With the increased use of social media, tech platforms have played a crucial role in furthering the propaganda of the BJP, Congress & other political parties in the country helping them set narratives. AI has only increased the expanse of the propaganda or even made it worse.
OpenAI has released a report highlighting the use of AI to influence various events all around the world like the Ukraine War, Chinese agents praising China and also Indian Elections.
OpenAI exposes Anti-BJP propaganda
According to the report, an Israeli company, STOIC was found generating comments that focused on India, criticized the ruling BJP party and praised the opposition Congress party.
OpenAI said that the platform was used for generating comments and thus increased engagements on videos and social media platforms. This operation was operated from Israel and was used to generate and edit content for an influence operation that panned X, Facebook, Instagram, websites, and YouTube.
STOIC is a political campaign management firm in Israel. This operation targeted audiences in Canada, the United States and Israel with content in English and Hebrew. In early May, it began targeting audiences in India with English-language content.
The operation used OpenAI’s models to generate web articles and social media comments that were then posted across multiple platforms, notably Instagram, Facebook, and X.
The report found fake accounts commenting on social media posts to create an impression of audience engagement.
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar reacted to the revelation made by OpenAI and called it a “very dangerous threat to our democracy”. It is absolutely clear and obvious that @BJP4India was and is the target of influence operations, misinformation and foreign interference, being done by and/or on behalf of some Indian political parties. This is a very dangerous threat to our democracy. It is clear vested interests in India and outside is clearly driving this and needs to be deeply scrutinized/investigated and exposed,” he wrote in an X post.
“My view at this point is that these platforms could have released this much earlier, and not so late when elections are ending,” he added.
Meta’s Interference
Guardian reported a week ago that Facebook and Instagram were used to manipulate political adverts during Indian elections. Meta-owned platforms were being used to spread disinformation and incite religious violence, according to a report shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Facebook had approved adverts containing known slurs towards Muslims in India, such as “let’s burn this vermin” and “Hindu blood is spilling, these invaders must be burned”, as well as Hindu supremacist language and disinformation about political leaders.
According to the report, all of the adverts “were created based upon real hate speech and disinformation prevalent in India, underscoring the capacity of social media platforms to amplify existing harmful narratives”.
Five of the adverts were rejected for breaking Meta’s community standards policy on hate speech and violence, including one that featured misinformation about Modi. But the 14 that were approved, which largely targeted Muslims, also “broke Meta’s own policies on hate speech, bullying and harassment, misinformation, and violence and incitement”, according to the report.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, recently described India’s election as “a huge, huge test for us” and said the company had done “months and months and months of preparation in India”.
