"How has the Philippine disinformation landscape evolved since 2016? How different was the 2022 presidential election from previous electoral cycles? And what lessons can we learn from electoral triumphs and defeats often associated with disinformation? This report goes to the heart of these questio
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ns. Our aim is to understand the evolving character of disinformation—the tactics used, actors involved, the wider context in which disinformation unfolds, and the responses of the government, tech platforms, and civil society to these trends. In doing so, we hope to generate actionable insights on impactful responses to disinformation, with a view of preparing for the 2025 midterm election." (Introduction)
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"[This publication] outlines how organised disinformation campaigns or Information Operations have become the latest variable to impact the quality of elections in the kingdom [...] Drawn from past evidence, the report identifies four forms of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns that are likely
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to impact the quality of the 2023 elections. First, the creation and dissemination of one-sided pro-establishment campaigns. Second, the online harassment of those who hold alternative political views. Third, the spread of disinformation to distort the election process. Fourth, the use of disinformation to polarise and divide society. Together these state-sponsored actions stand to decrease electoral integrity and shape the outcome of the 2023 general election. To address the impact of state-sponsored disinformation and other forms of disinformation, this report recommends the following multi-stakeholder action: call for a cease to Information Operations; identify, monitor and call out agencies and actors who engage in and endorse disinformation; review the country’s regulatory framework to ensure that its provisions are on par with international standards and support electoral integrity; and improve fact-checking mechanisms and provide digital literary to Thai people." (Executive summary)
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"This report investigates the political economy of covert influence in the 2022 Philippine Elections, with a focus on social media influencers involved in covert political campaigning. This interdisciplinary research (1) examines political influencers and peripheral actors in the field engaged in po
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litical campaigning using qualitative field research methods, (2) maps and evaluates evidence of their participation in covert influence operations through computational social science methods, and (3) estimates political spending on the presumed commissioned influencers through economic modeling. Our research is the first empirical work to produce an assembly of data-informed approximations of the scope and scale of the political economy of covert influence operations. Specifically, it is the first to estimate the economic ‘cost’ of commissioned influencers for electoral influence operations in the Philippines. It also provides a complex but nuanced account of influencers as ‘gray’ political actors who exercise agency in their complicity to covert political campaigning given commensurate economic and political incentives. Amidst undocumented transactions and opaque operations, our research establishes multiple, cross-platform proxy measures of malicious political influencing, beyond established detection mechanisms. We find that thousands of political influencers are presumed to be commissioned to perform covert political campaigning in the 2022 Philippine Elections for top national positions, funded by massive financing by political intermediaries in a largely unstructured and unregulated economic market characterized by asymmetrical political relations." (Executive summary, page 11)
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"Social media have led to profound transformations in the media ecosystem and new communication dynamics. Such platforms have become a competitive source of information and played a decisive role in facilitating the dissemination of false or misleading content, with a particular impact on recent ele
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ctions. This study analyses the formats and the spread of disinformation during Brazil’s 2018 election on social media, considering the countermeasures adopted that year by the platforms to reduce its circulation. Disinformation occupies a central space in the public debate in Brazil, where there is massive use of social media. Based on a content analysis of the 153 false or misleading narratives most shared during the campaign period, the results show that contents changed formats to overcome platforms’ countermeasures. Results also highlight a majority of images and a blend of false and accurate information that reshape the phenomenon definition and suggests the inefficacy of current regulations." (Abstract)
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"Through this research we gained insight into tactics employed by state-backed social media disinformation. With that goal, we explored user interactions with inauthentic Twitter accounts. We used multiple procedures to measure the ways in which users talked with and about the accounts employed by t
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he Russian-affiliated Internet Research Agency in the month before the 2016 U.S. Election. We found that users were overwhelming supportive of the IRA accounts, a fact that calls into question the standard representation of these accounts as “trolls.” Users were particularly supportive of the accounts that pretended to be part of a particular ideological group (on both the left and right), supporting arguments that a strategy of building connections with like-minded people was central to the IRA campaign. This strategy seems to work—on days that the Russian accounts received more support they also received more engagement." (Lay summary)
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"In 2022, internet penetration and social platform usage reached an all-time high – 43.4% of the total population who use the internet are youth aged between 15-24 years. Youth voters have explicitly become a major target of political parties and their campaign messages. We can expect social media
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and online campaigns to be deployed by political parties, sometimes at an expense of authenticity, to reach out to these young voters. However, legal and non-legal measures implemented to date have yet to effectively address disinformation. Hence, youth and other voters remain potentially exposed to the risk of online manipulation during the election. This baseline study identifies the risks from 5 recurring patterns of disinformation related to: sexual orientation and promiscuity; corruption; electoral integrity; women politicians and foreign interference. The 2022 Johor Bahru State Election confirms this trend. To mitigate disinformation and build trust in the electoral system and process, Asia Centre has complied some recommendations for key stakeholders in educational institutions, the election commission, government, media, NGOs, political parties, technology companies and youth groups who can implement them as practical safeguards to ensure that first-time and other voters are not subjected to manipulation through disinformation campaigns." (Conclusion, page 34)
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"The actions to be developed are distributed in three axes: (i) Inform, aimed at the dissemination of official, reliable and quality information; (ii) Empower, aimed at media literacy and training the whole of society to understand the phenomenon of disinformation and the functioning of the electora
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l process; and (iii) Respond, related to the identification of cases of disinformation and the adoption of strategies, both preventive and repressive, to contain its negative effects. For the 2022 electoral cycle, the first axis has five projects with their own purposes and goals. They are: (i) mass dissemination network of truthful and official information about elections and the Electoral Justice; (ii) chatbot – electoral queries on WhatsApp; (iii) access, dissemination and enhancement of the scope of fact checking on the electoral process; (iv) deepening electoral transparency; (v) development and improvement of other technological tools and digital channels to disseminate true and quality information. In this strategic point, the Court’s action is guided by the preferential position of freedom of expression, in the legal system, by encouraging plurality of information. Likewise, information actions meet the recommendations for “prophylactic” prebunking actions (that is, strategies to reduce citizens’ susceptibility to disinformation by exposing examples of how disinformation operates). The second axis, in turn, includes seven initiatives: (i) training for internal and external audiences on disinformation, on the integrity of Brazilian elections and on the fundamentality of the Electoral Justice as an institution that guarantees democracy; (ii) prevention of the mental health of members, agents and collaborators of the Electoral Justice who deal directly with actions to contain disinformation; (iii) training the internal and external public on the electoral process, including the functions performed by it in the context of the democratic rule of Law; (iv) awareness campaigns on disinformation and media and information education actions for the external public; (v) cooperation and actions to enhance reaching partners’ media and information literacy initiatives; (vi) dialog with political parties and party federations to make them aware of their responsibility in the context of fighting against disinformation; (vii) support to other public institutions to implement actions to confronting disinformation. Finally, the response axis encompasses eight projects: (i) permanent coalition for verification; (ii) engagement of digital platforms and their technological resources in confronting structured networks of disinformation and inauthentic behavior; (iii) reporting channel for mass shooting of content in partnership with WhatsApp; (iv) creating a network to monitor disinformation practices against the electoral process; (v) containment of disinformation on Telegram; (vi) partnership and dialog with the Federal Police and the Electoral Prosecutor Office; (vii) Strategic Cyberintelligence Committee and (viii) review and elaboration of norms that acts against the practice of disinformation in the Electoral Justice, as a way of preventing the phenomenon in question. Concerning to this point, the planning met the parameters of timely response, appreciation of fact checking, importance of engagement and transparency of platforms, as well as the expansion and improvement of channels for complaints." (Presentation, page 5-6)
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"La aparición de las redes sociodigitales a mediados de la primera década de 2000 fue recibida con entusiasmo y recelo por diversos sectores sociales. Los ciudadanos vieron en espacios como Facebook, Twitter y, más recientemente, Instagram, una consolidación de la autocomunicación de masas plan
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teada por Manuel Castells en 1997 que acercaba el poder de la información y la comunicación a las personas del común, mientras los políticos dudaban entre si era un riesgo o una oportunidad en la disputa del poder en la opinión pública. Lo ocurrido en los casi veinte años de vida de las redes sociodigitales ha mostrado su poder de movilización social (Occupy Wall Street, Primavera Árabe, #MeToo) y su impacto político, pero también ha expuesto varios riesgos derivados del uso social y de los algoritmos que controlan la red, entre ellos las cámaras de eco, la espiral de silencio, el contenido engañoso (misinformation), el contenido falso (desinformación), el exceso de información (infodemia) y la presencia de bots que replican información para convertirla en tendencia u ocultar contenidos." (Publisher description)
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"This report examines the characteristics and consequences of influence operations in the 2022 presidential election in the Philippines. The report makes three main claims: a) the term "influence operations" provides a broader frame to identify personalities, platforms, and practices that hack publi
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c attention, mobilize publics, and influence electoral out; b) influence operations build on cumulative impacts of longitudinal disinformation; c) The main consequence of influence operations in 2022 is the creation of parallel public spheres or two separate information ecosystems aligned with hardened political identities. The document concludes with pathways forward as the nation seeks to rebuild today's distorted public sphere." (Executive summary, page 7)
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"Internet shutdowns in Africa are becoming increasingly widespread, particularly when governments face competitive or contentious elections. They have also come to symbolise a widening fracture between competing conceptions of the global Internet and its regulation. Governments in Africa are justify
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ing shutdowns as able address misinformation and disinformation, protect the election process, and ensure national security. International organisations, NGOs, and social networking platforms condemn these as an inadmissible form of censorship and information control, an abuse by political actors seeking to silence critics or manipulate elections. This article offers an alternative reading on internet shutdowns by placing them in the historical context of the wide range of information controls around elections, many of which are widely regarded as being acceptable and legitimate mechanisms to support competitive elections. By offering this context, we can ask what is new about shutdowns and whether they can ever be regarded as a proportionate response to real concerns of social media and election manipulation. We conclude by highlighting the inequalities of online content moderation as an often-overlooked factor in driving the use of shutdowns, and the failure of social media companies to effectively address misinformation and disinformation in Africa, particularly around elections." (Abstract)
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"Die Coronapandemie hat schonungslos die Schwachstellen der digitalen Gesellschaft aufgedeckt: die Digitalisierungsdefizite der öffentlichen Verwaltung, die schlechte digitale Ausstattung der Schulen und Universitäten, die Monopolstellung internationaler Digitalkonzerne, die Polarisierung in den s
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ozialen Medien, die digitale Spaltung der Gesellschaft in Stadt und Land und Arm und Reich. Auch die Demokratie und ihre Institutionen scheinen nur zum Teil auf die Herausforderungen der Digitalisierung vorbereitet zu sein. Gleichzeitig hat die Pandemie gesellschaftliche Digitalisierungspotenziale aufgezeigt und entsprechende Prozesse angestoßen oder beschleunigt, etwa hinsichtlich neuer digitaler Formen der Kommunikation und des Arbeitens, der Verwaltungsmodernisierung oder im Bereich demokratischer Partizipation. Die größte gesellschaftliche Aufgabe dürfte künftig sein, alte digitale Spaltungen und Ungleichheiten abzubauen und neuen vorzubeugen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of international and regional standards and commitments related to the rights to freedom of expression, access to information, political participation, and privacy in the area of the internet, social media and Artificial Intelligence in elections. It al
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so maps a series of good practices implemented by diverse stakeholders worldwide during electoral processes. It is organized in eight sections: six sections dedicated to the analysis of the challenges and the general situation of elections in digital times, a section dedicated to conclusions and a section with suggestions for possible action. Each of the first six sections has a guide of suggested questions at the end in case the publication is used for trainings and workshops." (Methodological note, page 14)
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