Disinformation is no longer just focused on discrete events like elections
12 November 2024 (Paris, France) — The lack of headline-grabbing, violence-inciting foreign disinformation in this year’s U.S. Presidential elections is in equal parts a testament to election security officials’ efforts – and the evolving nature of adversaries’ influence operations. The latter being more important, so maybe the parts are not equal.
Disinformation is now endemic and no longer just focused on discrete events like elections.
That was the “Big Picture” view in an article from Axios today. Foreign actors are constantly pushing false narratives in the United States, even if there isn’t a specific timeline to pin it to.
The day after the election last week, Russian operatives were still online and pushing lies. In an Axios interview (and later on CNN International), Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said:
“We need to take a more extended view that sees this as a persistent campaign by our adversaries that we’re fighting all the time. It will not end. It is only beginning. They will be relentless. And we have not seen the worst of it”.
Despite plenty of warnings about foreign disinformation leading up to, on and after Election Day, not much out of the usual happened. Montgomery said:
“Overall, it was a nothing burger. But sometimes there’s a nothing burger because people take a lot of action ahead of time, so don’t discount that. But there is a different battle brewing”.
Lisa Kaplan, CEO of disinformation detection startup Alethea, took this view (clipped from Axios and a New York Times interview):
-Part of that is because most races of national significance were decided pretty much on election night or shortly after.
-But now you have both left- and right-leaning social media users spreading conspiracies about the security of the 2024 election after reports of a drop-off in Democratic votes.
-Left-leaners believe this means some votes are missing, while the right-leaners see the number as proof that the 2020 election was actually stolen.
But the reality check? U.S. voters were subjected to a “firehose” of election disinformation this election cycle, from every angle. State and local election officials — and federal agencies — were debunking foreign-backed posts at a rapid speed. The FBI and CISA even released four separate statements in the 10 days leading up to Election Day identifying Russia-backed campaigns.
And the general view was that AI-enabled tools did little to change voters’ minds in 2024, but they did help promote propaganda that further entrenched partisan beliefs, according to new research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
So you had increased government advisories, quick attributions, and clear communication which helped officials avoid a repeat of the disinformation-fueled protests seen 4 years ago, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting. It did not sway the election, “but it deepened the partisan divide. And that will continue, unabated”, he said.
And to use that great Axios phrase, let’s “Zoom out”. Most cyber pundits/disinformation analysts say disinformation had less impact on this year’s election because nation-states are constantly filling social media feeds with bot accounts and fake news stories, on a continuing basis. Said former CISA director Chris Krebs:
Look, it was just another Tuesday on the internet. Sure, there were Iranian, Chinese, and Russian attempts to influence and interfere. But that’s baked in by now. Just last month, Russia was amplifying and spreading false news stories and images about the impact of Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the federal government’s response to it. This will never stop.
The world as we knew it – stable, fixed by facts, by evidence – is dead. It is not coming back. That wonderful ‘fabric of reality’ is just ripped to pieces. Information chaos will be the rule”.
