L I N C O L N Posted June 3 Share Posted June 3 Young voters in key election battlegrounds are being recommended fake AI-generated videos featuring party leaders, misinformation, and clips littered with abusive comments, the BBC has found. With TikTok emerging as a new social media battleground in this election, the political parties have begun a war of memes on the app in a bid to reach its audience of young voters. But a BBC project to investigate the content promoted by social media algorithms has found - alongside funny montages - young people on TikTok are being exposed to misleading and divisive content. It is being shared by everyone from students and political activists to comedians and anonymous bot-like accounts. Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. Satirical, fake AI-generated clips show Rishi Sunak declaring, “Please don’t vote us out, we would be proper gutted!” and making unevidenced claims about how the Conservative leader is spending public money - including how he will send his “mates loads of dosh”. Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about his national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza. Some of these are described as satire or parody in captions, but the comments suggest some users are confused about which claims are factual. TikTok told the BBC it had increased its investment in countering misinformation for the UK general election, including adding a fact-checking expert to existing resources and employing AI-labelling technology. The videos were spotted as part of the BBC's Undercover Voters project, which has created profiles for 24 fictional people on all the major social media sites, based on data and analysis by the National Centre for Social Research (Natcen). The fictional profiles represent a range of voters in battleground constituencies across the UK, giving an insight into what content is promoted to different types of people. The profiles are private, with no friends. They just like, follow and watch content relevant to their character traits informed by the Natcen research. I examined the feeds of the profiles of three of these fictional voters in the former “red wall” constituency of Bishop Auckland, a target for Labour which is currently held by the Conservatives - and where our Undercover Voters are younger. Their social media feeds revealed that, while other sites have also experienced a flurry of political content, TikTok had the most lively conversation, particularly among younger voters. TikTok has boomed since the last election. According to media regulator Ofcom, it was the fastest-growing source of news in the UK for the second year in a row in 2023 - used by 10% of adults in this way. One in 10 teenagers say it is their most important news source. TikTok is engaging a new generation in the democratic process. Whether you use the social media app or not, what is unfolding on its site could shape narratives about the election and its candidates - including in ways that may be unfounded. Content promoted to Undercover Voter character Jack, a disaffected 31-year-old, include TikToks misrepresenting remarks made by Labour politicians in speech bubbles. These include comments about immigration, transgender rights, Brexit - and false claims that the shadow international development secretary called to “abolish the Army”. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ww6vz1l81o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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