Billions of voters – about half the world’s population – will go to the polls this year. This democratic exercise of unprecedented scale will have serious consequences for how the world is run for decades to come.
Published at 1:07 am Updated at 5:00 am
This comes at a time when misinformation and conspiracy theories abound around the world.
False accusations of voter fraud undermine trust in democracy, foreign propaganda exacerbates contentious national issues, and artificial intelligence increases the effect of disinformation and distorts perceptions of reality.
All this comes as social media has reduced its standards of accuracy and its campaign teams.
Almost all democracies are under pressure, regardless of technology. Add to this misinformation and it makes many dirty tricks possible.
Darrell West, fellow at the Brookings Institution
It’s “a perfect storm of misinformation,” says Darrell West, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.
Global problems
Democracy, which spread across the world after the Cold War, is facing crises everywhere: migrants, climate change, inequality, wars, etc. The failure of many countries to address these challenges undermines trust in liberal and pluralistic societies, creating fertile ground for demagogues and authoritarian politicians.
PHOTO BY ANN WANG, REUTERS
Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s vice president and presidential candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, greets supporters during an election campaign event in Taipei this month. Taiwan, which is trying to fend off Chinese disinformation campaigns, will hold presidential elections on Saturday.
Dictatorships, led by Russia and China, are taking advantage of voter discontent to spread narratives that undermine democratic institutions and the authority of elected officials, often by sponsoring disinformation campaigns. This weakening work, if successful, could favor the election of authoritarian leaders.
According to Fyodor Lukyanov, who heads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow – close to the Kremlin – 2024 “could be the year when the liberal elites of the West lose control of the world order”.
Upheavals to the political establishment are expected in many countries and in intergovernmental bodies such as the G20, says Katie Harbath, founder of the technology think tank Anchor Change and former public policy director in charge of elections at Facebook. Disinformation – spread by social media, but also by the press, radio, television and word of mouth – risks destabilizing the political process.
“In 2025, the world will look very different,” he predicts.
Aggressive state operators
Autocratic governments that seek to discredit democracy as a global model of governance are among the largest sources of disinformation during election campaigns.
Russia, China and Iran may try to disrupt elections in other countries, including the 2024 U.S. presidential election, researchers and the U.S. government say. These countries see next year as “a real opportunity to embarrass themselves on the international stage, exploit social divisions and undermine the democratic process,” warns Brian Liston, an analyst at Recorded Future, a digital security firm that recently published a report on threats to the American elections.
PHOTO SAIYNA BASHIR, NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVES
Supporters of the Pakistan Movement for Justice party during a rally in support of Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad last year. Elections will be held in Pakistan in February.
The company also looked into a Russian influence attempt debunked by Meta in 2023, dubbed “Doppelgänger*,” which appeared to impersonate international media and create fake accounts that spread Russian propaganda in the United States and Europe. Doppelgänger appears to have used AI tools available online to create fake news sources about American politics, with names like Election Watch and My Pride.
Online disinformation circulating around the world often passes through immigrant communities or is orchestrated by state agents. Experts predict that allegations of voter fraud will continue to evolve and reverberate, as seen in the United States and Brazil in 2022, and then Argentina in 2023.
Division and extremism
A polarizing and hardening political environment fosters hate speech and misinformation and pushes voters further into their echo chambers. A motivated minority of extremist voices, aided by social media algorithms that reinforce prejudice, can drown out the opinion of the moderate majority.
PHOTO PAUL BERSEBACH, PROVIDED BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former California Police Chief Alan Hostetter during a “pro-Trump election integrity” rally in November 2020. This anti-containment activist claims January 6, 2021 could have been a “household.” He was convicted of conspiracy in the Capitol riot and sentenced to 11 years in prison in December 2023.
“Our societies are redefining the norms of speech and accountability for public expression, online and offline,” Harbath noted. “How to do this? There are many opinions in the United States and other parts of the world. »
The most extreme voices seek and find each other on alternative social media such as Telegram, BitChute and Truth Social. These platforms have recently led to a surge in requests to prevent voter fraud – statistically insignificant – reports Pyrra, a company that monitors threats and disinformation.
The “prevalence and acceptance of these issues is growing,” even directly influencing election politics and regulation, Pyrra found in a case study.
“These conspiracies spread to political elites, who use these themes to curry favor with the public by degrading the transparency and control mechanisms of the system they are supposed to uphold,” the firm’s researchers write.
Promises and dangers of artificial intelligence
According to a report from the universities of Chicago and Stanford “artificial intelligence could promote democratic life”. AI tools dedicated to politics could inform voters on key issues and improve contacts with elected officials.
Elections for the European Parliament will take place in June. The European Union will have a new law aimed at curbing corrosive content online.
This technology could also be a vector of disinformation. Fake AI images have already been used to spread conspiracy theories alleging a global plot to replace white Europeans with non-white immigrants.
Lawrence Norden, who directs elections and government programs at the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institute, warned that artificial intelligence could mimic large quantities of documents from elections offices and distribute them widely. It could also create fake news days before the U.S. vote, such as apparently AI-manipulated audio released during a close election in Slovakia last fall.
“All threats to our democracy for some time are potentially exacerbated by artificial intelligence,” Norden noted during an online panel discussion in November. (During the conference, the organizers showed an artificially manipulated version of Norden to emphasize the capabilities of the artificial intelligence.)
Some experts worry that the mere presence of AI tools will weaken trust in information and allow political actors to withhold real content. Others say these fears are so far exaggerated.
Artificial intelligence is “just one threat among others,” said James Lindsay, senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
PHOTO DEEPAK SHARMA, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVE
In India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned about misleading artificial intelligence content, a general election is due in the spring.
“I would not lose sight of all the traditional ways of sowing disinformation,” he added.
Big tech companies are reducing their protections
In countries where general elections are scheduled for 2024, misinformation has become a major concern for the vast majority of people surveyed by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization. However, measures taken by social media to limit toxic content, which has been on the rise since the 2016 US presidential election, have recently been scaled back or even eliminated.
Meta, YouTube, and Some offer new features, such as one-way private broadcasts, that are particularly difficult to control.
These companies are starting the year with “very little bandwidth, very little editorial responsibility, and billions of people around the world turning to these platforms for news,” which is not ideal for protecting democracy, notes Nora Benavidez, senior legal counsel for the Free Press.
PHOTO ERALDO PERES, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVE
Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro storm the presidential palace in Brasilia on January 8, 2023. Experts predict that allegations of electoral fraud will continue to evolve and reverberate, as reported in the United States and Brazil in 2022, then to Argentina in 2023. .
New platforms, such as TikTok, will likely play a greater role in political content. Substack, the news blogging platform – which announced last month that it would not ban Nazi symbols and extremist rhetoric – wants the next election cycle to be “the Substack election.”
Politicians are planning live events on Twitch, which is also hosting a debate between AI-generated versions of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said in a blog post in November that it was “in a strong position to protect the integrity of next year’s elections.” [ses] platforms”. (Last month, a company-appointed oversight board questioned Meta’s automated tools and its handling of two videos related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.)
YouTube wrote last month that its “constituencies worked tirelessly” to ensure they had “the right policies and systems in place.” The platform announced last summer that it would stop removing false stories of voter fraud. (YouTube has said it wants voters to hear all sides of a debate, but clarified that “this is not a free pass to spread harmful misinformation or promote hateful rhetoric.”)
This type of content proliferated on the platform. Many social media platforms rely heavily on unreliable artificial intelligence to moderate content. Their small human teams spend their time putting out fires, imagined Ms. Popken, who later joined the content moderation firm WebPurify.
“Election integrity is such a monumental endeavor that it really requires a proactive strategy, a lot of people, brains and crisis teams,” he concluded.
* Lookalike is a German word borrowed from English meaning “double” or “double of a living person”. It is present in fiction, folklore or even Germanic and Nordic mythology. Designates the ghostly double of a living person, most often an evil twin.
