THE most memorable quote during the recent US presidential debate came, not surprisingly, from Donald Trump.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Trump was referring to rumors that Haitian migrants in Ohio City were stealing the pets of residents and slaughtering them for food. Numerous fact-checks have flagged the rumors as false, but it didn’t stop him from perpetuating the narrative.
At a campaign rally not long after the debate, Trump expanded his menagerie of abducted animals, claiming the migrants were “walking off” with the geese in the town’s park and lake as well.
The pet and geese fable was not a spur-of-the-moment rant from the former president. Days before the debate, the ultra-right vlogger Laura Loomer posted on X that “the Biden-Harris regime imported over 20,000 cannibalistic Haitians who are now killing people’s pets and hunting domestic animals on the streets of Ohio.”
Loomer has gained notoriety as a conspiracy theorist and has shared racist slurs on social media against Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. Loomer apparently has joined Trump’s inner circle, although he refuses to acknowledge this, referring to her only as a “supporter.”
With the US election just around the corner, the purveyors of disinformation are shifting into high gear. An article in the NBC News site highlights the warning of political researchers, technologists and scientists that “a convergence of events at home and abroad, on traditional and social media — and amid an environment of rising authoritarianism, deep distrust and political and social unrest — makes the dangers from propaganda, falsehoods and conspiracy theories more dire than ever.”
The US presidential race has captured the attention of its geopolitical rivals. Russia is not only keenly interested in who the next American president will be; it has taken a “whole-of-government approach to influence the election,” assessed one US intelligence official.
“Russia is a preeminent threat. Iran is a chaos agent, and China is holding fire on the presidential race,” the official said.
Today’s armies of disinformation will have a new weapon in their arsenal: artificial intelligence.
In its 2024 Global Risks report, the World Economic Forum named AI-generated misinformation and disinformation the top global risk over the next two years — ahead of climate change and war.
Deepfakes that impersonate politicians and celebrities through AI are now a reality. US President Joe Biden and former British prime minister Rishi Sunak were among the world leaders whose images were AI-manipulated.
Google’s DeepMind division sees AI being used more in creating fake images than in churning out disinformation using text-based tools like chatbots.
In the Philippines, the threat of disinformation looms large over next year’s midterm elections. In their paper, “Digital Autocratization and Electoral Disinformation in the Philippines,” Aries Arugay and Ma. Elize Mendoza said online disinformation agents were already operating during the 2016 and 2022 elections.
During those times, stemming the spread of fake election news through fact-checking “faced tremendous challenges, given their limited reach and impact,” the paper’s authors said.
To deepfake-proof the 2025 polls, fact-checking must not only be upgraded to catch up with digital developments, particularly AI, but “needs to be supported by the government, civil society, media and the digital industry.”
“Other efforts such as new legislation buttressed by institutional mechanisms, resources, and external partnerships will be critical as the Philippines starts a new electoral cycle next year,” the authors said.
Last month, close to 60 media organizations, social media platforms and academic institutions signed a covenant to fight fake news and disinformation.
Earlier, the Kapisanan ng Social Media Broadcasters ng Pilipinas Inc. set up a task force to help internet users “navigate through reliable and unreliable news sources online.”
“This is the beginning of our sectoral recruitment and training activities of volunteers who will help fight truth decay in this unregulated sector of Philippine society, the social media,” said the group’s chairman, Michael Raymond Aragon.
Broad-based, concerted action could provide the 2025 election the protection it needs against truth decay.