Key Question
“How can we mitigate the risks of digital innovation to our elections while harnessing the opportunities to strengthen democracy worldwide?”
In a staggeringly short period, digital technologies and social media platforms have profoundly altered democratic processes and the electoral environment.
While these developments have unequalled potential to engage, empower and educate voters, and to strengthen the integrity of elections, they also create new challenges and risks for fundamental democratic processes and citizen’s political rights.
Through the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age, the Kofi Annan Foundation and its partners have provided a series of actions to ensure that new technologies, social media platforms and communications tools can realise citizens aspirations for democratic governance.
Download the KACEDDA Final Report
Critical Challenges
I. Hate Speech
II. Disinformation
III. Political Advertising
IV. Foreign Interference
CHALLENGE I: HOW TO COUNTER HATE SPEECH
The internet has facilitated offensive and abusive discussion while allowing users to remain anonymous. This is particularly problematic around elections, where online hate speech can drive violence in the real world.
One of our suggestions to counter hate speech is for social media platforms to develop early warning systems for election-related hate crimes, threats to women, or calls to violence.
Challenge II: High Levels of Disinformation
High levels of disinformation around an election prevent voters from making informed decisions and create distrust in media and in democratic institutions.
We call on social media companies to come together and create strategies for detecting and limiting the reach of weaponized disinformation and hate speech, as they have done to address terrorism and child exploitation.
Challenge III: Political Advertising
The internet has revolutionised how candidates can reach voters with huge benefits for democracy and democratic values. But malicious actors can also push polarizing and misleading messages, with potentially devastating results.
Our full report calls on governments to take responsibility for defining what should and should not be considered a political advertisement, and we call on platforms to give users the option to opt-out or opt-in to political advertising.
Challenge IV: Foreign Interference in Elections
One of the most fundamental challenges to democracies is to protect elections from foreign interference and ensure that it is the voters, and not outside actors, who determine the winner.
To protect elections from interference, we call on democratic governments to establish an international convention regarding the role of foreign governments and their agents in other countries’ elections.
HATE SPEECH AND
ELECTORAL INTEGRITY
The Internet facilitates coordination and collective action among groups—including between extremists in geographically scattered
places. Gab, 4chan, 8chan, and avowedly racist subreddits have become popular outlets for discussion, the building of shared identity, and mobilization among pariah groups.
The anonymity of these networks helps facilitate offensive and hateful discussion while
avoiding accountability. The rise of unaccountable speech has raised concern about the relationship between social media and new waves of political extremism, as well as between social media and political violence.
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Continue reading on page 41 of the final report of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age
.PROTECTING
ELECTORAL INTEGRITY FROM
DISINFORMATION
Disinformation—defined as the intentional dissemination of false or
misleading information—has become a critical threat to electoral integrity.
In recent years, a wide range of politically and economically motivated actors have exploited social media to spread and amplify disinformation and propaganda to potential voters in the lead up to elections around the
globe, exacerbating long-standing ethnic, religious, and social divides, and
sowing distrust in the media and in democratic institutions.
From a normative standpoint, we want informed voter decision-making. When voters are misinformed, they may choose a candidate who does not actually meet their preferences. Voters should understand the consequences of their decisions and be able to hold their representatives accountable.
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Continue reading on page 41 of the final report of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age
POLITICAL ADVERTISING
IN THE DIGITAL AGE
No area of Internet regulation has received more attention in the last three years than the reform of online political advertising.
Given the connection of online advertisement to polarization, disinformation, and foreign election interference, increased public attention is quite appropriate. Moreover, through their acceptance and cultivation of political advertising, the major Internet platforms profit from, amplify, and micro-target messages that endanger healthy democratic deliberation and electoral integrity.
In many respects, online advertising is a lens through which one can view each of the threats and benefits of the Internet for democracy. Online political advertising, like the Internet and digital communication technologies in general, has significant benefits for democracy. Digital ads are often significantly less expensive than
television or radio ads, allowing poorly financed candidates to get their message out, especially at the local level.
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Continue reading on page 71 of the final report of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age
PROTECTING ELECTIONS
FROM FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
Although the Internet and social media have many positive effects on democracy and elections—including the promotion of free speech, opportunities for political mobilization, and the democratization of information—their potential misuse are most apparent when
seen through the lens of foreign interference operations.
Over the past decade, state and non-state actors have used the Internet to
pursue their political, economic, and military agendas, strategically combining traditional military operations with cyberattacks and online
propaganda campaigns. By exploiting the open, anonymous, and borderless nature of digital technologies, social media have provided
novel opportunities for bad actors to meddle transnationally. Electoral integrity depends on the sovereignty of elections, and outside actors
should not be able to determine the outcome of an election.
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Continue reading on page 81 of the final report of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age
Key Findings
Key Recommendations
