Nearly 6m New Voters Will Be Target Of Disinformation In Ge15

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Over 5.8 million first-time voters are expected to be targets of disinformation via clickbait, hate speech, and allusions to political and foreign interference during the next general election (GE15).
In a report titled “Youth and Disinformation in Malaysia: Strengthening Electoral Integrity” launched today, Asia Centre said that high internet penetration by youth makes them more prone to being targets of political disinformation.
Of the new voters, 1.2 million will be aged between 18 and 20 following the Undi18 constitutional amendment that lowered the voting age in 2019.
The research institute listed Selangor as the state with the highest number of youth aged between 15 and 19 with 512,588, followed by Sabah (353,208) and Johor (345,719).
The report clarified that, unlike misinformation which is information that is false or misleading, disinformation, in addition to being false, is deliberately created to harm a person, social group, organisation or country.
Be careful
Asia Centre regional director James Gomez cautioned Malaysians to be careful with recurring patterns of disinformation in the form of falsehoods related to sexual orientation and promiscuity, corruption, electoral integrity, women politicians, and foreign interference.
“During GE15 we can expect that these same types of disinformation will be deployed, and recommend all Malaysians to be careful about information related to these specific topics,” he said.
The report also cited a 2021 digital news report undertaken by the Reuters Institutes for the Study of Journalism which revealed that 88 percent of respondents used online media, including social media, as the main source of news and information.
Gomez urged the Election Commission to establish an election fact-checking mechanism to debunk false news and have one source of truth that Malaysians can use to verify online information.
He also recommends that political parties stop mudslinging political rivals by deploying fake news or disinformation and cease politicising religion which may lead to social exclusion and polarisation. - Mkini

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