2024: Navigating the AI-Infused Electoral Landscape in a Pivotal Year for Global Democracy
By: Rooz Aliabadi, Ph.D.
This year marks an extraordinary period in global democracy, with over 80 national elections set to occur, impacting approximately 4.2 billion people, or 52% of the world’s population. This is the most extensive election cycle until 2048, featuring essential elections like the U.S. presidential race and critical votes in the European Union, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The consequences of these elections are crucial, with the potential to influence domestic policies and critical global issues such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and Internet governance.
The significance of these elections extends beyond their scale. They occur amidst a complex backdrop of heightened threats and diminishing defenses. The role of technology companies, the influence of global digital platforms, the evolving complexity of these platforms’ operating environments, the advent of generative AI tools, the expansion of foreign influence operations, and the emergence of partisan domestic investigations in the U.S. create a challenging landscape for electoral integrity worldwide.
Each election’s local context, cultural nuances, and major parties’ policies will shape each election. However, all will face global challenges to electoral integrity and democracy. There is an urgent need for governments, companies, and civil society to work together to mitigate these risks and monitor emerging threats to ensure a fair electoral process.
Witnessing my home state of Pennsylvania, I believe elections are deeply rooted in local contexts, languages, and norms. Still, the information that informs them is increasingly sourced from global digital platforms such as Facebook, Google, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok, WhatsApp, and YouTube. These platforms profoundly impact how voters receive information about electoral processes, issues, and candidates. A recent Ipsos survey across 16 countries with elections in 2024 found that 87% of respondents were concerned about the influence of disinformation and fake news by generative AI on election outcomes, with social media and messaging apps being primary sources of such misinformation.
The largest U.S. technology companies, facing declining profits, increased regulatory scrutiny, and the pressure to invest in AI, have shifted focus away from teams that mitigate electoral threats. For example, X (previously known as Twitter) has significantly reduced its efforts in this area, resulting in increased disinformation and hate speech on the platform. Some platforms, such as Meta and Google, attempt to apply safeguards and use generative AI for content moderation.
Newer platforms like Discord, TikTok, and Twitch are developing election-related policies but need to gain experience in managing election dynamics, and they have yet to be tested. Telegram has a relaxed approach to combating disinformation, while U.S.-centric platforms like Gab, Rumble, and Truth Social promote extremism and conspiracy theories. Encrypted messaging platforms like WhatsApp present unique challenges due to the encrypted nature of shared content.
The resources and resolve of tech platforms to monitor and address problematic content are limited. Each platform has different processes for reporting disinformation, hate speech, or harassment, and their capacity to respond varies greatly. This leads to a disparity in resources focused on supporting electoral integrity in the U.S. compared to other countries.
The regulatory landscape for tech companies is increasingly complex. In the U.S., over 100 bills have been introduced since 2022 to regulate how social media platforms handle user posts. The Supreme Court is expected to make decisions that will significantly impact how these companies operate. Europe is implementing its Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, while countries like India, Indonesia, and the UK are introducing their regulations.
Governments attempt to control information around elections in countries like India and Mexico. The proliferation of powerful generative AI tools makes creating and disseminating fake content easier, undermining trust in the electoral process. Hostile actors in the US, such as those in a recent influence campaign identified by Meta, are using these tools to manipulate elections worldwide.
Since 2016, efforts to understand and counter online electoral interference have been complicated by political investigations in the U.S., hindering collaboration between companies, researchers, and governments. This has impacted research and contingency planning at a critical time.
U.S. agencies face legal uncertainties in engaging with social media platforms on electoral security. Other nations focused on domestic issues may need to pay more attention to their international election support roles.
Despite these challenges, there are opportunities for education to protect this year’s elections. Increased investment in information monitoring, fact-checking, and digital forensics is essential, especially in countries with limited capacity to track electoral threats. Governments and organizations supporting democracy must engage local and regional civil society leaders to form coalitions that include diverse stakeholders.
Understanding the impact of generative AI tools and developing public-private partnerships to educate voters are crucial.
Innovative efforts like those during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, which pre-bunked problematic narratives, can be practical. These strategies help voters identify trustworthy sources and understand the potential manipulation of information.
The year 2024 is a watershed moment for democracy. The challenges are immense, but so are the opportunities for defending electoral integrity. This year could be remembered as when democracy was strengthened through concerted efforts and collaboration.
This article was written by Rooz Aliabadi, Ph.D. (rooz@readyai.org). Rooz is the CEO (Chief Troublemaker) at ReadyAI.org
To learn more about ReadyAI, visit www.readyai.org or email us at info@readyai.org.
