Deepfake nonprofits

                                                                                    Eileen Pan on Unsplash

There's been a lot of writing over the last three decades about the blurring of boundaries between nonprofits, governments, and markets. 

These analyses usually focus on the use of profit-generating tactics by nonprofits (blurring them with market institutions), the growing involvement of nonprofits in public policy (usually discussed either in terms of dark money or organizations with multiple tax statuses such as c3s and c4s), and the use by governments of philanthropy-style incentives (e.g. prizes or matching grants) or direct government involvement in supporting specific companies the way investors do. The whole social enterprise movement is an example of blurring lines between philanthropy and business.

In this context, this story of a government "watchdog" group is fascinating. The article describes how every inquiry into the group by a reporter is met with a different classification claim. Starting in 2021, it claimed to be a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, then it removed the 501 (c) 3 part, then in 2022 it referred to itself in a lawsuit as “an unincorporated association of retired and former public servants and concerned citizens that is dedicated to restoring public trust in government.” And then, in January 2023, it labeled itself simply “a collection of individuals.”

Needless to say, whatever it is, it has not been filing any paperwork or tax documents that might explain who is involved and where the money is coming from. 

Just in time for the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, which we can expect to be defined by AI generated information warfare online, we should also be on the lookout for more of these "deepfaked" IRL organizations.

Who will hack whom?

Nonprofits and foundations have been slow to realize that they live in a world of dirty tricks, bad faith messaging, trolls, DDOS attacks, and data breaches. In other words, they inhabit the same internet the rest of us do - one where determining what information to trust is almost a full-time job.

 

Industry intermediaries - organizations that provide information about nonprofits and foundations to the public - live in this same world. Not only are political groups setting up nonprofits as fronts for political money laundering, they are using the nonprofit information infrastructure to help them spread falsehoods, to slap back at organizations opposed to their views, and basically every other trick of online information harassment.

 

Here's a picture (a screen shot on my end) of what I assume is a hacked and defaced organizational page on Candid - the biggest provider of data on nonprofits and foundations. 

 

                                Screenshot taken from Candid website, 3:30 pm pst, May 2, 2023

That's the home page of an organization called American College of Pediatrics - an anti-gay, anti-trans lobbying group. Clearly, someone doesn't agree with their views.* The group also lost 10000 records from a Google drive it left online and unprotected - information leaked includes all kinds of donor and member information.

The internet and world wide web are trash piles of information. AI systems, such as ChatGPT, spew statistically-produced baloney. All of them are readily designed to facilitate harm and lies. It didn't have to be this way, but it is. Many people are clutching their pearls, having ignored the insights and warnings of those who've been pointing out these harms for decades. 

It doesn't have to continue this way, though it seems to be doing just that. Glory and hysteria go in cycles - from app to app, crypto to GPT.  Despite all the warnings of a cliff ahead, we seem to be driving faster and faster toward it.

*FWIW, I don't agree with their views. I did not deface their page on Candid.

X, Tw*tter, and nonprofits

Today, reporters tell us that staff at X Corp. (the company now responsible for Tw*tter) are going through its database and removing - one by one - emergency services that subscribe to the platform's API - thereby cutting off these departments (fire, emergency services) from using the social media service in emergencies.

GLAAD discovered yesterday that Tw*tter had suspended its efforts to protect transgender people, deliberately removing language in its Hateful Conduct Policy that penalized misgendering and dead-naming.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported today that nonprofits are sticking with Twitter, despite....everything going on over there at the company and on the platform.

Hmmm. Why are Niemöller's's words ringing in my ears? You know the ones: "First they came for the..."

Nonprofits and privacy laws

                                                                                                    Photo by Mike Scheid on Unsplash

Colorado privacy law INCLUDES nonprofits - https://thenonprofittimes.com/regulation/countdown-to-colorado-privacy-law-npos-not-exempt/ 

This is as it should be. Nonprofits gather, hold, and rarely protect an enormous amount of very sensitive data of very high value. Think about it - your donations to, volunteer time at, and service from a nonprofit says a LOT about you - much more personal information than your favorite ice cream flavor. Marketers and politicians LOVE this information. And they use it to even further segment and divide us.

Philanthropists need to step up and help nonprofits protect their data and the whole sector needs to massively improve their data governance and protection processes OR stop collecting data OR stop lobbying their way out of accountability.