Defense Against Fake News: Prebunking Takes Root In Sri Lanka's Post-Election Media
Shakila Ifham
September 27, 2024
In the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s recent election, the fight against false narratives is far from over. With fake news continuing to spread, journalists are urged to step up their efforts—not just by fact-checking but by adopting a more proactive approach known as prebunking. This method, which equips the public with critical thinking tools before disinformation spreads, is emerging as a vital skill in a digital age where falsehoods can go viral in seconds. As the nation moves forward, Sri Lankan journalists have an opportunity to reshape public trust and fortify the truth by staying ahead of the misinformation curve.
Prof. Sander Van Der Linden, Director of University of Cambridge Social Decision – Making Lab, stated that, “Prebunking is literally the opposite of debunking. Its trying to pre-emptively refute a future of falsehood”.
The creation of false information has been around for hundreds of years, the difference is that in this era it is much easier to create and share it faster, wider and in great quantities, especially with generative artificial intelligence (GAI).
In countries like Sri Lanka, deep fakes circulate dominantly at the time of elections through META platforms, YouTube and TikTok unchecked due to lack of platform moderators.
Just days before the 2024 Sri Lankan presidential election, social media platforms buzzed with a video that appeared to show former U.S. President Donald Trump, endorsing the no Sri Lankan President, Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The video was shared widely on WhatsApp and Facebook. However, upon investigation by Fact Crescendo, an independent fact-checking network in Sri Lanka, the video was revealed to be a clever manipulation. Using AI-powered voice cloning, the creators of the video generated a fake endorsement, splicing Trump’s voice into a completely unrelated video from 2017 where he was addressing a different topic on NBC’s International News. This incident underscores the evolving dangers of AI-driven disinformation in modern political campaigns.
Journalists are exposed to sophisticated web of such disinformation and they have to penetrate through it to bring out the truth. According to European Commission, these conspired disinformation has six common traits, which includes; alleged secret plots, evidence to support conspired news, division of world into good or bad, involves a group of conspirators, they falsely claim that there is no coincidence and targeting specific group of people be scapegoats.
Political parties and PR firms are increasingly leveraging big data and resources to flood social media platforms with disinformation, a trend that became evident during Sri Lanka’s 2024 presidential election, in response, the Election Commission flagged the surge of misleading content and hate speech circulating on platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Over 100 complaints were filed, prompting the Commission to collaborate with tech companies in an effort to curb the spread of false narratives. However, despite these efforts, the Commission faced difficulties in swiftly removing harmful content from social media, highlighting the ongoing challenges in managing the digital information ecosystem during critical electoral periods.
“Journalists should pay very close attention to suspect post’s keywords and see how many individuals are interacting on engaging with them on social media.” says, Bellincat’s social media editor, Charlotte Maher.
One of the essential tactics of prebunking is to show the general public some of the fake claims they are likely to come across and to present them with facts, this way they will be psychologically ready to distinguish fake news.
When addressing such claims, it is essential not to give too much credence, a degree of empathy should be maintained while putting forward the facts. It is essential as a journalist to study the building elements of fake claims and to be transparent about it with the general public.
According to the UK Press Gazette, a British journalism trade magazine, an alarming 70% of the global population resides in areas where media freedom is severely restricted. This widespread lack of press freedom is contributing to the growing distrust in media worldwide, as people increasingly question the credibility and independence of news outlets operating under oppressive conditions, which makes them more prone to believe and share more of disinformation shared by random unverified organizations than to believe journalists.
Without the tools to evaluate what is real or what is not, people may share news in the belief they are helping others and passing on important news. Lack of media literacy, indifference to open-source intelligence is why people share many false information and generative AI making it even more complex in this era.
“There are three psychological motives which drives people to believe in fake conspired news, existential motives; the uncertainty of the future, relational motives; group of likely minded individuals and the third is what we call the epistemic motive; the search for knowledge and being ‘in the know’.” Added, Prof. Linden.
By actively engaging in prebunking efforts, journalists can help ensure that voters are better prepared to discern facts from fabrications, ultimately strengthening democratic processes in Sri Lanka during this critical electoral period. Coming out proactively and being more transparent, could instill more trust between the journalists and the audience.
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