Mark Robinson has made headlines recently with reports of the N.C. lieutenant governor calling himself a Black Nazi, his entire campaign staff leaving and AI advertisements.“What’s the story behind the headlines, and what does it mean for North Carolina?”

 

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is the republican gubernatorial candidate in the upcoming election. He is known for being a very polarizing figure saying many controversial things and having extreme policy ideas. According to FiveThirtyEight, on Sept. 18, Robinson’s Democratic gubernatorial opponent Josh Stein was leading polls by around 8 points. 

 

In the late afternoon of Sept. 19, CNN published an article  alleging that Robinson made several graphic comments on the porn forum “Nude Africa” over a decade ago. The comments include Robinson calling himself a Black Nazi, admitting to peeping on women in the shower at public gyms and watching transgender porn. Robinson has denied these allegations and did not respond to The Durham Voice’s email requests for comment. 

 

CNN claims an email known to belong to Robinson was linked to the account that made these posts, along with the poster’s username matching some of his old social media handles, “minisoldr.” 

 

There are more comments that have been discovered that The Durham Voice believes are too obscene to be published.

 

After the article was released, many members of Robinson’s staff left and he faced immediate pressure from people to drop out of the gubernatorial race. He also dropped down to around 13 points behind Stein in the polls on Sept. 24, five days after the article was published, according to FiveThirtyEight. 

 

This put Robinson and the North Carolina Republican Party in a tough spot. The deadline for Robinson to drop out of the race was mere hours after the news dropped, and as he continued to deny the allegations, he elected to stay in the race. 

 

“I don’t think that him staying in gives the Republicans a higher chance of winning the governor’s race than putting somebody else in,” UNC College Republicans Administrative Vice President Preston Hill said. “I think that it’s just too short of a time to put somebody else in.

 

Even if Robinson decided to exit the race his name would still appear on the ballot. Hill said he does not see Robinson overcoming this. 

 

“I have to say it’s a little disappointing,” Hill said. “I mean I think that his campaign has already been a bit iffy, how it was going, but I think that the allegations and more specifically the way his campaign responded, or how he himself responded to the allegations, was not how I would have expected him to respond.”

 

“I think what’s more important is focusing on the down ballot races and putting resources toward those,” Hill said. “Because right now the Republicans have a supermajority in the legislature, they’re looking to keep that.”

 

Robinson claimed his team was going to take legal action against CNN for spreading false information and on Tuesday officially filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN.

 

Following the CNN story independent actor “Americans for Prosparody” released a series of ads against Robinson that were completely generated by artificial intelligence. 

 

A still from an Americans for Prosparody ad, generated with artificial intelligence, depicts Mark Robinson speaking with AI generated people holding up guns in the background. Photo courtesy of Americans for Prosparody.

 

Todd Steifel, Americans for Prosparody founder, spent $2 million of his own money to fund the campaign. It uses AI to have Robinson’s voice say some of the things A4PP claims he has said on live television. The ads put him in bizarre scenarios including on a bus next to Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks. 

 

This campaign raises ethical concerns about the use of AI generated voices and images in the political space. Steifel said he decided to use AI because it is cheap and catches peoples attention. 

 

“I feel like we’re merging entertainment and politics and creating a product that is humorous, that can, you know, be shared across wide audiences,” Steifel said. “People will listen to humor when they normally won’t listen to a political ad.”

 

UNC Hussman Professor Daniel Kreiss said he thinks that AI itself is not bad, but the intentions behind it can be.

 

“There are always going to be bad actors who try to do that, but there’s also bad actors who use non-AI tactics, such as lies or stories about Haitian Immigrants eating pets. That to me is deeply unethical.”

 

As for the impact on North Carolina, Robinson is currently projected to lose the gubernatorial race, but not to have much of an impact on the presidential race in North Carolina as it seems North Carolina in the past has had no issue splittin the ballot between a Democrat governor and a Republican President.

 

Edited by Leah Paige and Sarah Monoson