Fake profiles in support of candidates and political parties
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1 months ago
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The campaign for the February 9 elections in Kosovo ends today - also characterized by a tendency for misuse of social media. Many fake profiles have been opened during these days with the aim of supporting political parties and candidates for prime minister. Media researchers say that the novelty of this campaign is that these profiles have been generated with artificial intelligence for the first time.
Researcher at the fact-checking platform "Hibrid.info", Festim Rizanaj, says that these fake profiles have posted photos and content with political messages.
"Several fake profiles have been opened in order to increase the interaction on social media of various posts by candidates and political parties. But, this time they have also been helped by artificial intelligence, through which that fake profile was created and maintained. The purpose of fake profiles, known in English as 'Astroturfing', is to create the illusion of support for a candidate or a political party. So they create fake profiles, maintain them with photos, with certain content that they post. Then they coordinate the posts, messages, content on that profile and at the same time manage the interaction on social media through these profiles by increasing the visibility of the content they post with the idea of reaching as many audiences as possible.", he declares.
Rizanaj adds that opening fake profiles during campaign times is done with the aim of creating public opinion and support for certain political parties.
"The effect of this form is to create a kind of mass support, because the audience is inclined to believe what is distributed massively and this can influence the audience. The second is to introduce it into public debate and if the audience believes this form, this technique of content and distribution on social media, this enters the public debate and the topic that is most widely spread on social media is discussed. The third is to dominate the political narratives on which the campaign is based. For example, if there is a lot of distribution, then the discussion on that narrative or on that claim becomes the topic of daily discussion during the campaign.", adds Rizanaj.
According to university professor Alban Zeneli, the novelty is that these fake profiles are being generated with artificial intelligence.
"Election campaigns in Kosovo are characterized by a continuous tendency to misuse social media to create public opinion among citizens in support of one political party or another. The novelty of this campaign or these elections that will be held on February 9 is that the campaign of these elections is characterized by profiles that for the first time have been generated with artificial intelligence, have been maintained with artificial intelligence and their contents, whether audio, video or text, have been distributed through artificial intelligence. This is also due to the fact that it is the first time that elections are held in Kosovo after the discoveries of chatgpt or other content generators that are with artificial intelligence", says Zeneli.
With this content on social media, as Zeneli adds, an attempt is being made to frame citizens' opinions.
"This has naturally caused problems in the direct communication of citizens on social media, because the information is mainly framed with the main idea of presenting a politician positively or developing what is known as a counter-campaign or opposing campaign against other political parties. Trying to present or frame other parties as bad parties, who have done this or that, with the main idea of shaping or framing the opinion of the people who see that content.", adds Zeneli.
