responses

Meta AI curtails political replies in India’s elections

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Last week, Meta started testing its AI chatbot in India across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta confirmed that it is restricting certain election-related keywords for AI in the test phase. When you ask Meta AI about specific politicians, candidates, officeholders, and certain other terms, it will redirect you to the Election Commission’s website. But just like other AI-powered systems, Meta AI has some inconsistencies. This week, the company rolled out a new Llama-3-powered Meta AI chatbot in more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., but India was missing from the list.

Election Commission of India Addresses Privacy Vulnerabilities in Citizen Information Retrieval

Election Commission India Rti Portal
India’s federal election commission has fixed flaws on its website that exposed data related to citizens’ requests for information related to their voting eligibility status, local political candidates and parties, and technical details about electronic voting machines. The bugs allowed access to the RTI requests, download transaction receipts, and responses shared by the officials without properly authenticating user logins. Some of the exposed data included the RTI filing date, the questions asked, the applicant’s name and mailing address, the applicant’s poverty line status, and RTI responses. The bugs were fixed earlier this week following CERT-In’s intervention. The Election Commission of India did not respond to a request for comment.