It Is Time To Pass Laws To Protect Voters Against Disinformation

The Guardian broke a story yesterday about a group of Israeli contractors who engage in election manipulation through “automated disinformation on social media,” as well as traditional hacking and sabotage. The leader of the group, Tal Hanan, a former Israeli special forces operative, was outed by a group of international journalists. The Guardian received leaked “undercover footage and documents” taken by three reporters who posed as prospective clients and met with Hanan and his team about their activities. While boasting about their successes, Hanan and his colleagues, who go by the name “Team Jorge,” claimed they have meddled in elections around the globe for about two decades, including 33 presidential-level campaigns, with 27 of them successful.

They specialize in disinformation campaigns to help sway voters and win elections. For clarification purposes, the American Psychological Association defines misinformation is information that is false or inaccurate because the facts are wrong. The organization’s website notes that, “Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally making the misstating facts.” In the military, these activities are often called “information operations” or “influence operations.”

In his meeting with the reporters, Hanan said his services are intended to “secretly manipulate public opinion.” They explained they use a software package called Advanced Impact Media Solutions (AIMS), which connects to thousands of fake profiles on social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Telegram, and YouTube. Some of these fake accounts are linked to credit cards, cryptocurrency wallets, and other accounts. During the recorded meeting with the reporters, Team Jorge bragged about providing false information to reputable news organizations and then picking up those stories and magnifying the message by blasting it out to thousands of people using the AIMS bot software. The story provides hard evidence of the use of disinformation as a weapon in election manipulation.

Disinformation presents a real and dangerous threat to democracy. A candidate may use disinformation to get citizens to believe what they say and vote for them, or a campaign can spread disinformation to target and undermine rivals. These disinformation campaigns can be very effective, and they provide a foundation for foreign interference in elections. The RAND Corporation has produced excellent reports analyzing disinformation in elections, including how Russia targets U.S. elections and how foreign actors are using Twitter to interfere in elections. The Guardian article exposes the disinformation hired gun and the demand for these campaign services around the world.

Under U.S. law, spreading disinformation in a political campaign is completely legal – as long as no foreign individual, entity or government is involved. Federal election laws prohibit engaging or using a foreign individual, government, or political party in any election activities. Thus, a politician can lie to or mislead voters or intentionally misrepresent the facts in their campaign and that is a lawful activity as long as it is all domestic. The U.S. has numerous legal authorities to impose sanctions and penalties for foreign interference in elections, but no restrictions on domestic disinformation.

Why Do We Protect Consumers from Misrepresentation and Not Voters?

There is something wrong with this picture. The U.S. has a strong set of consumer protection laws that protect people from misrepresentations and fraudulent behavior in the marketplace. Why do we protect consumers and their pocketbooks and not protect voters from misrepresentations and fraud by politicians? The federal election laws protect voters from manipulation or influence from foreigners. Why is it okay to manipulate voters with disinformation so long as it is all done by U.S. individuals or entities, but not okay if a foreigner is involved? It shouldn’t be okay for either.

The Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol noted, “With President Trump in the White House, Russia benefited from a powerful American messenger creating and spreading damaging disinformation it could amplify.” The Report further observed that, “Although there is no evidence of foreign technical interference in the 2020 election, there is evidence of foreign influence.” It makes no sense to allow political candidates to blatantly and legally spread disinformation to voters that foreign powers can then pick up and leverage in their own efforts to sway American elections toward their favored outcome. Disinformation is candy to a foreign government.

Congress needs to pass a law that protects voters from intentional disinformation by U.S. politicians. It would not only clean up our election process, it would make it harder for foreign governments to amplify these false messages through their own disinformation campaigns and try to influence our elections. Such a law also should make it illegal to transfer U.S. election polling data to a foreign individual or entity. When disinformation is combined with political polling data, the messaging can be targeted and honed for particular audiences and its impact measured. Not only is this particularly dangerous, it is almost the perfect crime. It is very difficult to prove that a disinformation message sent to voters persuaded them to vote for a particular candidate.

There also is work to be done by other stakeholders in the election process. Social media platforms must do a better job of vetting their users, getting rid of fake accounts, shutting down political disinformation, and educating users on detecting disinformation. Mainstream media, think tanks, educational institutions, and election organizations can help raise awareness about disinformation and establish sites for vetting suspicious communications, sharing information, and reporting disinformation. Law enforcement, government officials, and diplomats need to work together to build on each other’s work and establish global collaboration and coordination channels to counter disinformation activities. The EU, for example, has an initiative to counter disinformation, and an independent non-profit organization, EU DisinfoLab, has been established to address disinformation campaigns targeting the EU, its member states, core institutions, and core values.

This is a global problem, but we must begin by tackling disinformation that is threatening the validity of our elections and bending the minds of voters. This action will set an example for countries around the world whose elections may be influenced by disinformation hired guns like Team Jorge or foreign nations or both.