Disinformation and Elections - September 2020
As the region has several controversial elections coming up, political actors are in a disinformation arms race with little incentive to back down.
There are five big elections in this hemisphere before the end of the year.
18 October: Bolivia presidential and legislative elections
25 October: Chile’s constitutional referendum
3 November: US presidential and legislative elections
15 November: Brazil municipal election
6 December: Venezuela legislative elections
Some elections in Bolivia and Brazil may have second rounds.
For reasons I’m not sure of, during the past week I received a large number of questions and comments related to election-linked disinformation in the hemisphere. Being that it’s on many readers’ minds, today’s newsletter discusses some general points on disinformation as they may apply to these upcoming elections. If there is interest, I’m happy to write more about the specific elections.
At the risk of generalizing across the Latin American media landscape, political and media narratives are driven by the discussion on Twitter because that is the platform for public discourse. Disinformation is spreading most rapidly among populations via WhatsApp. As opposed to the public discourse on Twitter, there is something about closed and semi-closed groups including those on WhatsApp that causes people to trust the information more and share it with their friends and family.
Controversial and close elections make disinformation more effective and more dangerous
While the process for Chile’s constitutional referendum started with unrest and is likely to hit bumps in the months to come, October’s referendum on the constitutional rewrite is almost certain to pass by a wide margin and without questions about the results. The other four elections have high likelihood of controversy.
Disinformation prior to elections can be used to smear candidates, intimidate or confuse voters and alter the media landscape in terms of the topics covered. On the day of the election and after a controversial election, targeted disinformation campaigns can do long term damage by dividing the sides, promoting violence, and casting doubt on the events that occurred.
Bolivia is particularly at risk due to the fights over the legitimacy of the 2019 election (I wrote about it back in June). There was a significant use of bots and disinformation both by Morales and his opponents during that 2019 fight and the controversy over the 2019 election is still going on, with both sides trying to discredit the other. While the election conditions seem better in 2020 than 2019, a close result that puts Arce right at the edge of first round victory will create very ugly outcomes.
Most disinformation is local
Most of the disinformation that occurs in Latin America comes from domestic sources. Smart and sophisticated local actors often build up networks to manipulate social media and spread bad info. That was true in the elections in 2018 and 2019 in Latin America and will be true in the five elections above. In each case, disinfo that is created and spread locally will be much larger in quantity than disinfo coming from foreign sources.
That goes against the broader media narrative. Foreign-based disinfo is more fun to talk about. There is an eagerness to blame foreign powers (Venezuela, Russia, China or the US) for various disinformation campaigns that are occurring. The discussion foreign-based disinfo often serves its own political agenda.
While it’s true that there are times that foreign-based disinformation can have a disproportionately large impact, it doesn’t happen without domestic conditions allowing it. Those domestic conditions are often driven by local actors who prime the space. Increasingly, actors in the region are working with foreign disinformation networks, blurring the line between domestic and foreign-based disinformation.
No single side is to blame
There are disinformation campaigns coming from the political right, center and left of the spectrum. There is disinformation driven by business interests and social activists. While the hemisphere’s populist and authoritarian presidents are definitely guilty of some of the worst disinformation campaigns, that does not mean their political opponents are completely innocent.
Even though that is true, it’s wrong to dismiss the issue as “everyone does it.” Certain actors are worse than others and should be called out on it. Stopping the worst manipulation of information and online networks is necessary to prevent the worst case outcomes in the real world.
Domestic disinformation will be aimed at foreign audiences
We often think of election disinformation as targeting voters, but in at least two cases this year, the main disinformation battleground may be over how foreign audiences view the legitimacy of the election.
In Bolivia, after the controversy of 2019, the various sides want to convince the international community of the legitimacy of their preferred outcome. Disinformation related to the election conditions is going to have a greater impact on the foreign view of Bolivia than on voters’ preferences.
Maduro in Venezuela is focused on using December’s elections to demonstrate the legitimacy of his government to the international community, even as he uses domestic communications to threaten and intimidate political opponents. Maduro’s opponents want to highlight Maduro’s abuses and discredit him, a legitimate effort, but have at times resorted to fake news and botnets to promote their own version of the narrative. That fight over the legislative elections will become relevant in January as Maduro again tries to discredit Guaido’s claim to the presidency.
Everyone is eager to accuse the other side of disinformation
It’s trendy to shout “fake news” as a way to discredit opponents. Worse, many governments use the presence of disinformation as a justification for censorship of media outlets.
This effect played an important role in the 2019 protest movement. Domestic and foreign disinformation efforts existed and attempted to inflame and manipulate protests across the region. Yet, governments who focused on this aspect of the protests often missed out on addressing the legitimate grievances that drove many citizens to the streets.
There is a disinformation arms race
When I conducted a study on disinformation in Mexico’s 2018 election campaign, I described the two sides as “armies of tens of thousands of bots lined up ready to do battle.” The PRI and Morena had organized sophisticated systems to manipulate social media in ways that drove the media narrative and attacked opponents. That sort of fight is now being seen across Latin America.
One of the more dangerous parts of this situation is that there is little reason for anyone back down and many incentives to ramp up. Both sides in Bolivia are preparing for a major information battle following October’s election. Bolsonaro’s family is running its own networks of disinformation and some of his opponents are building up botnets and WhatsApp whisper campaigns to counter them because they don’t trust the judicial system to stop the president.
As with corruption in government and crime in the streets, when there is impunity for disinformation campaigns, they spread. There isn’t an easy off ramp for the current escalation.
Thanks for reading
The Wilson Center has a podcast this week on disinformation in the hemisphere. Several good articles were published this week by Tim Padgett, Sergio Guzman and Dan Restrepo about Colombian politicians interfering in the US elections by spreading disinformation among Florida voters. This report from the Atlantic Council goes more in depth on disinformation in the 2018 elections in Latin America.
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