Disinformation more rife in run-up to national elections than EU vote, say experts

The level of disinformation in national elections, such as the recent ones in France and the UK, was higher than in the European elections, according to disinformation experts in recently published reports.

In early June, EU leaders and lawmakers raised concerns about how disinformation could undermine the European elections, while experts noted that France and the UK faced widespread disinformation on social media in the run-up to their recent snap elections.

“We observed an increase in information manipulation incidents during this period, such as attempts seeking to attack the integrity of the election process, discouraging people from voting, and distorting the public debate around the elections,” a European Parliament spokesperson told Euractiv, adding, however, that no  “major information manipulation attempts” were detected.

As for the topics of disinformation, Russia’s war in Ukraine was one, but topics such as climate change and climate change policies were also featured.

“One example of this was the weaponisation of the farmers’ protests by dis-informers,” Stephan Mündges, coordinator of EFCSN, the association of European independent fact-checking organisations, told Euractiv.

This was echoed by Giovanni Zagni, director of EDMO Fact-Checking and chair of the EDMO Task Force on the 2024 European Parliament elections, who told Euractiv, “Immigration, the war in Ukraine, the regularity (integrity) of the vote, EU political agenda: generally speaking, all these issues were targets for disinformation content.”

The role of platforms

Trollrensics, a Dutch social media and disinformation consultancy identified 50,000 disinformation accounts that coordinated disinformation networks and increased activity on social media in France, Germany, and Italy before voters cast their ballots. They were primarily spreading disinformation from accounts created after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Their research noted substantial impacts on discussions about far-right figures, with Germany’s AfD and France’s Éric Zemmour particularly benefiting from Russian-controlled accounts.

The responses taken by the different social media platforms during the European elections were very different, said the NGO Maldita, a Spanish member of EFCSN, in a report examining how disproved false information was handled during the EU elections.

Maldita found that Facebook responded to 88% of disproved posts, Instagram to 70%, TikTok to 40%, X to 29%, and YouTube to 24%. Issues such as disinformation targeting migrants and election integrity received minimal attention, with YouTube and TikTok showing no response to migrant-related disinformation.

However, many discredited posts that went viral went unchecked, particularly on X, raising concerns about the effectiveness of current moderation practices, the report added.

During the EU elections, TikTok removed 2,600 content items for violating electoral integrity and 43,000 pieces of content for misinformation, the social media giant said in a blog post published on Tuesday (9 June).

In Central and Eastern Europe, several conspiracy theories that would benefit far-right parties were spread on TikTok, according to a report by non-profit investigative platform VSquare, though the report did not detail its research.

Another report by fact-checking NGO Faktabaari and anti-disinformation company CheckFirst, focused mainly on the European elections in Finland, finding that search suggestions on TikTok often contained toxic language and bias, particularly against certain politicians.

Their report found that the algorithm promoted videos on contentious national issues while inconsistently applying labels to election-related content, potentially skewing public perceptions.

French and UK elections

An investigation by the non-profit organisation Global Witness found that bot-like accounts on X posted over 60,000 tweets that were seen 150 million times ahead of the UK election on 4 July.

The NGO added that the bots in the UK amplified divisive and often hateful political messages, undermining democratic discourse.

In France, Russian disinformation campaigns targeted social media platforms to destabilise the French political scene, according to the findings of a study on the social media platform X by the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Russian and domestic sources fuelled widespread disinformation during the French election campaign, as Les Surligneurs, a French fact-checking initiative, told Euractiv. Russian bots focused on topics such as the Olympics and rigged elections, said a representative of Les Surlingeurs.

The French fact-checking initiative added that some misinformation was based on public misconceptions or deliberate falsehoods about issues such as immigration and crime.

The candidates themselves, from across the political spectrum but especially from the far right, also acted as sources of misinformation, said the Les Surlingeurs representative.

Media outlets, particularly those owned by French businessman Vincent Bolloré, were criticised for allegedly promoting false narratives to benefit far-right agendas, Les Surligneurs told Euractiv.

Still, it’s hard to assess the effectiveness of this disinformation in the UK and French elections due to the lack of comprehensive.

The EU Commission, for its part, said on Thursday (10 July) that it will report on foreign interference in the EU “within a year.”

In the meantime, companies will continue to fight disinformation, which falls under the landmark content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), in force since 17 February.

[Edited by Eliza Gkritsi/Daniel Eck /Alice Taylor]

Read more with Euractiv