2024 general elections witnesses spread of mis/disinformation at its peak

At the same time, false narratives, misleading videos, AI-generated images and videos, and fake pre-poll surveys are spreading online on various social media platforms like Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. Some posts claimed candidates of a party singing the tunes of their rival party, while some posts shared that the ruling party mortgaged the state assets. The spread of misinformation is not confined to a few social media users, but some of the media websites, and some celebrities also played an active role in it.

Telugupost team has been continuously monitoring and debunking viral, mis and disinformation circulating in the Telugu states during the Assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections. Misinformation trends like using names of film personalities to promote a particular party were seen during the elections.

For example, we witnessed a video of south actress Samantha appealing to voters to vote for TDP. However, the video is from 2019 where she urged users of the Repalle district in Andhra Pradesh to vote for TDP MLA candidate Satya Prasad. However, the video was edited and shared to imply that she is promoting TDP during the Assembly elections in 2024.

An old video of Allu Arjun was used to imply that he is campaigning and participating in the rallies of the Indian National Congress party. The video where Allu Arjun is seen wearing a scarf in Indian flag colours and participating as a grand marshal in Parade Day celebrations in New York City in the year 2022 was used with misleading context.

An Instagram account shared posters of several film personalities of South India with “13^th May”, and “Vote for Fan” written on them, with Telugu text on why the star is promoting the party. But the images are fake. The social media accounts of the film stars or any other news reports do not show any such endorsements.

Another major trend observed is fake pre-poll surveys. Fake surveys in the name of the Intelligence Bureau, Dainik Bhaskar, and also local surveying agencies like Atmasakshi and South First People Survey were in circulation before the elections.

False propaganda against various party candidates was also witnessed. For example, morphed videos of TDP MLA Balakrishna praising the YSRCP party and also singing Jaganmohan Reddy’s agenda song were also in circulation. Claims targeting the ruling party were also seen, for example, a video with morphed audio was in circulation with the claim that YS Jaganmohan Reddy was crying during a public rally that his party is going to lose, few newspaper clippings claimed that the Jagan-led government mortgaged the Secretariat for Rs 370 crore.

In Telangana, false claims like AIMIM Hyderabad MP candidate Owaisi visiting a temple and also rendering Shiv tandav Stotra to please Hindu voters and also BJP Hyderabad MP candidate Madhavi Latha using a teleprompter remote during an interview were rampantly spread.

Various videos and images showing bundles of cash were also quite viral before the elections. They were old visuals used with misleading context to make misleading claims. Image of fake fingers was also shared with the claim they are going to be used for fake voting in West Bengal. The fake fingers are found to be prosthetic fingers created by a Japanese doctor for ex-mafia members in Japan.

The claims about the BJP candidates like Purandeswari from Andhra Pradesh stating that BJP will terminate reservations for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh appeared in the form of TV breaking news templates, which were again found to be hoaxes.

Although we witnessed a dramatic increase in AI-generated misinformation recently, except for a few instances where AI-generated content has been used to spread misinformation, not much of AI-generated content was in circulation.

As the information flow is increasing on social media platforms, misinformation also is rising hand in hand. Social media platforms, governments, educators, and fact-checkers need to work together in raising awareness of misinformation spread online, and also educate them on recognizing and verifying information.