Social Media Disinformation Threatens Electoral Integrity

Election officials in India are preparing to combat fake news ahead of the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections with a new system designed to track and debunk misinformation, building on lessons learned during previous pandemic-era voting.

The Election Commission of India launched its “Myth vs Reality Register” in April 2024, just before the Lok Sabha polls, creating an official resource to counter false and misleading information circulating during election periods. This digital register will be actively maintained during the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, marking the first state elections to benefit from this anti-misinformation tool.

The initiative comes in response to growing concerns about the impact of false information on electoral integrity. During the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections, which took place as India was emerging from coronavirus lockdowns, campaigns shifted heavily to online platforms due to restrictions on physical gatherings. This digital pivot created fertile ground for misinformation to flourish, with fraudsters exploiting the situation to spread fake news intended to influence voters.

“While the poll process had to be undertaken on time in keeping with the rules in a Parliamentary democracy, the Election Commission had to issue strictures on physical campaigns to adhere to health and hygiene safety protocols,” officials noted about the 2020 experience.

The Commission has already begun implementing stronger measures against misinformation. In October, it released specific guidelines governing the use of AI-generated content for election campaigning ahead of the Bihar polls. Earlier this year, the EC also publicly refuted false claims that it had removed e-voter rolls of many states from its website, clarifying that electoral rolls for all 36 states and union territories remained accessible through its official portal.

Despite these efforts, experts acknowledge that monitoring and countering fake news across the vast internet landscape remains challenging and time-consuming.

Research supports the urgency of addressing this issue. A comprehensive study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that false information spreads significantly faster and more broadly online than factual news. Their analysis of approximately 126,000 news cascades on Twitter (now X) revealed that posts containing falsehoods were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than truthful content.

The researchers examined over 4.5 million tweets by around 3 million users between 2006 and 2017, with verification from six independent fact-checking organizations. Political content was identified as particularly susceptible to fake news proliferation.

Dr. Sambit Pal, In-Charge Director at the International School of Broadcasting and Journalism at MIT Art, Design and Technology University in Pune, explained the global nature of this challenge: “Whether in India, the UK, or the United States, where social media is extensively used to reach out to a certain section of voters, you will find such misinformation and disinformation.”

As a member of Google News Initiative’s India Training Network who conducts workshops on fact-checking, Dr. Pal added that “fake news has become an integral part of political communication everywhere.” He noted that in India specifically, political parties with dedicated IT departments aggressively use social media to “microtarget voters and change the narrative,” with supporters sometimes misusing these channels to promote their preferred perspectives.

The 2025 Bihar Assembly elections will serve as an important test case for the Election Commission’s enhanced efforts to protect electoral integrity in an increasingly digital campaign environment.