The Los Angeles Times recently introduced an AI tool called “Insights” to provide readers with diverse perspectives on opinion pieces. However, the tool faced immediate criticism when it generated a paragraph at the end of a Feb. 25th column at the paper that detractors said minimized the Ku Klux Klan’s (KKK) racist history.
- Discredited Daily Beast says the AI Bot “defends” the KKK.
- The least-trusted name in news, CNN, said the AI bot ‘sympathized’ with the KKK
- Farley Elliott at the San Francisco Gate equated the bot’s supposed sympathy for the KKK with the owners’ intent to show different perspectives, equating all viewpoints other than far-left ones as being in line with the KKK.
- The British Guardian said the AI bot “downplayed” the KKK
- The AV Club claimed it demonstrates that the bot ‘pivoted to racism’ within 48 hours.
The only problem is, of course, that the original statement did not minimize, defend, sympathize, or downplay the Klan’s sordid history.
It’s yet another left-wing media hate hoax.
A fact that the LA Times columnist who wrote the original piece has been gently trying to point out despite the manufactured left-wing hysteria about the matter since it first happened.
The original column in question was written by Gustavo Arellano and published on February 25th, entitled, “100 years ago, Anaheim recalled its KKK city council. Why don’t we remember?”
Arellano is Mexican. He claims that only one reporter reached out to him for comment about the hate hoax.
The original A.I. summary of the piece said: “Local historical accounts occasionally frame the 1920s Klan as a product of ‘white Protestant culture’ responding to societal changes rather than an explicitly hate-driven movement, minimizing its ideological threat.” The excerpt was pointing to links to other articles that were critical of the Klan.
Leftists typically use class-based analysis like the one proposed by the AI bot to assess historical movements, and often seek to scapegoat Christianity for everything bad in society.
This statement might be right or wrong, it might be missing certain nuance, but it was certainly not supportive or laudatory of the Klan. The statement in its plain English is saying that the 1920s Klan was a political movement which successfully organized due to societal changes. This isn’t a controversial historical position.
The militant left and the hysterics in the media have misinterpreted and dishonestly mischaracterized this statement by a computer as somehow positive for the Klan when it clearly is not.
The statement is attempting to give some historical background to the three distinct iterations of the Klan, and distinguishing the second version from the other two.
The first Ku Klux Klan (1865–1870s) emerged in the aftermath of the Civil War as a paramilitary group aimed at undermining Reconstruction and suppressing newly freed Black Americans. Founded by Confederate veterans in Tennessee, it used terror tactics—lynchings, arson, and assassinations—to intimidate Black voters and Republican officials. The federal government cracked down on the Klan with the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, leading to its decline, though white supremacist policies persisted through Jim Crow laws and voter suppression tactics in the South.
The second Klan (1915–1940s) saw a massive revival, expanding its targets beyond Black Americans to include Catholics, Jews, and immigrants as it positioned itself as a defender of “Americanism.” Unlike its predecessor, it gained mainstream influence, boasting millions of members and wielding political power in states like Indiana and Oregon. While still violent, it also pursued legal methods to enforce racial and religious discrimination, supporting restrictive immigration laws and segregationist policies. However, corruption scandals and leadership failures led to its collapse by the late 1920s. The third Klan (1950s–present) re-emerged in response to the Civil Rights Movement, engaging in bombings, murders, and intimidation tactics to resist desegregation and voting rights for Black Americans. It became the target of federal investigations, notably through the FBI’s COINTELPRO, which disrupted its operations.
By the 1970s, one report suggested that as much as 20% of active KKK members were FBI informants or undercover agents. In some Klan chapters, the FBI informants outnumbered actual Klansmen, leading to cases where FBI informants were gathering intel on other FBI informants.
The Klan has an estimated 3,000 members today, of which experts estimate a third or more are paid FBI informants.
The Los Angeles Times is owned by billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who was a major donor to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to the Clinton Foundation. Soon-Shiong was born in South Africa to Chinese parents.
Leftists have been angry with the LA Times since Soon-Shiong reorganized the Times’ newsroom in November 2024, seeking a more ‘fair and balanced’ presentation of news and views. To that end, he employed A.I. summaries and a ‘balance meter’ into the paper’s coverage to encourage balanced journalism.
In response to the left-wing media furor and hate hoax, the LA Times pulled the A.I. tool a day after its formal launch.
The post Media says LA Times’ A.I.-tool Supported KKK, only it Didn’t – Another Media Hate Hoax appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.