The Election Commission of Sri Lanka has drawn up a plan of nine subprojects to address the influence of social media and artificial intelligence (AI) on voters, officials said.
Citing research by Democracy Reporting International and Factum, the commission said such influence was seen in the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections and again in last year’s local government elections. Additional Commissioner of Elections (Legal) Chinthaka Kularatne said the situation could reach dangerous levels in the future.
The research found the National People’s Power (NPP) was mentioned 715 times by the political influencers monitored in the 2024 parliamentary election, against 177 for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, 125 for the United National Party and 116 for the Samagi Jana Balawegaya.
The subprojects include legal and policy reforms, a rapid response and content removal system, a voter awareness campaign, AI-based content detection, a fact-check consortium and a national social media monitoring network.
The commission said it is in talks with platforms such as Facebook and YouTube on preventing fake posts during election periods. It also said new political parties will be recognised by the end of this year.
