Election Integrity, Graham Jones: International Cooperation Needed Against Disinformation

At a time when the integrity of elections is being challenged by disinformation and foreign interference, international cooperation and the engagement of journalists and organizations are essential to build stronger resistance to foreign manipulation, says Ben Graham Jones, a consultant specializing in electoral integrity issues.

The British consultant, with extensive experience from over thirty election observation and advisory missions around the world, in an interview with The Geopost talks about the impact of social media, online campaigns and foreign interference on democratic processes, offering valuable perspectives on the challenges and possible solutions.

Full interview:

The Geopost: How do you see integrity of election around the world?

Jones: Well, I’m here today at the Balkan Disinformation Summit, an incredible event really, which is bringing together practitioners in building integrity against disinformation from across the region and across the world. And I think that’s so important because this is a global challenge. What we see is that the threat actors who are spreading disinformation, who are trying to slice and dice and divide democratic societies. They are operating very often at a global scale and now of course we also have problems with disinformation which are rooted within specific countries and often domestic politicians can promote different narratives but actors like Russia and increasingly China are not just focusing on one country. And that’s why it matters that we are talking to each other and thinking about what collective responses look like in the same way that we are doing here at the Balkan Disinformation Summit.

The Geopost: How do you see Russian interference around the Europe on the election and all this information is coming?

Jones: Well, we know that Russia conducts and Russian supported actors conduct information operations and often the question often comes, well, who are they supporting in a particular election? And actually very often the aim is not always about supporting a particular candidate, but very often it’s to divide democratic societies, to sow distrust and to make people sort of opt out of the democratic process. And that’s why the right response, part of the right response needs to be about effectively rebutting false claims. But we also need to speak to the underlying reasons why people believe in some of these narratives. And that means making a positive case about democratic values. It means making a positive case about civic participation, turning out in elections and actually questioning the claims that we encounter.

The Geopost: What about Balkans? How do you see all these interferences? How is it complicating all this situation?

Jones: Well, I think what’s interesting in the Balkans is that you have some excellent organizations like The Geopost. You’ve also got members of the International Fact-Checking Network here who actually really follow this stuff locally in a high degree of granularity. But what I see working on many elections across the globe each year is that you often see that the tactics that are deployed in one context later get deployed in a very different context. And so your preparedness thinking to the future of elections in the Balkans must be about not just looking at our own previous elections, but looking around the world at other elections across the globe, knowing that the ways that Russia and other hostile actors try to influence democratic processes in other countries. Tomorrow those tactics could be deployed at home. So this needs to be a global conversation about building resilience and forging ever more ambitious coalitions against threats to information integrity.

The Geopost: What is the message for all journalists, media and organizations people of Balkan, especially for Kosovo?

Jones: Well, I would say that spending my time here in Kosovo and speaking to people has just been the most inspiring experience. There are so many organisations doing fantastic work, like The Geopost, and I think that it’s incredibly important that we don’t just look at the challenges, and they are big, the challenges we face are significant, but we also think about the way forward. And I think part of that way forward needs to be forging ever more ambitious coalitions. You’re working together, sharing insights, coming together and thinking through not just how do we rebut disinformation, but how can we make a more healthy democracy in five years, in ten years, and being guided by that overall strategic vision, not only within Kosovo, but at regional and global levels too.

/The Geopost