Disinfodemic

By Luis Fierro Carrión (*)

Twitter: @Luis_Fierro_Eco

The Russian government's propaganda and intelligence apparatus has been interfering in electoral processes since the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014. Their intervention in the campaign for “Brexit” (the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union) was notable, as well as the 2016 and 2020 campaigns in the United States (in favor of Donald Trump).

The Russian government's meddling in the 2016 elections, to attack Hillary Clinton and favor Trump, was even investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Generally speaking, the Mueller report found that Russia sent disinformation, or manipulated information, to social media accounts, including Twitter and Facebook. Additionally, the electoral systems of all 50 states were attacked by Russian agents, looking for vulnerabilities. There is no evidence that the votes were changed, but there is evidence that Russian agents (linked to the Kremlin's security apparatus) may have changed the voter registration information, including the assignment of polling places.

Following the "success" of disinformation campaigns with Brexit and the election of Trump in 2016 (and some failed attempts, such as in Scotland and Catalonia), several other countries have developed their capacities for this type of disinformation war. Among them, for example, it was reported that both Russia and Iran (or possibly agents from other countries posing as Iranians) intervened in the 2020 elections in the United States, and other nations such as China and North Korea also developed that ability.

Another variant is the "hacking" of email accounts of political leaders, which has probably happened for decades, but in 2016 they were weaponized to attack certain candidates. Thus, for example, Russian intelligence was able to enter the accounts of Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, as well as the Democratic National Committee, but instead of keeping the information hidden for potential extortion, they disclosed it (via WikiLeaks and other digital media) to try to generate internal divisions in the Democratic Party, and thus try to reduce the vote for Clinton in the general election. Hillary Clinton ended up getting nearly 3 million more votes than Trump, but because of the “Electoral College” structure, Trump was able to win by a margin of 71,000 votes in three states.

With the pandemic, misinformation has also been unleashed, generating multiple unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. In some of them, billionaires who have supported the consolidation of democracy, public health, and education, such as George Soros and Bill Gates, have been targeted. While Gates, for example, has been promoting vaccination against various epidemics and strengthening public health systems; absurd conspiracy theories were fabricated such as that the founder of Microsoft would have "created" the coronavirus and would seek to "enrich himself" with vaccines (while the activities of the Gates Foundation are philanthropic).

In the United States, in addition, the QAnon conspiracy theory has spread, according to which the elites of the Democratic Party, millionaires, actors, etc., would be part of a satanic group dedicated to pedophilia and the murder of children. The latter theory emerged after candidate Trump was accused in a court case of having raped two minors, in the company of Jeffrey Epstein (the convicted pedophile who was later found dead in a New York jail).

Followers of this sect, and other white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, invaded the United States Congress on January 6, killing 5 people (and threatening Democratic lawmakers), motivated by misinformation generated by Trump and his followers, around false accusations of electoral fraud (accusations that were disproved in more than 60 court cases, including one presented before the Supreme Court). The head of computer security for the elections (of the Trump administration) and Trump's own Attorney General, Bill Barr, denied that there had been electoral fraud; but nonetheless, a high percentage of Republicans and Trump supporters still think that it happened.

In this, social networks have a degree of responsibility. An MIT study found that false information is distributed more widely, faster, and deeper than true information, across all categories of information, in many cases by an order of magnitude.

Therefore, it was a bit untimely for Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to close the accounts of Trump, QAnon followers and other sources of misinformation (about the pandemic and vaccines, for example), when the damage had already been done.

PS: Here are some suggestions from UNESCO on how to confront disinformation.

https://en.unesco.org/covid19/disinfodemic

(*) a summarized version of this article was published in Spanish on February 5th, 2021, in the Ecuadorian newspaper "El Universo"

https://www.eluniverso.com/opinion/2021/02/05/nota/9613188/desinfodemia

Photo:  Trump Supporters during the invasion of the U.S. Capitol building.  (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)