EU warns bumper election year is 'prime target' for disinformation

BRUSSELS: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Tuesday that 2024 will be a “critical year” for fighting disinformation, as two billion people around the world face elections.

“Fifty percent of the adult population of the world will be called to vote, in the European Parliament, in the US, in India, in many places around the world,” Josep Borrell said.

“Elections will become the prime target for malign foreign actors.”

In the EU, around 400 million people are eligible to cast their ballots in June to elect the bloc’s European Parliament, with far-right parties expected to make gains.

“One of the most significant threats of our time is not about a bomb that can kill you, it’s about a poison that can colonise your mind and how to address it,” Josep Borrell said.

An annual report released Tuesday by the EU’s diplomatic service analysed 750 cases of foreign manipulation between December 2022 and November last year.

Targeted public figures included not just politicians and officials, but also celebrities such as Margot Robbie and Nicolas Cage, whose images were used to amplify false information.

“The platforms most often involved were Telegram and X (formerly Twitter),” the report said.

AI fears

The rapid spread of artificial intelligence in creating fake videos, photos and texts has sparked fears that the cutting-edge technology could be used to create a flood of more credible disinformation.

The report said that for now the use of AI remains “minimal but attention-grabbing”, with some high-profile examples including a deepfake video in November of Ukraine’s army chief calling for a coup.

“AI usage in foreign information manipulation and interference operations, as observed in 2023, constituted an evolution rather than a revolution,” the report said.

Those spreading disinformation may for now be trying to inflate the perception that AI poses a major threat to undermine trust, according to the report.

“The explosive growth and availability of AI tools may even hold more benefits for defenders than attackers” in allowing them to monitor for fakes better, it said.

The report laid out a series of measures that can be taken to try to counter disinformation ahead of elections 2024.

They included uncovering networks spreading disinformation faster, limiting the “amplification of manipulated content” and “pre-bunking” falsehoods before they hit.

“Malicious content spreads like a cancer, and puts the health of our democracy at risk,” Borrell said.

“But we have the tools to effectively fight against this disease. We have the capacity, we need more.”