A Game of Catching Up

Michael Meyer-Resende, Executive Director, Democracy Reporting International

With the advent of the digital space and social media in particular, the public space has fundamentally changed. This transformation is ongoing, with new trends upsetting what seemed to be established patterns (for example, the shift of much communication into chat groups). Actors that spread disinformation are adapting fast to exploit the weaknesses of these new trends. According to the annual disinformation report by the Oxford Internet Institute, disinformation has become a half-a-billion dollar industry.

Among many examples for increasing sophistication and learning of disinformation campaigns, Democracy Reporting International observed how extremist accounts got involved in a Twitter debate on whether Germany’s Social Democratic Party should join a grand coalition. Pretending to be supporters of that party, they pushed for a rejection of that coalition, which would have served extremist purposes (failed government negotiations, implying a sense of crisis). The problem was not being against a Grand Coalition. The disinformation aspect lied in pretending to be supporters of the Social-Democratic Party and having its interests in mind.

To catch up with the challenges of democratic discourse in the digital space, several gaps need to be closed:

• Real-time information gap: Too often there is a sense that something is wrong with social media in elections, but it takes too long to find out what. More real-time monitoring of discourse on social media and the wider digital world is needed in order to respond in good time. Media reported that Facebook opened a ‘war room’ to follow developments in real-time ahead of the US mid-term elections. ICT companies should do such real-life monitoring in elections anywhere. Monitoring should also be done by election observers, think tanks, civic tech groups or NGOs.
• The responsibility gap: The major ICT companies have woken up to the disinformation threat, but their responses are too little too late. At a minimum they should open an office in every country in which they provide a significant platform for public discourse. Remote operations that chiefly rely on Artificial Intelligence are insufficient to respond to complex social realities. Such low-cost, light approaches betray obligations of corporate social responsibility.
• The public policy gap: Media, like The Guardian, have been influential in uncovering online disinformation, but they do not undertake systematic research to recommend policy. Academia is also carrying out research, but results come too late and usually do not include policy recommendations. Think tanks and NGOs tend to be critical of governments’ attempts of regulation, but they rarely propose concrete policies that could work better.