As AI-generated mis/disinformation presents high risk globally, African countries must brace up for its potential disruptive impacts.
“The disruptive capabilities of manipulated information are rapidly accelerating, as open
access to increasingly sophisticated technologies proliferates and trust in information and institutions deteriorates”, the Global Risks Report 2024 noted.
Published earlier this year, the report presents the Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) findings, which capture insights from nearly 1,500 global experts.
“In the next two years”, it reported, “a wide set of actors will capitalize on the boom in synthetic content, amplifying societal divisions, ideological violence and political repression – ramifications that will persist far beyond the short term.”
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Fact-checkers at ROUNDCHECK have observed the information ecosystem in Africa and the predictions of the global report are manifesting in less than a year.
“Mis/disinformation has been widespread globally and in Africa in recent years”, Caleb Ijioma, the organization’s executive director shared. “We can see how disinformation overshadowed events in the Israel-Hamas crisis and how different players used disinformation tactics in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”
As one of the newsrooms on the frontline fighting misinformation “we verified some images and videos that were widespread during the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict and discovered them to be incorrect”, Mr. Ijioma added.
AI Sparks Misinformation Explosion
Mischievous actors can now easily manipulate videos and images and spread them online, whether they are deep-faked or doctored. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, “misinformation and disinformation is a new leader of the top 10 rankings this year.”
The report stated: “No longer requiring a niche skill set, easy-to-use interfaces to large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) models have already enabled an explosion in falsified information and so-called ‘synthetic’ content, from sophisticated voice cloning to counterfeit websites. To combat growing risks, governments are beginning to roll out new and evolving regulations to target both hosts and creators of online disinformation and illegal content. Nascent regulation of generative AI will likely complement these efforts. For example, requirements in China to watermark AI-generated content may help identify false information, including unintentional misinformation through AI hallucinated content. Generally however, the speed and effectiveness of regulation is unlikely to match the pace of development.
“Synthetic content will manipulate individuals, damage economies and fracture societies in numerous ways over the next two years. Falsified information could be deployed in pursuit of diverse goals, from climate activism to conflict escalation.”
But the consequences are grave and could destabilize societies as the government may not be proactive in tackling the impending crisis.
“New classes of crimes will also proliferate, such as non-consensual deepfake pornography or stock market manipulation. However, even as the insidious spread of misinformation and disinformation threatens the cohesion of societies, there is a risk that some governments will act too slowly, facing a trade-off between preventing misinformation and protecting free speech, while repressive governments could use enhanced regulatory control to erode human rights.”
Elections At Risk
Many countries worldwide are likely to conduct elections before the end of the year 2024. Some countries that held elections last year were hit by a flood of misinformation and disinformation. The misleading information in the media, especially social networks, decimated public trust in the polls.
The report predicted that misinformation will intensify mistrust in elections as over three billion people go to the polls across several economies, including. the United States, India, Kingdom, Mexico and Indonesia within two years.
While political actors themselves could orchestrate the spread of misinformation against one another during and after campaign, legitimacy of the victorious candidates will remain troubled in aftermath of the elections. The report noted that misinformation could trigger political unrest, violence and terrorism, and a longer-term erosion of democratic processes.
Although social media platforms have been a fertile ground for misinformation to go viral, the report noted that advanced new technologies will “enhance the volume, reach and efficacy of falsified information, with flows more difficult to track, attribute and control.” This will make fact-checking ejournalism, an already herculean task, more 1difficult.
Meanwhile, owners of social media companies will not be spared by the devastating effect of misinformation: platforms integrity will be tested as clash of campaigns overwhelm the media.
Aside the general impact, targeted misinformation has effect on minority communities, as hate speech could be “disseminated through more opaque messaging platforms such as WhatsApp or WeChat.”
According to the report, the identification of AI-generated mis- and disinformation in these campaigns will not be clear-cut.
“The difference between AI- and human-generated content is becoming more difficult to discern, not only for digitally literate individuals, but also for detection mechanisms.” Meanwhile, research and development continues at pace, but this area of innovation is radically underfunded in comparison to the underlying technology, the report stated.
Furthermore, labelling of synthetic content will not stop its spread. In fact, it could be problematic as consumers can share labeled content simply because it carries “warnings”.
“For example, an AI-generated campaign video could influence voters and fuel protests, or in more extreme scenarios, lead to violence or radicalization, even if it carries a warning by the platform on which it is shared that it is fabricated content.”
While the report zooms in on countries across the globe, the ROUNDCHECK director observed that “in Africa, it is not any different.”
He added: “Misinformation has affected voters’ participation in elections, influenced their health decisions, and also affected their online security. In the Imo election held in 2023, we saw how the IPOB used disinformation techniques to threaten electorates and to promote voters’ apathy. We also saw how misinformation flooded the 2023 Nigeria general elections, and also in the just held #EndBadGovernance protest, there was incorrect information in the public space.”
‘Defining truth’
On the terrible impacts of misinformation, the global report noted: “False information could not only be used as a source of societal disruption, but also of control, by domestic actors in pursuit of political agendas.
“Although misinformation and disinformation have long histories, the erosion of political checks and balances, and growth in tools that spread and control information, could amplify the efficacy of domestic disinformation over the next two years.”
According to the report, global internet freedom is already in decline and access to wider sets of information has dropped in numerous countries.
“Falls in press freedoms in recent years and a related lack of strong investigative media, are also significant vulnerabilities that are set to grow. Indeed, the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation may be leveraged to strengthen digital authoritarianism and the use of technology to control citizens.
“Governments themselves will be increasingly in a position to determine what is true, potentially allowing political parties to monopolize the public discourse and suppress dissenting voices, including journalists and opponents. Individuals have already been imprisoned in Belarus and Nicaragua, and killed in Myanmar and Iran, for online speech.”
“The implications of these manipulative campaigns could be profound, threatening democratic processes. If the legitimacy of elections is questioned, civil confrontation is possible – and could even expand to internal conflicts and terrorism, and state collapse in more extreme cases. Depending on the systemic importance of an economy, there is also a risk to global trade and financial markets. State-backed campaigns could deteriorate interstate relations, by way of strengthened sanctions regimes, cyber offense operations with related spillover risks, and detention of individuals (including targeting primarily based on nationality, ethnicity, and religion).”
Solutions
Mr. Ijioma stressed the need for collaboration to effectively combat misinformation.
“There is a need to do more, we need to look more closely at how and where misinformation can emanate from and close the gap. We need to understand these misinformation actors, their attitudes, and how they operate, and be one step ahead of them. Everyone needs to be involved, from those at the top level to the rural communities, to students and even kids. Helping them understand the fact-checking process so that the spread of misinformation can be reduced.”
