Gary Gensler is now targeted not only by legislators but also by fake news portals.
The rumor mill is again rife with speculation concerning the resignation of Gary Gensler, the Chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
What's different this time is that artificial intelligence (AI) appears to have played a role in boosting these baseless claims.
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On July 1st, a website called "CryptoAlert" published a news story suggesting that Gensler had stepped down "following an internal investigation."
The source cited was an unidentified official. However, upon examination, it appeared that the article's text scored a 96.8% on the third-party AI detector.
A deeper dive into the website reveals it to be a relatively new platform, with only 17 posts, the earliest dated June 22nd.
The majority of these articles seem to be created by AI, with all articles scoring approximately 70% on AI detector tools. In addition, the registration records for the domain "thecryptoalert.com" indicate its recent establishment on June 24th.
Despite the clear signs of questionable content, the story found its way onto Twitter through several accounts. The post with the most extensive reach was from Whalechart, which had attracted 1.8 million views at the time of writing.
However, on July 3rd, Charles Gasparino, a reporter with the Fox Business Network, quashed the rumors with a tweet stating that Gary Gensler was not stepping down. Gasparino reportedly received information from the SEC.
This is not the first time speculation around Gensler's potential resignation has stirred up the crypto community.
On April 20th, dubious sources started spreading claims that Gensler was on the verge of being "fired." Furthermore, on June 12th, US lawmakers presented a new bill, the "SEC Stabilization Act," including a provision seeking to remove Gensler, dubbing him a "tyrannical Chairman."
