Edo election

Introduction 

Elections, according to Robert A. Pastor, ‘are both the supreme political act and a  complicated administrative exercise at the heart of democracy. Pastor suggests that  democracy is easily compromised where the state structure is viscerally weakened  to points of illegitimacy while its bureaucratic capacity becomes bedraggled as is  the case in fragile and illiberal democracies like Nigeria. The challenges facing  such democracies have been heightened in recent times with the rise of new media  and their use as platforms for creating ‘information disorder’ as a way of affecting  political behaviour and choices.  

Information disorder is categorized into three conceptual frameworks:

• Misinformation: Information that is false, but not created with the intention  of causing harm. 

• Disinformation: Information that is false and deliberately created to harm a  person, social group, organization, or country. 

• Malinformation: Information that is based on reality, used to inflict harm on  a person, organization, or country. 

Information disorder presents a unique challenge for public discourse and information  flow and communication practices – before, during, and after election cycles on a  global scale. Fact-checking organizations and media houses have stepped up to  counter and debunk such information disorder products and narratives. An example  of such an effort is Dubawa.

This study analyzes and studies the typologies present in the information disorder  ecosystem studied by Dubawa during the Edo and Ondo Gubernatorial elections  held on September 19th and October 10th, 2020.  

The report identified that most of the misinformation and disinformation targeted  at the 2020 Edo and Ondo gubernatorial elections were executed through diverse  social media platforms two months to the election day. Also notable, was the gradual  increase in the number of misinformation “claims” prior to the election which reached  its peak on the day of the election. 

This report also identified key platforms that were used to share mis/disinformation,  as well as key characters (i.e., claimants) who held and promoted these claims. Given the dynamic nature of information disorder, the report has categorized these  claims into types and established a correlation with the dates (before, after, and on  election day), verdicts.

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Introduction 

The impact of media technology on democracy is coming under increased scrutiny  all over the world. New media’s disruption of an existing order that is characterized  by the rise of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, made it possible for more people to engage in the political process. However, the disruption  has also created an avenue for a different type of engagement; online manipulation  of narratives on a massive scale. Nefarious actors have devised strategies to turn  these networks into platforms for spreading falsehoods, untruths, misinformation  and outright lies, in order to achieve their aims. It has also opened up a new type  of international conflict, evident in numerous accusations and counter accusations  of cyber interferences between the United States of America and the Republic of  Russia. There is therefore a need to interrogate how this emerging phenomenon  interacts with the bedrock of democratic process, especially elections. 

Polarising and unreliable information by feckless actors and individuals make it difficult, if not impossible for citizens to form a good political judgment on which they  can base their decisions about political participation and this has played out across  the West African sub region. Budding, but extremely fragile democracies such as  Nigeria face significant challenges in responding to the divisiveness and message  manipulations of social network platforms, particularly during elections. This study  looks into two gubernatorial elections (Edo, Ondo) recently held in Nigeria, where  various actors used social networks to feed the electorate misinformation and disinformation, with a view to shaping their voting behaviour.

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