KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 7
Leading to, and during the 2022 elections, there were concerns that disinformation could affect the integrity of the election results, discourage voting, or instil disinterest in the electoral system.
Though these specific fears turned out to be unfounded, misinformation and disinformation were still present during campaigning, according to a research on 'Online platforms, Polling, and Misinformation: Electioneering strategies in Nepal' conducted by Tilak Prasad Pathak and Ujjwal Prajapati from the Centre for Media Research-Nepal. In the light of these concerns, the Election Commission of Nepal tried to proactively address the concerns that could arise in the technological domain and affect electoral integrity at large. The EC developed policies to guide social media use during the election. The goal of these policies was to make the use of social media safe, systematic, reliable, dignified, and accessible for electoral fairness.
According to Kiran Chapagain, who worked as Senior Policy Expert on Mis/Dis Information and Hate Speech in the Election Commission of Nepal during the local and federal elections, collaboration with tech companies can be helpful to regulate disinformation during election. "As a result of this effort, the overall integrity of the election was not called into question. Disinformation and hate speech did not pose threat to election security nor did it affect the harmony during election," the report stated.
As per Umesh Shrestha, editor of Nepalfactcheck.org, who monitored misinformation during the election, there were three trends in the context of the 2022 federal and provincial elections. First, he noted that Nepal's election was not marred by 'deep' but 'shallow' fake information where videos were selectively edited to hide the context. There was also a trend of faking online media brand names and misusing mastheads to disseminate fake information that popular media never published, which he described as 'dangerous'. There was also a flow of fake information regarding the announcement of candidates winning election before votes were even counted. For example, Nepalfactcheck.org fact-checked a screenshot that claimed Nepali Congress had issued a circular not to vote for Maoist candidates, which was widely circulated on social media.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 08, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
