In a year full of elections, does Big Tech have democracy’s back?
It’s a new year and the artificial intelligence wing of the tech industry is still dominating the headlines and crashing through our lives like a recent Stanford dropout who’s had way too much to drink. But there’s plenty else on our radar here at Coda.
We’re looking at big changes on the horizon in what promises to be a pivotal year for elections and democratic institutions. More than 2 billion people will vote in 65 countries around the world, and technology will be a critical factor in every aspect of these elections, from information sourcing to actual polling machines.
In Bangladesh, they’ve already been to the polls. On January 7, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sailed to reelection with an extra boost from her cyber army. She claimed a record fifth term in office (fourth in a row) and her ruling Awami League secured a hefty majority in the country’s parliament. But there wasn’t much contest — the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party decided back in November to boycott the election, after thousands of party members and supporters were jailed on what they say are spurious criminal charges. In the end, a dismal 40% of eligible voters cast ballots, according to the country’s chief election commissioner.
In the months before the election, AI-generated misinformation and manipulation were rife, including a series of deepfakes targeting opposition candidates that went viral on Facebook. The Awami League’s “official think tank” is known for the thousands of people it employs to promote its messages on Facebook, which remains the go-to information platform for nearly a quarter of the country’s population of 170 million. In one such fake video, exiled opposition leader Tarique Rahman appeared to be urging party members to keep quiet about their concerns for Gazans under bombardment by Israel, lest it upset the United States. In Muslim-majority Bangladesh, most people identify closely with the Palestinian cause. An opposition party official told the Financial Times that he had attempted to get Facebook’s parent company Meta to remove some of these videos, but that “most of the time they don’t bother to reply.”