Analysis: There are concerns about how voters, politicians and media deal with disinformation and misinformation during election campaigns
We know we'll have a general election in Ireland at some point in the next six months and there are already concerns about the spread of disinformation during election campaigns, especially with the use of AI.
But are voters better prepared for and more aware of fake news - and how are politicians shaping up for dealing with misinformation? Dr. Eileen Culloty is Deputy Director at the Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society at the School of Communications at DCU and she joined the Today with Claire Byrne show on RTÉ Radio 1 to discuss the issue (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full below).
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, Dr Eileen Culloty on dealing with election campaign misinformation and disinformation
Culloty says there have been some developments since the 2020 election which means we are better prepared now than then. "We now have an Electoral Commission, we have a new media commission and there's an EU framework for regulating online platforms. Beyond those kind of regulatory areas, there are more journalists and fact-checkers covering disinformation. Media literacy is now embedded in strategies for education and libraries and cybersecurity and all kinds of things like that.
"In that sense, we're definitely better prepared because structures are being established, but establishing structures takes a long time. I wouldn't say that all of those structures are robust and ready to go and that we don't have to worry about disinformation at all going into this election. Those structures need to be tested and built up over time."
In terms of the Electoral Commission, Culloty believes some of its powers still need to be finessed. "When the Commission was established, one of its duties was to look at online political advertising, and one was to look at misinformation. This is actually quite unusual in the context of what electoral commissions in other countries do, because they respond to misinformation or disinformation about the electoral process. The kind of things that we've heard from Donald Trump and lots of others claiming that something fraudulent was happening or that the way voting was being done was incorrect, that's what most countries do.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, reporter Gavin O'Callaghan looks at fears around election disinformation in Ireland
"In Ireland, they were due to have powers to respond to disinformation more generally, which would just be an enormous undertaking. That's being revised, but it isn't in place yet. The way Ireland approaches political advertising has to be in line with the EU, and the EU has set up rules around how platforms must provide information to the public about political advertising so there's still stuff to be worked out there."
It's important to remember that disinformation isn't illegal, says Culloty. "There's a very long history of lies in political campaigning, so we shouldn't pretend or have unrealistic or even undemocratic expectations about what regulation can do. It cannot get rid of lies and disinformation, and it probably shouldn't aim to do that. What it should aim to do is minimise harm, and this is very much the EU approach and it talks about how do we minimise harm to the public in all kinds of areas, including elections.
"A lot of the emphasis is on establishing mechanisms to report to platforms. They should take something down or they should review something is a piece of content in breach of their own rules and, if so, take it down. There's also a big emphasis on educating the public about media literacy and things like that and encouraging politicians and political parties to campaign with integrity. While that might sound a bit slight, they do set the tone, they do have an important influence on how campaigns go."
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From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, Coimisiún na Meán's John Evans on how social media companies are aiming to counter disinformation ahead of local and European elections
Culloty believes everyone in society has a part to play in dealing with election disinformation. "I know it's a cliché, this idea of a whole of society approach, but nobody has all the answers and no single sector can do enough. Journalists in general have made a lot of progress in being aware of disinformation and how to cover it.
"But if you look at things like the US presidential debate recently where Trump was making these crazy claims about immigrants eating dogs, and then loads of the headlines were just about immigrants eating dogs. We know from research that you do not repeat false claims, you need to repeat accurate information. I think journalists have a lot of work to do in how they just cover disinformation and things that are just blatantly false, but that all does take time."
AI is one of the issues which many commentators have expressed concern about in terms of elections, but Culloty says it hasn't been really present so far in this year of global elections. "AI is a technology that is just going to be used so it's about how it is used. We saw some evidence in Ireland during the local and European elections of some of the smaller micro fringe parties using AI-generated images. I don't think using AI to create images in itself is necessarily wrong, no more than using Photoshop.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne in 2022, SDLP's Cara Hunter on being targeted by online abuse during an election campaign
"But it's when you're manipulating people, that's what's wrong. In the case of someone like Cara Hunter, that was an abusive attack on a female candidate. I think more broadly when we think about disinformation, that's false claims, but what we're seeing is these attacks on the political process itself. We saw that in Ireland during the June campaigns, people putting themselves forward for election and being intimidated and attacked. In some ways, that's even more concerning, because it's putting people off."
Culloty says the Welsh Senedd (parliament) is engaged in a very interesting move around disinformation. "They are looking at legislation that would make it an offense for a member to willfully mislead the parliament or the public. There's obviously big questions about how would that work, but no parliament has ever suggested doing this before.
"The public in general in most countries don't have a huge amount of trust in politicians, so this effort to say 'look, if we can show that you have very specifically lied in parliament, we're going to force you to apologise and acknowledge that' is an interesting effort to try and restore some order to politics.
"Again, it's the idea that politicians do set the tone, they do have enormous influence on everything else. If our elected representatives just don't care whether they say truth or lies, that just sets the tone for everything else. We can see how it plays out in Wales and how exactly they will define it and implement it, but I think it is a very interesting direction."
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
