With almost 800 million internet users and general elections starting Friday, India is at high risk for cyber and influence campaigns by foreign actors.
NEW DELHI—India, the world’s most populous democracy, will hold general elections starting April 19. Voting to elect India’s 18th parliament and its next federal government will span six weeks and seven phases, with results to be announced on June 4. Amid the clamor of election campaigns, concerns have arisen that China—the country’s biggest neighbor—and other foreign players will use the occasion to push disinformation and propaganda, according to IT security experts.
India ranks highest in 2024 for the threats caused by misinformation and disinformation in the world, according to a report released by Logically, a Virginia-based technology company that combines AI with expert intelligence.
India has 759 million active internet users and the highest number of Facebook users in the world at 366.9 million. That’s about 175 million more users than in the United States. Indian households on average spent around four hours streaming content in 2023 and the country boasts the highest number of Youtube users in the world at 462 million.
Pathikrit Payne, a New Delhi-based geopolitical analyst, told The Epoch Times that given India’s digital revolution, threats of AI-generated fake messages, videos, and even fake comments may be used by potential adversaries to create confusion during the election process.
Meanwhile, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) on April 4 published a report entitled “‘Same targets, new playbooks: East Asia threat actors employ unique methods,” highlighting concerns about China’s use of content generated by artificial intelligence(AI) to influence polls to the lower house of the Indian parliament.
“As populations in India, South Korea, and the United States head to the polls, we are likely to see Chinese cyber and influence actors, and to some extent North Korean cyber actors, work toward targeting these elections,” the MTAC said in its report.
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Sameer Patil is a senior fellow with the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology and deputy director of the Observer’s Research Foundation, Mumbai. Mr. Patil told The Epoch Times in an email that actors like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been known to use deep fake technology to push propaganda and they can potentially do the same during election campaigns.
“There is a suspicion that China might utilize AI to push disinformation and propaganda in the Indian political landscape to perhaps push certain foreign policy objectives and reduce political focus on its border stand-off with India,” he said, adding that a great deal depends on how much traction is gained by such misinformation in political campaigns.
Takeaways from 2023 Elections
The Logically report studied India’s five state elections between July and December 2023 and identified particular tactics, techniques, and procedures by which election-related misinformation spreads in India across multiple languages and platforms. It said takeaways from this report are essential to counter misinformation during the 2024 national elections.
Joshua Kurlantzick is a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. He wrote last year that under the autocratic rule of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing has increasingly tried to meddle in Indian politics and society, “using disinformation on social media platforms to try and wield influence directly or indirectly.”
In its report, Logically identified Facebook pages masquerading as news organizations. It studied pages that published content targeting the Election Commission of India (ECI) with sensationalist headlines and misleading information on election voting machine (EVM) tampering and found that these pages garnered significant engagement.
The videos were further circulated on anti-EVM Facebook groups, which indicates that there’s a “potential strategy” behind them and they aim to influence public opinion by legitimizing false claims.
The report didn’t determine the specific origin of this strategy but said it has identified instances of possible “Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference” (FIMI). It devoted two pages to the elections in Pakistan and Canada. According to Logically, this suggests that foreign actors were disseminating mis or disinformation narratives around the electoral process in India.
Meanwhile, the MTAC report specifically named a Chinese cyber actor dubbed “Flax Typhoon,” who has been tracked by Microsoft. The cyber actor was found to target India, among four other nations including the United States, in the early fall and winter of last year.
“This actor also frequently attacks the telecommunications sector, often leading to many downstream effects,” said the report. However, it’s not clear if Flax Typhoon is or has been active during the Indian elections.
Myth Versus Reality
Mr. Patil said Indian agencies have been cognizant of China’s disinformation campaigns in recent years, and have closely tracked these campaigns. However, responding to them has become increasingly difficult due to the deluge of propaganda content.
“So it is difficult to estimate the impact, though that should not distract us from the Chinese malafide intentions,” he said.
Concerned by the spread of misinformation and fake news, the ECI launched a counter-propaganda portal, the “Myth vs Reality Register,” on April 2. This register provides already debunked election-related fake information, probable myths circulating on social media platforms, FAQs on important topics, and reference material under different sections for all stakeholders, according to an Indian government statement.
“The factual Matrix of the Register will be continuously updated regularly to include the latest busted fakes and fresh FAQs,” the ECI said. The portal cited a recent case in the central Indian state of Chattisgarh in which a “fake and baseless” story circulated claiming that the ECI had given directions that voting in the state in 2024 would happen through ballot paper and not electronic voting machines.
Mr. Payne said that even though advisories and Standard Operating Protocols (SOPs) have been issued by the ECI, constant monitoring and awareness among voters is necessary to reduce the potential impact of disinformation campaigns from outside India.
According to Mr. Patil, one step to counter such disinformation campaigns would be to focus more on the phenomenon of deep fake content in itself.
“And in recent months, Indian authorities have mulled tackling this content, particularly by putting the responsibility on the social media intermediaries for disseminating such content,” he said.
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