The Election Commission is currently grappling with the challenge of debunking adversarial election propaganda videos generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to a senior official, the Commission lacks the necessary technological expertise to counter these digital threats effectively.
Although the Commission has not yet come across any coordinated operations of misinformation or disinformation aimed at particular candidates, isolated instances of hate speech on social media are growing increasingly frequent. Videos created by AI are already making the rounds on the internet, manipulating or doctoring photographs of specific candidates.
There is a genuine chance of a rise in deepfake audio and video in a world where artificial intelligence is driving change. The altered photos and videos, which occasionally digitally overlay the heads of candidates on distinct bodies to produce comedic entertainment, have started to surface on a number of media.
Although the Election Commission is aware of these problems, it does not yet have the resources necessary to refute them. The source disclosed, “An organization has offered to help, but we have not made a decision yet.”
To make matters worse, the Commission encounters difficulties when its rules for electoral propaganda conflict with those of internet behemoths like Meta and YouTube, who frequently place a higher value on individual liberties and are hesitant to take down anything that the Commission requests.
Facebook continues to be the major target of the Commission’s monitoring operations because it is the most popular platform in the nation. Instagram is also watched, but mostly for users between the ages of 18 and 26, where the Commission has not yet found any harmful or dangerous content other than advertisements intended for amusement.
As the presidential elections draw near, the Commission is under pressure to find solutions that balance the integrity of the electoral process with the freedoms upheld by social media platforms.