Claims circulating online in India recently misstated details about voting, claimed without evidence that the election would be manipulated, and urged for violence against India’s Muslims.

Researchers who study misinformation and hate speech in India say digital companies’ lax enforcement of their own regulations has created ideal conditions for damaging content that might alter public opinion, incite violence, and leave millions of voters unsure what to trust.

“A non-discerning user or regular user has no idea whether it’s someone, an individual sharing his or her thoughts on the other end, or is it a bot?” Rekha Singh, a 49-year-old voter, told the Associated Press. Singh expressed her concern that social media algorithms affect voters’ perceptions of truth. “So you are biased without even realizing it,” she went on to say.

In a year filled with major elections, India’s sweeping vote stands out. The world’s most populous country speaks dozens of languages and has the highest number of WhatsApp users and YouTube subscribers. Nearly 1 billion citizens are eligible to vote in the election, which will take place through June.

Google and Meta, the owners of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, say they are striving to prevent false or hateful content while assisting voters in finding credible sources. However, experts who have long followed disinformation in India believe their assurances are hollow after years of failed enforcement and “cookie-cutter” techniques that ignore India’s linguistic, religious, geographic, and cultural diversity.

According to disinformation experts that specialize in India, given the country’s size and importance to social media businesses, greater attention is likely.

“The platforms get money from this. Ritumbra Manuvie, a law professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, stated, “They benefit from it, and the entire country pays the price.” Manuvie is the leader of The London Story, an Indian diaspora group that staged a protest outside Meta’s London offices last month.

The group and another organization, India Civil Watch International, discovered that Meta allowed political advertisements and posts that contained anti-Muslim hate speech, Hindu nationalist narratives, misogynistic posts about female candidates, and ads encouraging violence against political opponents.

The advertisements were viewed over 65 million times in 90 days earlier this year. They collectively cost more than $1 million.

Meta defends its work on global elections and disputes the findings of the India study, noting that it has expanded its collaboration with independent fact-checking organizations ahead of the election and has employees around the world ready to act if its platforms are used to spread misinformation. Meta’s president of worldwide affairs, Nick Clegg, stated about India’s election, “It’s a huge, huge test for us.”

YouTube in India

“We have months and months of preparation in India,” he told the Associated Press in a recent interview. “Our teams work around the clock. We have fact checkers in India who speak several languages. “We have a 24-hour escalation system.”

Experts think YouTube is another significant disinformation source in India. To see how well the video-sharing platform enforced its own rules, researchers from the organizations Global Witness and Access Now constructed 48 fake ads in English, Hindi, and Telugu that contained inaccurate voting information or calls to violence.

One stated India changed the voting age to 21, although it remains at 18, and another claimed women could vote via text message, which they cannot. A third advocated for the use of force at polling locations.

When Global Witness submitted the commercials to YouTube for approval, the answer was unsatisfactory, according to Henry Peck, an investigator with Global Witness.

“YouTube didn’t act on any of them,” Peck explained, instead approving the commercials for release.

Google, YouTube’s owner, rejected the study and stated that it had several procedures in place to detect ads that breach its policies. Global Witness said the ads were removed before they could be identified and prohibited.

“Our policies explicitly prohibit ads making demonstrably false claims that could undermine participation or trust in an election, which we enforce in several Indian languages,” the company said in a statement. The corporation also mentioned its relationships with fact-checking organizations.

AI deepfakes

AI is this year’s newest threat, as technological advancements make it easier than ever to create lifelike images, video, and voice. AI deepfakes are appearing in elections around the world, from Moldova to Bangladesh.

Senthil Nayagam, founder of Muonium AI, feels there is an increasing market for deepfakes, particularly among politicians. In the run-up to the election, he had several questions about creating political videos with AI. “There’s a market for this, no doubt,” he told me.

Some of the fakes produced by Nayagam include deceased politicians and are not intended to be taken seriously, while other deepfakes circulating online have the potential to mislead voters. Modi has underlined the threat.

“We need to educate people about artificial intelligence and deepfakes, how it works, what it can do,” he stated.

India’s Information and Technology Ministry has asked social media companies to eliminate disinformation, including deepfakes. However, experts argue the lack of specific regulation or law focusing on AI and deepfakes makes it more difficult to combat, leaving it up to voters to decide what is true and what is fiction.

Ankita Jasra, 18, a first-time voter, says these ambiguities make it difficult to know what to believe.

“If I don’t know what is being said is true, I don’t think I can trust in the people that are governing my country,” she went on to say.

Source: The Associated Press

2024 Election: Democrats are losing their long-held edge among young voters, thanks in large part to Generation Z’s startling support for Donald Trump.

Polls over the last year suggest a tipping point as Trump has risen to near-parity with Joe Biden among Generation Z, but this trend has been going on for years.

Because Generation Z is more racially diverse than previous generations, Trump receives more support from voters under the age of 25 as well as black and Hispanic voters. Young voters are also regularly more inclined to be concerned about Biden’s age, the economy under his leadership, and his pro-Israel stance.

A Harvard CAPS-Harris study of more than 2,000 registered voters found that 57% approved of the Republican’s job as president, while 41% disagreed.

When the data is broken down further, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of voters in Generation Z—those aged 18 to 24—approve of Trump’s job as president. This demographic’s age range indicates that some respondents were children during Trump’s presidency, which lasted from 2017 to 2021.

Generation Z Love Trump

However, the results could serve as yet another danger sign for President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. According to Pew Research Center study, young voters played a critical role in Biden’s victory in 2020, with Generation Z and millennials supporting Biden over Trump by margins of roughly 20 points in record-breaking turnout.

According to the Harvard CAPS-Harris study, those aged 55 to 64 had the second-highest approval rating for Trump’s presidency (60 percent), followed by those aged 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 (both 58 percent).

Axios-Generation Lab issued a separate poll on Monday that showed Biden is only marginally ahead of Trump among Generation Z voters aged 18 to 34, with 52 percent selecting the president and 48 percent choosing Trump.

“We don’t know enough yet,” Neil O’Brian, a political scientist at the University of Oregon, told Axios. “But this concept that young people will continue to join the Democratic Party? There are various questions about that.”

Meanwhile, the Harvard CAPS-Harris survey reveals Donald Trump, the projected GOP presidential nominee in 2024, is leading Biden despite the Republican’s multiple legal concerns.

According to the poll, Trump leads Biden by six points (48 percent to 42 percent) in a head-to-head race, and by seven points (42 percent to 35 percent) when independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is introduced, who has 15% support.

Trump also leads Biden by nine points (42 percent to 33 percent) when independent candidate Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are included in a five-person presidential shortlist.

Manhattan construction site workers meet Trump: Getty Images

Trumps Manhattan Trial Politically Motivated

Despite the fact that a majority of registered voters (56 percent) believe Trump committed a crime, the former president leads Biden in surveys. According to the study, 54% of Americans believe the criminal investigations into Trump are politically motivated, a charge the former president has repeatedly made.

Trump has pled not guilty to 91 criminal charges. His first trial, in which he is accused of fabricating business records, is scheduled to begin in New York in March.

According to the study, more than half (54 percent) of Americans believe Trump engaged in an insurrection against the US government while in office. Trump has pleaded not guilty to four federal counts stemming from the events surrounding the January 6 attack and his alleged unlawful attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.

The Supreme Court is also expected to rule on whether Trump can be removed from this year’s election ballots for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath of office to support the Constitution should be barred from running again.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stepped up divisive rhetoric against Muslims throughout the election campaign, using some of the most harsh language of his decade in power to bash opponents and mobilize Hindu voters as his party seeks a historic third term.

Modi has referred to the country’s Muslim minority as “infiltrators” in a series of rallies since India’s general election began on April 19, likened his Bharatiya Janata party’s arch-rival Indian National Congress to the historic pro-Pakistan Muslim League, and accused Congress of attempting to “loot” wealth from Hindus and redistribute it to Muslims.

“Congress wants to take part of the rights of [lower-caste Hindus] and give it to their vote bank,” Modi said during a campaign event in Goa on Saturday. “And you know who Congress’s favourite vote bank is,” he added, making a thinly veiled reference to Muslims.

The same day, Anurag Thakur, the BJP’s communication minister, warned another crowd that Congress “wants to give your children’s property to Muslims”.

Modi’s intensification of aggressive rhetoric comes as the BJP seeks to rally support among Hindus, who account for over 80% of the population, in order to gain a super-majority and entrench its domination in national politics.

Flag or election symbol of Bhartiya Janata Party: Getty Images

Modi Ups his Hindu Muslim Rhetoric

The BJP aims to win 370 of the 543 available parliamentary seats, up from 303 in 2019. The results will be announced on June 4, following six weeks of delayed voting.

However, observers who consider the Hindu nationalist BJP as the favourites believe this goal will be difficult to achieve, citing evidence of a dip in turnout during the first two rounds of voting and anti-incumbency feeling in portions of the ruling party’s northern heartland.

“I don’t think I have seen a prime minister speak such inflammatory rhetoric,” said Asim Ali, an independent political analyst, adding that Modi was attempting to “energise the Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] base”.

“Because the prime minister is saying this now, local level BJP operatives are free to take it up.”

The divisive turn has enraged Modi’s detractors, who have filed complaints with India’s electoral commission for suspected violations of the code of conduct. The body sent a notice to the BJP last week, but did not identify Modi and has yet to take action.

During a rally in Agra, home to the Taj Mahal monument erected by a Muslim Mughal ruler, Modi accused Congress of pandering to religious minorities.

“The politics of appeasement has divided the country into pieces,” Modi claimed, claiming that opposition parties are attempting to “steal” from Hindus. Muslims make up approximately 14% of India’s population.

Defence Congress leader Rahul Gandhi: Getty Images

India’s Rahul Gandhi Steps Up Pressure

Congress denies these allegations, accusing the business-friendly BJP of diverting government funding to billionaires while ignoring unemployment and inequality. It has promised to conduct a caste census, which it claims will help allocate resources to underprivileged communities.

Rahul Gandhi, a Congress leader and Modi’s most visible opponent, said on Friday that Modi appeared “very nervous”.

“Narendra Modi has snatched money from the poor . . . [and] given it to the billionaires,” he claimed. “We will give that money to the poor people of India.”

Because India has tight restrictions forbidding the publication of exit polls during the election, there is no confirmed information about any party’s standing.

However, many doubt that the BJP, which swept much of India in 2019, would be able to considerably increase its seat total.

Reaching 370 seats appears to be “a bit of a puzzle, as to where the extra seats are going to come from,” according to Ronojoy Sen, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, who speculates that the objective may have been designed to motivate party cadres.

Both Hindu and Muslim voters in Agra expressed dissatisfaction with the campaign’s provocative tone. Rizwan Ahmed, 18, said there was “no such problem” between faiths, but “politicians just say things and then people twist the statements”.

“This kind of polarisation and communal rhetoric, of course it’ll appeal to your core voters,” Sen said in a statement. “But I’m not sure how well it works in expanding the core.”

Source: Financial Times