European elections set to be Portugal’s most watched election due to disinformation

The European elections on June 9 will be the most closely watched democratic election in Portugal due to the risks of disinformation on social media, as well as projects by researchers, regulators and “fact checkers”.

There has been low polarization in Portugal in recent years, with almost no disinformation campaigns, but during the legislative election campaign on March 10, “signs of external interference” were found for the first time in online advertising, resulting in the ISCTE project with Lusa.

And researchers from the Iberifier Observatory have warned that there are now alarming reasons for the risk of small and radical parties using social media.

In Europe, initiatives to prevent the risk of disinformation during election periods have multiplied in 27 countries in recent months.

On April 12, in an interview with Lusa, Vice-President of the European Commission Vera Jourova admitted that Europe lives in fertile ground for political manipulation in the year of the European elections. And he pointed to threats to the European electoral process: “the social environment”, “state of mind”, “fear, anxiety and uncertainty” due to the war in Ukraine and post-pandemic.

Back in Brussels, the European Union’s statistical office, Eurostat, has launched a special fact-checking and data-checking service.

For these European women, the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and the Social Communications Regulatory Authority (ERC) have developed protocols with universities to monitor this phenomenon during the election campaign.

The National Cyber ​​Security Center (CNCS) also warned of the risks of artificial intelligence being used in “fraudulent content” during elections, maintaining “collaboration with various authorities on this issue.”

And Poligrafo is already cooperating with the European Commission, producing products almost daily.

At the beginning of May, the CNE and ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon signed a protocol on “monitoring and identifying political disinformation” during the European election campaign on June 9th.

ISCTE, through MediaLab, has already created a similar project with Lusa for the March legislative elections. One of the objectives was to identify disinformation content attributed to parties or candidates by national “fact checkers” accredited by the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), Poligrafo, Observador Fact Check and Público – Prova dos Factos, and assess the impact on social networks, measured by interactions and views.

The Social Communications Regulator (ERC) will have a system in place to identify and report situations of disinformation before the European elections on 9 June.

In a conversation with Lusa, Telmo Gonçalves, a member of the ERC, said that the regulator is collaborating with Labcom, the communications research unit of the Beira University of the Interior in Covilhã (Castelo Branco), to “monitor and identify disinformation activities that appear on digital platforms.” , such as Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, related to the European elections, “but having an impact on Portugal.”

Externally, according to Telmo Gonçalves, the ERC is also expected to cooperate with the European Audiovisual Regulators Group (ERGA) and “support the European Commission in identifying situations of disinformation.”

On cybersecurity, CNCS acknowledges that disinformation is a “significant threat” in the current international geopolitical context and warns of the risks of artificial intelligence being used in “fraudulent content” during elections.

In response to questions sent by Lusa, CNCS, which is the national cybersecurity authority, states that during this period, “it continues to actively cooperate with various authorities in this matter, regarding elections and other important events.”

NS (MDR/ALU) // ACL

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