The Election Commission has decided to keep a hawk eye on social media during the upcoming elections in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in an effort to nip rumours, fake news, and misinformation in the bud.
CNN-News18 has learnt that the J&K chief electoral officer (CEO) has sought the services of a private firm to monitor social media for a period of one month as elections are held in the union territory. The idea is to develop a “rapid response mechanism” to counter fake, prejudicial, or harmful misinformation on social media regarding elections, a document accessed by CNN-News18 says. The J&K elections are being considered very sensitive on the matter of security.
The document says rumours and hearsay-based controversies on social media need to be nipped in the bud and the effort will be to counter any “unwarranted and baseless attacks on the credibility of Election Commission of India, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and sanctity of the electoral process”. As per the details, all social media channels will be monitored for one month in all languages including Dogri, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, English, and Pahari.
The idea is also to avoid detrimental outcomes for election integrity, or public safety and security.
Various kinds of problematic content are on target:
False or fake information– Content that is entirely fabricated, has a deceptive intent, or grossly distorted actual information.
Toxic information/hate speech– Content that is inflammatory, insult, obscene, flirtation, profanity, threats, sexually explicit, attacks on commenters, and attacks on authors.
Unreliable information– Content that originates from unreliable sources or content that requires further verification despite originating from reliable sources.
Artificial promotion– Content that originates from bot-operated accounts.
Propaganda operations– Content that represents and promotes sources which generate information that is shaped to purposefully foster a predetermined agenda.
Account impersonation– Inauthentic actors (‘sock puppets’) that could impersonate election officials or other federal, state, and local authorities.
AI eye
An artificial intelligence-based platform will also be built to identify, analyse, and disarm harmful disinformation at scale. The platform would define, triage, assess and respond early to problematic activity/content online before their harms are irreversible or become widespread, the document says.
“Problematic content or activity is any information that can lead to significant real-world harm. Problematic actors are to be classified as individuals, organizations, and groups who, with varying levels of intent and frequency, publish, share, and engage with problematic content,” the document adds.
The agency will do real‐time daily monitoring of top social media platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, etc and monitor any kind of comment or information related to the Election Commission, press releases, model code of conduct violations, campaigns, and any adverse publicity related to the election process, etc.
Why the need?
“In the past, there have been instances wherein misinformed/disinformation and baseless aspersions have been cast on the credibility of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and the Election Process through various portals including Social Media platforms, which not only raises unnecessary doubts about the integrity of the election process, but also misguides the general public,” the document accessed by CNN-News18 says. “It has also been observed that there is a considerable time lag in the escalation of such issues to the Election Commission of India (ECI), which results in snowballing of controversies. Such rumors and hearsay-based controversies can be easily nipped in the bud through quick response and timely clarification of facts.”
The EC wants to purposefully and timely respond to prejudicial or misinformed reporting/posts at the very outset through a proactive communication strategy. It will counter any unwarranted and baseless attacks by transparently and accurately coming out with facts and clarifications in the matter and rebutting the misinformation in its nascent stage.
Jammu and Kashmir will vote in three phases on September 18, September 25 and October 1. The counting of votes will take place on October 4.
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