Yale Suspends Palestine Activist After AI Article Linked Her To Terrorism 75
Yale University has suspended a law scholar and pro-Palestinian activist after an AI-generated article from Jewish Onliner falsely linked her to a terrorist group. Gizmodo reports: Helyeh Doutaghi, the scholar at Yale Law School, told the New York Times that she is a "loud and proud" supporter of Palestinian rights. "I am not a member of any organization that would constitute a violation of U.S. law." The article that led to her suspension was published in Jewish Onliner, a Substack that says it is "empowered by A.I. capabilities." The website does not publish the names of its authors out of fear of harassment. Ironically, Doutaghi and Yale were reportedly the subject of intense harassment after Jewish Onliner published the article linking Doutaghi to terrorism by citing appearances she made at events sponsored by Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian group. [...]
Jewish Onliner is vague about how it uses AI to produce its articles, but the technology is known for making lots of mistakes and hallucinating information that is not true. It is quite possible that Jewish Onliner relied on AI to source information it used to write the article. That could open it up to liability if it did not perform fact-checking and due diligence on its writing. Besides the fact that Doutaghi says she is not a member of Samidoun, she attended events it sponsored that support Palestinian causes, Yale Law School said the allegations against her reflect "potential unlawful conduct."
Jewish Onliner is vague about how it uses AI to produce its articles, but the technology is known for making lots of mistakes and hallucinating information that is not true. It is quite possible that Jewish Onliner relied on AI to source information it used to write the article. That could open it up to liability if it did not perform fact-checking and due diligence on its writing. Besides the fact that Doutaghi says she is not a member of Samidoun, she attended events it sponsored that support Palestinian causes, Yale Law School said the allegations against her reflect "potential unlawful conduct."
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Re:sue the school (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, other than the fact she in fact has no association with any "terrorist" group. The 'actual' bit is functioning a little bit strangely in your assertion there.
While labeling groups you disagree with as "terrorists" might work rhetorically, it has no history of being particularly useful with Judges. "terrorism" has a very specific definition in law of "group on a terrorist watchlist", and I can assure you putting domestic protest groups on that watchlist because you simply disagree with them is going to last barely a paragraph in court before it gets angrily tossed by the judge on first ammendment grounds.
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There's an article on the Samidoun website [samidoun.net] that says she's a member of their organization.
Now, their claim might be false, but if the organization claims you are a member, and you're attending and speaking at their events, do you still need to be on some sort of official membership list?
The organization got added to the list last year - under Biden. If Biden's organization felt the need to add it to the list, I figure that there's a good chance it actually is associated with terrorists.
Not that it is diffi
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Hamas is only in charge of Gaza.
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Well, other than the fact she in fact has no association with any "terrorist" group.
The terrorist group in question begs to differ [samidoun.net].
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Wrongful dismissal, duh.
Universities almost universally have charter protections for free speech, and a lot of this going after palestine advocates is blowing straight past those protections, and that would generally be more than enough to sue for wrongful dismissal.
Its a University, and while there are standards to be expected around conduct, this is pretty unnaceptable.
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Problem being, considering our current president, what are the odds that, in this case, he'll attempt to pardon the university? Never mind that it's a civil case and likely state level?
I figure that this sort of stuff is often a show by the universities of "bending their knee" to placate Trump.
Meanwhile, I'd expect discovery to get intense. The university will want to show that the AI article is correct, so deep dive into her life, both will want further information about the article, so discovery/deposit
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Problem with federal funding (Score:3, Interesting)
"Yale’s peer institution, Columbia, lost $400 million in federal funding last week after being named on a list of schools accused of tolerating antisemitism. On Monday, the Trump administration announced that Yale was among 60 schools that could face funding cuts if federal investigations show evidence that they have permitted antisemitic behavior."
It seems she is actually linked to the 'terrorist' group, "The news site cited postings referring to appearances she made on panels at Samidoun-sponsored events, but a lawyer for Dr. Doutaghi said she is not a member of Samidoun." Of course, "terrorist group" being a label created by the US government.
I don't think the situation has anything to do with AI.
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And Samidoun linked itself to Hamas and Hezbollah, and officially called for "death to Canada", so the link to terrorism is real enough.
Not a hallucination and nothing to do with AI.
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And Samidoun ... officially called for "death to Canada",
Big deal - Trump himself has done that.
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Trump is a convicted felon with a history of abuse, but he is unfortunately the POTUS(potentially due to election fraud that was never investigated because Democrats are afraid of looking like Trump).
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Welp, that would do it.
Though looking around, I don't seem to be the only one figuring that this is at least somewhat performative in order to keep/protect federal funding.
Looking at the article itself, it mentions that Samidoun is sanctioned by the fed already.
And sorry, but under Trump, just supporting Palestine is a deportable offense. And Samidoun was added to the sanction list last year, thus under Biden.
If she isn't a US Citizen, I'd advise her to be very, very careful right now.
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Yep, which is why it's good if it all goes away along with the Dept of Ed.
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Go to the source (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Samidoun, which is sanctioned by the US and Canada as a terrorist group, has this article on its own website [samidoun.net] that says that Helyeh is "a member of the international Samidoun Network".
So even if it was an AI article, it seems like it wasn't hallucinating about the connection.
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Yes, but by dskoll is part of the IRA terrorist group... or at least it's really easy to say it whether it is true or not.
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They are a solidarity group for Palestinian prisoners. They are accused for raising funds for a Palestinian militant group, but the evidence is mostly from Israel so is likely fabricated.
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"dskoll is a member of the international Slashdot network"
By your logic, you now work for Slashdot and we can blame you for dupes.
This is the same crap from the '50s (Score:2, Insightful)
After Goldwater lost the super rich figured out they could alter their tactics and win. They took over the churches and the news media and the media in general. They had a few setbacks with gay rights in the '70s and '80s because the networks wanted gays on TV to bring in ratings (it was considered salacious back then and television had
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They became "left-wing" to oppose Bush's invasion of Iraq. That's not left-wing, that's opposing neocons.
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It was really anti-neoconservatism that first made me give a shit about political parties at all.
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Joe McCarthy died in 1957.
Ronald Reagan became president in 1980.
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I believe Reagan did that back when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild - he was ratting out other actors and actresses.
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This article provides additional context (rather more sympathetic to Reagan) [latimes.com].
Re:This is the same crap from the '50s (Score:5, Informative)
Re: This is the same crap from the '50s (Score:4, Interesting)
Whoâ(TM)s censoring speech right now?
I donâ(TM)t see democrats arresting people and trying to deport them before the courts can act.
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supporting palestine itself is not an issue, the US government does it, the issue is when you are funding and directly tied to groups in palestine that are recognized terrorist groups.
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Which was part of the problem. here you have multiple people directly tied to terrorist groups, helping to fund them, and distributing their material and biden did nothing about it.
I can't. Posting something on the internet does not make it true
Slashdot internet AI news
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will_die helped al-queda commit 9/11. will_die is a middle eastern jihadist that has publicly said Christians should be killed and down with america. will_die is a dangerous terrorist that should be deported immediately.
You better be prepared for ICE coming for you, terrorist scum!
Re: This is the same crap from the '50s (Score:2)
"supporting palestine itself is not an issue, the US government does it, the issue is when you are funding and directly tied to groups in palestine that are recognized terrorist groups."
Like Netanyahu.
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Re:This is the same crap from the '50s (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh look, another retard who hasn't kept up with the last 35 years of current events.
It turns out that the Kremlin archives (opened to western researchers in the early 1990s) and the Venona intercepts have essentially vindicated McCarthy. According to official Soviet records and communications, nearly everyone that McCarthy named actually was a Soviet agent.
Not surprising, really, since McCarthy had access to all of our intelligence. Also, not surprising since all investigation into communist infiltration was suspended for more than a decade to avoid turning public opinion against our "ally" in WW2.
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Blue Penguin: Cites "bs propaganda"
Red Penguin: To defend bs propaganda
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Censorship from all sides (Score:3, Insightful)
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Fuck Israel. Fuck LGBTQ. Fuck every last one of these censorious fucks.
I don't know about getting back to normalcy, but if you stop swearing, you won't get censored as much.
On other websites. On Slashdot, swearing is fine. We're fucking cool that way.
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There are different aspects to what is going on that you are glossing over. First, you have official news organizations. Those news organizations are held to standards when it comes to reporting. Then, you have pseudo-news organizations. Fox News is actually classified as "entertainment", even though it has the name Fox News. Realistically, Democrats could force Fox News to either re-classify itself as a News agency and be held to the standards, or remove the "News" from its name.
Then, you have so
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You can't get back to normal. Not until you stop participating in the low-IQ shock culture war that made you believe that one side was a "DEI fanatic". While you make those claims you are part of the system. If you want to be part of the solution you need to leave the system that made you put two groups into complete arbitrary boxes.
Fuck Israel. Fuck LGBTQ.
I'm beginning to think that your wife left you for another man ... after getting a sex change. In which toilet did an LGBTQ person touch you? Mens or womens? Equating LGBTQ with
This seems like a red herring (Score:2)
The principle here is simple. A journalistic outlet or blogger reported on a story and asserted that a person was involved with a terrorist organization. The university made its choice. Whether the outlet was or was not correct is a matter for the courts if the subject decides to sue for defamation or libel. AI doesn't really matter here, and plenty of anonymous reporting has indeed happened for legitimate, non-nefarious reasons.
If the subject does decide to sue the author, then discovery will turn up what
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Open and shut defamation? (Score:2)
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She does and moreover, she is a member of it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250302133741/https://samidoun.net/2022/07/fedayin-screening-in-iran-highlights-case-of-georges-ibrahim-abdallah/
AI isn't reliable (Score:2)
and often produces hallucinations. Its use to accuse people of crimes on random websites isn't okay. However, in this particular case
This lady says she's not a member of the Samidoun. Yet, Samidoun itself says that she IS a member of Samidoun.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250302133741/https://samidoun.net/2022/07/fedayin-screening-in-iran-highlights-case-of-georges-ibrahim-abdallah/
and she participated in a Samidoun-organized event in support of a "Palestinian political prisoner", who is in fact a convicted
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I can imagine that Americans don't like terrorists who murder their servicemen.
What do you mean? We cowtow to Israel all the time despite them murdering our servicemen AND U.S. citizens.
How convenient (Score:2)
A Jewish group, hiding behind AI so its members can't be known, claiming an educator who supports Palestine is part of a terrorist group.
I would say do the same thing to Jewish educators, but I'm certain I'd be called anti-semitic.