‘Information space single, gravest threat to electoral integrity’

Referring to his address at the conference on Monday, Banbury said the information space is the “single gravest threat to democracy, electoral integrity and social cohesion in many countries, and it’s only becoming more severe”.
He said technological tools are being developed and made available to individuals, candidates, political parties and “malign actors”.

The low cost of application, the high return and low risk are fuelling this, he maintained.

The conference was a part of the US-led Summit for Democracy, held for the first time in December 2021. The second summit will be held virtually in March. The EC, along with IFES, Mauritius and Greece, was selected to lead the cohort on election integrity in the run-up to the second summit.

After the conference, Banbury told The Indian Express that this was an opportunity for IFES and the EC to share with election management bodies (EMBs) of other countries the challenges of dealing with misinformation.

Banbury also raised concern over the use of artificial intelligence and deepfakes (a video or sound recording replacing a person’s face or voice with that of someone else).

“More and more companies are willing to sell commercial services to candidates, parties or nefarious actors who want to influence election outcomes to spread misinformation campaigns, to attack political opponents,” he said. “And where those attacks are coming from are not seen by those consuming the information via social media.”

Banbury said social media companies must be a part of the solution since, at the end of the day, their platform is being used to disseminate misinformation. “Of course, we support freedom of expression. We have seen in some countries efforts to supposedly combat misinformation online but, really, it is an attack on free speech by autocrats,” he said. “Obviously, we have to resist that.”