Two reports published this week sound the alarm about an increase in efforts to interfere in the presidential election in the United States. As VOA correspondent Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, the authors of these reports say that information manipulation, political violence and threats are on the rise.
American voters are increasingly being targeted by domestic groups spreading false information ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a report on election vulnerabilities by the human rights organization Freedom House.
“People here in the United States are spreading conspiracy theories and misleading information on political issues. About 70% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters are swayed by the conspiracy theory that the results of the 2020 presidential election were rigged. Now, ahead of the 2024 elections, we are already seeing a re-emergence and dominance of this theory,” says Kian Vesteinsson from Freedom House.
There is also an increase in online intimidation and harassment of election officials, as well as political violence, researcher Kian Vesteinsson points out.
“We've seen political candidates who have experienced direct attacks, including, of course, the assassination of former President Trump, hate speech and hate crimes against minority groups are on the rise,” he said in a Skype interview for the Voice of America.
While the voting infrastructure itself remains protected, cyberattacks are a source of concern, Mr. Vesteinsson says.
“The most vulnerable targets are the infrastructure of candidate campaigns and websites that provide people with information about the voting process,” he points out.
The FBI is currently investigating alleged Iranian hacking attempts on the campaign team of Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris.
Cyber security company Recorded Future also reports an increase in malicious influence operations from Iran, Russia and China. They involve using artificial intelligence to produce fake articles, which are then published on fake news websites that resemble those of the mainstream media.
“This is done to introduce bias within content that has a political bias or a political bias in a specific direction based on the geopolitical objectives of the respective governments and how those geopolitical objectives correspond to the interests of a candidate who can win the election,” it says. cyber security expert Sean Minor from the company “Recorded Future”.
How effective are those efforts?
“At this point we have no concrete data to suggest that these operations have historically influenced election results,” said expert Sean Minor in a Skype interview for VOA.
However, American voters are encouraged to be alert and wary of grammatical or spelling errors found in articles and websites they access, which may be signs of attempts to imitate the original sites.
