Inspire
Misinformation and Elections: What’s at stake?
Electoral processes entail more than just casting a vote
Media, including social media, play an instrumental role in elections, and there can be no free and fair elections when voters are misled about registration and/or voting procedures, when candidates are not given a space to communicate their messages, or when voters cannot receive diverse information.
In recent years, there has been growing concern regarding the impact that misinformation and disinformation campaigns can have on elections and referendums. In a recent report, the Computational Propaganda Research Project at the Oxford Internet Institute provides mounting evidence that social media are being used to manipulate and deceive electoral processes. They identified foreign social media propaganda operations targeting 81 countries in 2020.
“elections must be conducted fairly and freely on a periodic basis within a framework of laws guaranteeing the effective exercise of voting rights. Persons entitled to vote must be free to vote for any candidate for election and for or against any proposal submitted to referendum or plebiscite, and free to support or to oppose the government, without undue influence or coercion of any kind which may distort or inhibit the free expression of the elector’s will. Voters should be able to form opinions independently, free of violence or threat of violence, compulsion, inducement or manipulative interference of any kind.”
United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment №25, para. 19
In this context, it should not come as a surprise that election organizers and citizens alike are concerned that elections may be marred with misinformation. According to a recent Eurobarometer, almost three quarters (73%) of Internet users are concerned about disinformation or misinformation online during the pre-election period, and 30% are “very concerned”. 59% of respondents were also worried about foreign actors and criminal groups influencing elections covertly.
There are several instances in which misinformation on social media could compromise the results of elections. Considering the role played by media in any electoral process, three kinds of challenges can be envisaged.
The media play a central and influential role in providing candidates and parties with a stage to engage voters during an election period.
Ahead of any election, media is one of the main channels voters utilize to form an opinion, a crucial part of fair elections. In this sense, false information can be spread to discredit political actors or to alter the perceptions about how much support a certain candidate or option has (so-called “astroturfing,” by means of bots, trolls or even “cyborg” accounts). The former is the most common instance of election interference experienced so far, with recent examples in France, Germany and Sweden. In turn, Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute have identified cases of astroturfing in Brazil, Ecuador, Israel and Serbia.
False information can also be used to divert conversations or criticism away from important issues (e.g., fact-checking information) or to polarize an election campaign. Lisa Maria Neudert and Nahema Marchal define polarization as the political, social and ideological division of societies into distinctly opposed groups. Polarization may be the consequence of the changes in our information infrastructures (i.e., echo chambers) as well as of the social media platforms’ design choices and incentives (i.e., filter bubbles). According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, during the 2016 Brexit Campaign in the United Kingdom, campaigners on both sides of the debate used so-called “dark ads” to target voters with conflicting information. Dark ads are pieces of advertising that are displayed only to certain user groups. Since they are inaccessible to others, they help spread inaccurate information because no-one can scrutinize them.
Media is also used to communicate a whole range of information about the election process itself, including preparation, registration, voting procedures and the results, as well as voter education.
There is evidence that media has been used in the past to mislead voters and disenfranchise them. For example, during the 2016 Presidential Elections in the United States, Facebook and YouTube were used to suppress votes from African Americans by persuading them to boycott the elections. Similarly, Michael Meyer-Resende notes that spreading false news stories, such as a false report of violence, can deter voters from going to polling stations.
Certain groups of voters may also be targeted with deliberately incorrect information regarding voting rules, making them think that they are not eligible to participate, or election specifics, such as voting dates and times.
Misinformation on social media can overshadow the performance of the election administration.
While the proper accountability of Election Management Bodies’ decisions is of paramount importance for the conduct of democratic elections, social media may be abused to spread false information on how elections have been conducted, raising suspicion and delegitimizing results. This erosion of trust in the election process has been identified as one of the main tactics behind election interference. In some cases, it has resulted in the need to rerun entire elections. Considering that misinformation in social media spreads up to six times faster than accurate information, this kind of risk should not be underestimated.
“The illusion of a compromised electoral system alone can cause severe damage to public trust and is worsened by (domestic) stakeholders wanting to take advantage of it.”
Dr. Sven Heprig and Julia Schuetze, Securing Democracy in Cyberspace, p. 16
Several countries have undertaken national initiatives to target misinformation during the pre-election period, and certain social media platforms are attempting to address the challenge of false information. In this context, however, special attention will need to be paid to these measures to ensure they do not jeopardize freedom of expression, a cornerstone in any democratic election, or voters’ fundamental right to privacy. It is important to remember that once trust in the process is lost, it will be difficult to regain.
A previous version of this article was published on Co-Inform’s website.
This article was written by Adrià Rodríguez-Pérez, Public Policy Researcher at Scytl.
