DISINFORMATIONDisinformation Threatens Global Elections – Here’s How to Fight Back
With over half the world’s population heading to the polls in 2024, disinformation season is upon us — and the warnings are dire. Many efforts have focused on fact-checking and debunking false beliefs. In contrast, “prebunking” is a new way to prevent false beliefs from forming in the first place. Polio was a highly infectious disease that was eradicated through vaccination and herd immunity. Our challenge now is to build herd immunity to the tricks of disinformers and propagandists. The future of our democracy may depend on it.
With over half the world’s population heading to the polls in 2024, disinformation season is upon us — and the warnings are dire. The World Economic Forum declared misinformation a top societal threat over the next two years and major news organizations caution that disinformation poses an unprecedented threat to democracies worldwide.
Yet, some scholars and pundits have questioned whether disinformation can really sway election outcomes. Others think concern over disinformation is just a moral panic or merely a symptom rather than the cause of our societal ills. Pollster Nate Silver even thinks that misinformation “isn’t a coherent concept”.
But we argue the evidence tells a different story.
A 2023 study showed that the vast majority of academic experts are in agreement about how to define misinformation (namely as false and misleading content) and what this looks like (for example lies, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience). Although the study didn’t cover disinformation, such experts generally agree that this can be defined as intentional misinformation.
A recent paper clarified that misinformation can both be a symptom and the disease. In 2022, nearly 70% of Republicans still endorsed the false conspiracy theory that the 2020 US presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. If Trump had never floated this theory, how would millions of people have possibly acquired these beliefs?
Moreover, although it is clear that people do not always act on dangerous beliefs, the January 6 US Capitol riots, incited by false claims, serve as an important reminder that a misinformed crowd can disrupt and undermine democracy.
Given that nearly 25% of elections are decided by a margin of under 3%, mis- and disinformation can have important influence. One study found that among previous Barack Obama voters who did not buy into any fake news about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, 89% voted for Clinton. By contrast, among prior Obama voters who believed at least two fake headlines about Clinton, only 17% voted for her.
While this doesn’t necessarily prove that the misinformation caused the voting behavior, we do know that millions of black voters were targeted with misleading ads discrediting Clinton in key swing states ahead of the election.
Research has shown that such micro-targeting of specific audiences based on variables such as their personality not only influences decision-making but also impacts voting intentions. A recent paper illustrated how large language models can be deployed to craft micro-targeted ads at scale, estimating that for every 100,000 individuals targeted, at least several thousand can be persuaded.
