After analyzing more than 120,000 stories that went viral on Twitter in the United States between 2004 and 2017, researchers from the MIT Media Lab—Sinan Aral, Soroush Vosoughi, and Deb Roy, three leading figures in digital science—concluded: “Falsehood travels faster and farther than truth.”
This observation holds even more true during election periods. Although the use of social networks in Madagascar and the United States cannot be compared in terms of volume and reach, Madagascar is not spared from the mass dissemination of false information, misinformation, and disinformation. This phenomenon, however, comes at an economic and social cost: research conducted by the University of Baltimore in 2019 estimated that the global economy loses more than 78 billion USD due to the spread of false information.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the United Nations issued a warning about the ever-present danger of fake news, which harms patients’ understanding of medical care. In an official speech delivered in March 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres referred to another common global enemy : “the infodemic of disinformation,” against which it is urgent to “urgently promote facts and science, hope and solidarity instead of despair and division.” Made viral, powerful, and persistent through digital pathways and amplified by personalized interpretations, the phenomenon of fake news also carries a significant political cost. In 2023, could it still damage Madagascar’s electoral process—and, by extension, democracy itself ? And what can be done to stop this hemorrhaging?
The absence of laws guaranteeing public access to information and protecting human rights defenders and whistleblowers makes Madagascar even more vulnerable to the proliferation of fake news. Yes, false news, manipulated news, deliberately erroneous information, and their widespread dissemination through social networks, word of mouth, and even official media could cost us the elections—because they travel faster and farther.
Algorithms, Filter Bubbles, Choices
Alongside the invasion of fake news comes the impact of social media algorithms, which do not necessarily distinguish truth from falsehood. These algorithms primarily work to capture users’ attention by selecting, ranking, and prioritizing information. This process is neither neutral nor trivial, as it is based on impressions, reactions, shares, and thus the activity and responsiveness of internet users. This mass of information becomes a cognitive bias that focuses attention, causing users to turn—or be steered—towards posts that align with their own sensitivities and preferences, selected from data collected about them, often without their knowledge. Information filtered and personalized through multiple layers ultimately isolates the user, as explained by American activist Eli Pariser, co-founder of Avaaz.org, when he described and theorized this famous “filter bubble” about a decade ago. This theory has sparked much discussion, supported or contested, but it nonetheless highlights the importance of the reach of manipulated or even false information on an online community, and the potential social and political divide it can create.
This phenomenon is further amplified by the friends we choose or follow on social networks, as French sociologist Dominique Cardon explains: “The bubble (of filters, editor’s note) is created by us. Through a typical mechanism of social reproduction. The real filter is the choice of our friends, more than Facebook’s algorithm.” The choice of our friends, and “our friends” in the media and press. Here, the Malagasy example is particularly relevant : when the majority of press groups and media outlets belong to political figures, does the information presented on their platforms and in their columns not also undergo filters and sifting designed to steer their audience’s opinion toward one perspective or another exclusively ?
The crucial question, faced with this mass circulation of information in all directions, is… “What can be done ?” How can we disentangle truth from falsehood amid this profusion of information, and how can we obtain information for what it simply is ?
A few weeks before November 9—the date of the first round of the 2023 presidential election—we are already seeing deliberately falsified information circulating on certain social media pages, aimed at discrediting one candidate or another in favor of yet another. It is also not uncommon to see snippets of interviews blown out of proportion, photographs used out of context, in a deliberate effort to misinform. These are just a few examples, sparing you from the speeches riddled with errors, exaggerations, and lies delivered during the pre-election campaign. False information is everywhere : farther and faster.
Big Lies, Fact-Checked Truth
Beyond herd-like propaganda and alarming fanaticism, this kind of fake news always has the dramatic effect of further obscuring an already ailing culture of open debate within Madagascar’s media landscape. Public opinion is increasingly shaped not by healthy questioning and debate based on verified facts, but by the virality of fake news, the toxic invasion of swarms of fake accounts that pollute any space for thoughtful exchange, and by the one-off interventions of certain self-proclaimed “influencers”—though “provocateurs” would be more fitting—who choose to defend or discredit not a program, a cause, or an idea, but the lie of a politician whose deception, once exposed, has the potential to sink a candidacy. All of this forms what is commonly referred to as “buzz,” without actually enlightening opinions or contributing to a better understanding of the facts—let alone guiding voters toward an informed decision.
The VaovaoCheck initiative, created by journalists in the name of freedom of information and the right to inform and be informed, is one of several Malagasy efforts aiming to provide a response to the issue of false and manipulated information. A “brigade” of about twenty journalists from various regions and different media outlets has committed, during this electoral period, to verifying the truthfulness or falsehood of the rumors circulating in the current political climate. The approach itself is nothing new in journalism: cross-checking is part of every journalist’s standard working method and forms the foundation of any professionally gathered and verified information. The real “solution” lies in professional journalists reclaiming their power to take back control of the news. This reclamation is vital—because reversing the tide of fake news and trolls demands that information professionals regain control over the very raw material of their trade.
And since democracy—and by extension, elections—cannot exist without access to information, this reclaiming by media professionals is both essential and restorative. As long as we still cannot count on the long-overdue law on public access to information—smothered time and again by those determined to keep it buried—it falls to journalists and citizens alike to restore a form of information justice. VaovaoCheck’s mission is to deliver fact-checking expertise in service of readers, aiming to silence fake news. Fake news that clogs public debate, spread by fake accounts, ordinary citizens, legal entities, or even—and especially—by those seeking power in Ambohitsorohitra.
Big lies call for fact-checked truth.
