result. The false statements culminated in a violent revolt on January 6, 2021.
Alexa also told users the 2020 election was “notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers,” the Post reported, adding that Alexa had cited newsletter service Substack.
Representatives for Amazon did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, made outside normal working hours.
A spokesperson told The Post: “These responses were errors that were delivered a small number of times, and quickly fixed when brought to our attention.”
“We continually audit and improve the systems we have in place for detecting and blocking inaccurate content,” the spokesperson added.
After The Post approached Amazon for comment, Alexa began to decline to answer if the 2020 election had been stolen, the publication said.
The new report is likely to bolster concerns about technology’s role in the spread of misinformation, something officials have been increasingly worried about ahead of the 2024 election.
Social-media platforms and generative AI technology have been accused of proliferating misinformation. The rise of sophisticated generative AI has been seen as a potential threat to democracy because of its potential to create convincing deepfakes and spread false information at scale.