Major elections are being held around the world, and many with razor thin margins promise to be contentious, emotive and hard-fought. Proponents of particular candidates and parties are using active disinformation campaigns to spread lies, innuendos and misinformation, to promote their candidate and disincentivize their opponent’s supporters from voting. Disinformation can come via any communication channel (e.g., email, phone calls, social media, SMS, websites, in-person, etc.).
Some of these disinformation campaigns are pushed by private individuals, some are pushed as part of the candidate’s official campaign strategy, and some are pushed by foreign nation-states who seek to benefit from particular outcomes. Your trusted friends and family members could become part of a disinformation campaign simply by not being aware that they believe a piece of disinformation and then share it with others.
What Can a Person Do to Fight Election Disinformation?
There are many things a person can do to mitigate election disinformation:
Awareness and Education
Minimizing the impact of election disinformation begins by being personally aware of it, understanding how popular it is, how to spot it, and how to mitigate it. Share awareness of disinformation with co-workers, friends and family (in a non-partisan way, if possible).
Have a Healthy Level of Skepticism on All Political News, But Especially Sensational Political News
It can’t hurt to have a healthy default level of skepticism on all political news stories, especially when these stories seem sensational and come from less trusted sources. Even legitimate political news can contain kernels of disinformation or mistakes, even from the most trusted sources. So, by maintaining a default level of healthy skepticism, you can make yourself less likely to fall victim to real disinformation.
Be Aware of Sensational Claims Not Backed by Multiple Trusted Sources
If a supposed sensational “report” is trying to evoke an immediate, strong, emotionally driven response, always research it more before believing it. The more emotional a report makes you, the more you should thoroughly research before believing or sharing.
Cross-Check Claims Against Well-Known, Trusted Sources
In general, truthful sensational claims will be quickly repeated across multiple, trusted news sources. False sensational claims are typically created or amplified by a small number of mostly smaller sites and rarely picked up by the major, more trusted news sites.
Know Your Source’s Potential Political Alignment
It can’t hurt to see if a publisher of a particular sensational claim is known to have a particular political partisan bias. Services such AllSides (https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart) have quick ways to check for known media bias.
Check Independent Fact-Checking Sites
There are many independent fact-checking websites, including:
- PolitiFact.com – Checks the accuracy of claims made by elected officials, candidates, pundits, and other political figures.
- FactCheck.org – A non-partisan project hosted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, focused on checking claims made in politics and national discourse.
- AP News Fact Check – The Associated Press’ dedicated fact-checking vertical that investigates viral misinformation.
- Reuters Fact Check – The fact-checking arm of the Reuters news agency.
- Washington Post Fact Checker – The newspaper’s team analyzes political claims and rates them on a “Pinocchio” scale.
- FullFact.org (UK) – An independent British fact-checking organization.
- AfricaCheck.org – Checks claims made in public debates and the media across Africa.
- Snopes.com – One of the oldest and most well-known fact-checking sites, investigating urban legends, internet rumors, and viral claims.
- Google Fact Check Explorer – Google’s tool that aggregates fact-checks from credible publishers on search results.
Note: Many partisans will claim an independent fact checker website that maligns their candidate is a biased fact checker. To verify, look to see if the fact-checking website both supports and declines statements from all involved political parties. Seeing only one candidate reported as spreading lies or disinformation can be a sign of bias.
Hesitate Before Spreading Sensational Political News
Disinformation spreaders count on readers reacting emotionally and sharing the disinformation before they had time to thoroughly think about it and research. One of the best things anyone can do when confronted by sensational political news is to slow down and allow time for others to confirm or deny a particular claim before spreading further.
Check Source Documents
Many times, the headlines of political news stories are counteracted by the source documents or sources the article claims it is relying on. When you see something sensational and it lists the source documents, go directly to the source documents to see if they support the headline or story. Many times, they won’t. Sometimes the source documents will rebut the purported claims. The writers of the disinformation were hoping readers would not investigate the source documents.
Correct Mistakes
If you accidentally shared some disinformation, be open to correcting the mistake to those you shared the disinformation with. Ask yourself how that piece of disinformation got by your normal skepticism and if there any behaviors you could be doing better.
The best defense is maintaining a critical eye and verifying and claims that seem questionable against trusted, well-sourced information be believing or spreading them.
