The world is facing an extraordinary election cycle in 2024: around 70 countries, including almost half of the world's population, plan to hold presidential or parliamentary elections. At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), taking place this Tuesday in Davos, Switzerland, concerns about the threat that disinformation poses to these processes and the global health of democracy are palpable. A risk report published by the WEF ahead of the annual event after consultation with 1,500 global experts ranked misinformation, alongside the climate crisis, as the biggest risk in the short and medium term.
It is interesting to note that in the same report last year, disinformation was not among the top ten threats in either the short term (in two years) or the medium term (10). In the current edition it is the largest in the short version. And in the middle, it ranks fifth behind different variants of threats related to climate change. In addition to the report, the program of the annual WEF summit and the first discussions upon the arrival of delegates also confirmed the deep concern that this group raises.
Police officers patrol a street in Davos on Monday. DENIS BALIBOUSE (Portal)
Disinformation – that is, the self-serving action to confuse or irritate public opinion – is an explosive element in a context fueled by various problematic elements that will consist of the strong polarization of societies in large parts of the world and of democracies due to a geopolitical An environment of strong tension and competition and an increasingly demanding technological environment in which the challenge of social networks and large platforms, where false content has already been proliferating for some time, is added to the challenge of artificial, increasingly fragile intelligence.
Generative artificial intelligence in particular poses a double risk: one of a quantitative nature, as the production of disinformation can now multiply without the need for a human being behind everything; and another qualitative one, with the so-called deep fake, with a very high level of credibility and therefore with an extraordinary ability to persuade – and greater difficulty in denial.
False accusations from politicians
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Of course, the risk vectors are diverse, and most prominent among them are politicians themselves, who are often a source of very dangerous misinformation. In the United States, where the presidential election will take place in November and the primary process has just begun with the Republican event in Iowa, candidate Donald Trump has a proven track record as a proponent of disinformation, including false accusations of fraud, losing the 2020 elections . This is as old as politics, but the context is worse today than at other times.
The main international studies agree that there is a deterioration of democracy at the global level, with a long series of years in which more setbacks than progress have been recorded.
A woman cleans the logo of the World Economic Forum, this Monday in Davos. GIAN EHRENZELLER (EFE)
Strong social polarization leads to a kind of complete lack of communication that not only undermines the ability to build political consensus, but also makes it difficult for the media to debunk false reports. Even those that are correct and valuable often go unnoticed or are not believed by citizens who believe in the lie when they identify with a pole opposite to that to which they believe the medium in question belongs.
On the other hand, social networks that monetize user engagement have a perverse incentive, fostering the tension of online discourse that unleashes passions and stimulates more than just quiet debate. As the writer, political scientist and former political advisor Giuliano da Empoli pointed out in a recent interview with this newspaper, the networks' algorithm, beyond the actions of malicious actors, already promotes discord and polarization.
At the same time, there is the problematic dilemma of whether and how large platforms should review content. The spread of false information by these giant propagators is a key problem. But the desire to prevent the spread collides with the concern that increased exercise of this control by private economic giants could lead to a restriction of freedom of expression.
The unleashed geostrategic competition is aggravating the panorama, because the interest of authoritarian regimes in disrupting democratic processes is greater today than it was a few years ago. The aim is twofold: to weaken the largest democracies by plunging them into paralysis or even hatred, and to show other countries that there are more effective alternative models to enlarge the field of regimes in the medium term – in which China, Russia or Iran – and that of liberal democracies are shrinking.
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