As the U.S. midterm elections approach and the 2024 presidential campaign cycle looms, the problem of election mis- and disinformation in non-English languages is of growing concern. And yet, there are substantial diversity gaps in mitigation efforts against election disinformation affecting diaspora communities and historically marginalized groups that are an important part of the electorate.
We assess that there is a lack of resources dedicated to non-English and non-Western platforms. We identify three problems with existing disinformation work at the intersection of ethnicity, technology and elections:
1) While there are increasing efforts, mainstream platforms fail to adequately address non-English election disinformation that proliferate on their platforms.
2) Current disinformation studies center around Western social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook. However, there is little study or oversight of disinformation on non-Western platforms, which communities of color and immigrant communities often use to communicate.
3) Existing research fails to account for contextual concerns of communities of color, often legitimate ones shaped by years of oppression and colonization.
In turn, interventions must be improved, with the acknowledgement that there will not be a one-size-fit-all solution across diverse communities.
A number of solutions might improve matters by bridging gaps between academia, civil society, the private sector, and government to create collaborative solutions that address multilingual electoral disinformation. By exploring dynamics around non-English disinformation and efforts to mitigate it, we seek to better serve the historically underserved communities most adversely affected by disinformation and voter suppression efforts.