OpenAI and Anthropic to Set Up First U.S. Midterm Election 'War Rooms' to Counter Disinformation Spread and Platform Abuse

November 4 — OpenAI and Anthropic will for the first time establish dedicated "war rooms" for the U.S. midterm elections to ensure their respective platforms provide accurate election information. An Anthropic spokesperson said the company's teams have been strengthening election-related protections and enforcing platform policies throughout the year, and the dedicated team set up before the election will monitor platform abuse and prepare to respond quickly to emergencies.

The practice of tech platforms setting up election "war rooms" dates back to 2018, when Meta first established such a team to counter the spread of election misinformation. Today, platforms also face the risk of deepfake videos and AI search spreading false information. The report cited an example: Google's AI Mode last week did not answer the question "Who won the 2020 U.S. presidential election," and Google said it is working on a fix.

The unpredictability of AI output, recent cybersecurity issues, and AI search tools' tendency to cater to user expectations all increase the difficulty of monitoring and response. Katie Harbath, former director of public policy at Meta, said the role of the "war room" is to enable rapid assessment and tiered handling through established procedures when unforeseen problems arise.