Disinformation, 'influence operations' affected 2022 elections, says study

A study has shown how "influence operations" and disinformation innovations have impacted on the 2022 Philippine elections.

"The 2022 Philippine presidential election was not only a contest for votes, but a contest between two parallel political realities," according to the study Parallel Public Spheres: Influence Operations in the 2022 Philippine Elections, which was launched on Friday at the Harvard University. 

It pointed out that influence operations ushered in their "most harmful" effect to healthy political deliberation during the elections, which "stoked political fandoms’ biases and aggravated tendencies for affective polarization."

Authored by Jonathan Corpus Ong, Rossine Fallorina, Jose Mari Hall Lanuza, Ferdinand Sanchez II, and Nicole Curato,  examined the characteristics and consequences of  “influenced operations” in this year’s elections and polls in other countries.

It defined the term as  “diverse strategic communications that aim for attention-hacking and audience mobilization."

It also described how influence operations in 2022 "are a far cry from the disinformation innovations of 2016 and 2019."

"Six years ago, we monitored the rise of impostor websites, irreverent vloggers, and coordinated troll behaviors. Three years ago, we observed the increasing popularity of micro- and nano-influencers that elude campaign finance rules, appealing to diverse ethno-linguistic groups and online communities," it said.

"In 2022, we see a continuation of earlier trends, but this time, influence
operations have become more sophisticated and multi-tiered, such that they are able to construct and maintain parallel political realities," it added.

The authors presented three key findings in their study.

First, the study found that influence operations "are neither illegal nor deceitful but they are exploitative of many gray areas of campaign finance regulation, platform policies, and journalistic norms, as well as latent anxieties and skepticism of citizens."

Second, it said influence operations "build on cumulative impacts of longitudinal disinformation."

"Historical distortions rebranding Marcos family legacy,
planted long ago, reaped benefits for the 2022 race. Dispersed revisionist
claims about the martial law era have now consolidated into an artful
political narrative that the Marcos family are victims of history," it said.

"Social media participatory cultures took this forward in new ways, not to mention new partisan broadcast channels that have gotten political legitimacy and financial investment," it added.

Third, the study said that as a consequence of influence operations in the 2022 polls, "parallel public spheres" or two separate information ecosystems were created aligned with hardened political entities.

"Legacy media’s role as gatekeeper of the national political center has eroded as citizens engage with news, punditry, and entertainment that affirm their political identity. Divisive electoral contest is socially experienced as an all-out political war: leading to friendship breakups and family quarrels but also social media brigading and cancel culture campaigns," it said.

Unprecedented levels

Former Vice President Leni Robredo, who was invited as one of the panelists during the study's launch, said the report affirmed that digital disinformation operations have already reached “unprecedented levels” in the country.

“The study…confirms and reinforces what we observed and experienced firsthand during the 2022 campaign that digital disinformation operations have achieved unprecedented levels," Robredo said.

“This is not just simply disinformation but it is creating a multiverse — another universe where facts and truth differ from the other,” she added.

Robredo is among the Philippine personalities heavily targeted with false information, especially during the campaign period and the elections.

In May, fact-checking initiative group Tsek.ph said she and President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. remained the primary targets of disinformation in the presidential race, with the false or misleading information about Marcos being favorable to him while the disinformation targeting Robredo was negative.

Robredo stressed that the study makes clear that "traditional fact-checking, while important, is no longer enough given the extent to which influencer operations have evolved,"

“In a similar vein, platform responses that involve brigading, mass reporting, or canceling have proven to be ineffective. Considering that this comprises a significant bulk of current attempts to address this issue, it is clear that new approaches and responses must be identified and implemented as soon as possible,” she said.

Further, the former vice president commended the report’s proposed community engagement plan to combat the spread of “influenced operations” including the changing of the narrative around disinformation, wider public access for a masterclass on disinformation and digital ethics, and supporting whistleblowers to expose disinformation-for-hire, among others.

“Most of us who want to battle the trolls, we battle those who are on the ground operations but do not really shake up the people behind them and it should be the other way around,” she said.

“This is also a reminder to leaders of democracies all over the world regardless of how young or advanced the democracy is to always be mindful that it is only when the majority of the citizenry are properly listened to, taken cared of, and empowered they can be less vulnerable to manipulative influences operations of those who seek to disinform and deceive to achieve their own agenda,” she added.

Robredo is currently at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership where she serves as one of its Hauser Leaders.  She will have a series of engagements  with students and other members of the Harvard community.

GMA News Online reached out to Secretary Cheloy Garafil, the officer-in-charge at the Office of the Press Secretary for the Palace reaction, and will update the story once the response is received.—LDF, GMA News