Maldita.es and Democracy Reporting International publish a report on the disinformative online conversation during the 23-J elections

Maldita.es and Democracy Reporting International have published their analysis of disinformation and online conversation during the month prior to the general elections on July 23.

We look at Twitter ( now X ), Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Specifically, we focus on publications that during that time shared content denied by the Maldita team, including those that incited hatred, and we also analyzed the publications of a group of more than 600 actors in national politics.

Among a sample of 700 content that spread disinformation and more than 142,000 publications by political figures, we have been able to obtain the following results:

• Influential politicians shared hoaxes or misleading information favorable to their political agendas during the election campaign, increasing the reach and credibility of those claims.
• One in four disinformation posts targeted the electoral process, promoting unfounded claims of electoral fraud. 
• Voting by mail was the target of most election integrity misinformation.
• 78% of the disinformative content that also incite hatred, reinforced racist narratives and was directed at racialized migrants in Spain.
• The number of publications by the group of political figures increased throughout the campaign, and even more so during the televised electoral debates. Twitter (now X) was the preferred platform in our sample, while “national identity and regional differences”, “social rights” and “equality” were the most common topics.
• Disinformation affected online political debate in terms of the negative sentiment of posts about specific topics and the volume of posts in reaction to hoaxes.

In addition to the hoaxes attacking candidates and political parties, it is worth highlighting the amount of content (25%) that, through misinformation, sought to undermine citizens’ confidence in the integrity of the elections.

65% of all election integrity disinformation posts published during this period were related to mail-in voting or the CERA vote . Furthermore, on election day hoaxes about possible bid rigging increased , with the most shared claim being that the government had orchestrated a series of incidents in a tunnel to cut off train traffic between Madrid and Valencia , to «block» voters from returning to their cities to vote. However, an alternative means of transportation between those cities was immediately made available to travelers.

On the other hand, racist publications were the most frequent among the disinformation publications that incited hatred. These contents promoted narratives that link the migrant community (mainly maghrebi and also second generation) with crime , or accuse them of hoarding state aid or imposing their religious beliefs on society.

This type of research allows us to draw conclusions about the need to find solutions to combat disinformation and hate speech , especially during electoral processes.

Digital platforms must do better in meeting their obligations under the EU Digital Services Act , both by implementing their terms and conditions in a more consistent way and by investing in solutions that provide users with quality information and tools to fight against the misinformation.

At the same time, governments must ensure that those in public office are held accountable for promoting harmful disinformation and invest in improving election-related information to prevent disinformation related to electoral integrity from increasing on social media.

You can read the full report in English through this link . Or read a summary about the results of the project here .

This report was written by Maldita.es and Democracy Reporting International with funding from Stiftung Mercator .