As the incumbent President’s five-year term nears its end, Lankans are gearing up for electing a successor. The law provides that such an election is to be held not less than one month and not more than two months before the expiry of the term of the president in office. Since Maithripala Sirisena was sworn in on 9 January 2015, the next presidential election needs to take place no later than 9 December 2019. At this upcoming election, each of the 15,992,096 registered voters in the 2018 electoral register will get to choose the next President – who will have considerably less powers. As at 22 August 2019, the names of two candidates have been announced by their parties or alliances. More are expected in the coming days. And over the next few weeks, even before an election date is formally announced and nominations are called, informal campaigning will begin in earnest. It will see candidates and their promoters vying to get inside the minds and hearts of nearly 16 million voters. Alongside public rallies and outdoor promotional activities (as permitted by election rules), the campaigns will use mass media and social media to reach voters. For media companies, elections not only generate a surfeit of news, but enhance advertising revenues as well. The challenge for our elections authority, the Election Commission of Sri Lanka (EC), is to make sure that campaign activities stay within what is allowed by election laws and regulations. While the main focus is on candidates – those from political parties as well as those running independently – the media’s behaviour also receives much attention. That is because both mass media and social media can either enhance or diminish an election’s integrity, depending on how it’s used. Media and election integrity The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), a non-profit organisation headquartered in the US, noted in 2015: “When free and balanced, traditional media (print and broadcast) foster transparency and the dissemination of important electoral information. The rise of new media – such as social media sites, blogs, email, and other new media platforms – provides further avenues and possibilities for participatory citizenship, information and knowledge sharing, inclusion, and empowerment. Both traditional and new media can play a vital watchdog role and serve as a campaign platform, a forum for public debate, and as a public educator, ultimately strengthening democracy.” At the same time, IFES notes how the media can also play a dramatically negative role in the electoral process. A biased media can shape election and issue coverage to support corporate interests or provide propaganda for authoritarian regimes, subverting important democratic principles like freedom of speech and the press. (Read full analysis at: https://www.ifes.org/news/evolving-role-media-elections) The media’s role in influencing voter behaviour at elections has long been debated in Sri Lanka. For the past several years, the EC (and its predecessor, the Department of Elections) has been issuing guidelines for print and broadcast media to cover news and current affairs, editorials, broadcast talk shows, and any other media content that involves a political party or candidate or their promoters. The guidelines are meant to “ensure rightful exercise of franchise and a free and fair election or referendum…to be followed by all electronic and print media institutions and personnel involved”. (The latest version can be found at: https://elections.gov.lk/web/en/media-guidelines/) Each time an election is announced, the EC publishes a gazette notification with these guidelines, but it lacks capacity to fully monitor compliance. And past experience shows that guidelines are not always followed by either state or private media. The guidelines are primarily meant for television/radio stations and newspapers that are still the dominant sources of news and information for a majority of Lankans. However, with the spread of internet use (currently by an estimated one-third of the population), the role of social media in elections is more significant than ever before. Social media and elections The guidelines have only two passing references to social media (and none to news websites). Having spelt out the obligations of media, Section 31 says: “It is also expected that the administrators of social media sites shall also follow the above guidelines as applicable to them, during the election period.” Recent experiences in conducting elections in other democracies such as India (April-May 2019) and Indonesia (17 April 2019) suggest that generic guidelines set for conventional mass media are woefully inadequate for attempting responsible social media use during elections. Digital media with their own characteristics require a differentiated approach albeit within the common framework with the twin aims of ensuring a level playing field for candidates and enhancing voter awareness. In recent days, some news reports in local media suggested that the EC intends to “control social media” in times of future elections. These prompted the EC to issue a clarification through its official (and verified) Facebook page. (See: http://bit.ly/ECSL-SM) The EC on social media Here is my English paraphrasing of the statement issued in Sinhala: “At a meeting the EC had on 11 June 2019 with representatives of 39 registered political parties, they asked what measures could be taken to prevent reputational damage to politicians through some content posted and shared on social media during an election campaigning period. In particular, hate speech targeting the ethnicity or religious faith of a candidate could even trigger violence in a tense community, the EC was told. “Answering this question, the EC Chair said attempts to control mass media or social media are obsolete. The Commission considers citizens’ right to freedom of expression as valuable as the right to vote. At the same time, the EC will do its best to prevent hate speech and disinformation from spreading by gazetting mass media guidelines for election-related coverage and through other strategies. “There already exist laws to regulate the conduct of state media during election times. Through media guidelines, the Commission will request private media owners and journalists to self-regulate their election-related coverage. However, the Commission does not have powers to prevail upon global social media platforms like Facebook. It is a common challenge faced by election authorities around the world. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRCSL) cannot fully regulate global platforms either. “We need to bear in mind that Facebook is also used by a large number of Lankans living and working overseas, some of whom will get involved in political campaigning during election times. Even if social media platforms are temporarily blocked from within Sri Lanka, many users know how to use virtual proxy servers (VPN) to get around such restrictions. In any case, web censorship is not the answer. “Instead, the EC intends to consult all concerned parties including social media platform managers to come up with a series of guidelines for moderating relevant content during election times. The EC plans to draw on the recent experiences of the Indian and Indonesian election authorities and also seek voluntary advice and inputs from election monitoring organisations, other civil society groups, social media activists, and information technology experts. The Commission will also consult registered political parties. “In the coming weeks, the Commission hopes to work closely with legal and promotional teams of political parties, including those who manage social media for candidates and parties to ensure that a free and fair election can be held without restricting anyone’s freedom of expression. The Commission needs the support of all political parties.” The EC is to be applauded for positioning the key issues within the framework of human rights and democratic discourse. Their opting for wide-ranging consultations is also commendable, but social media guidelines and any understandings with global platforms will need to be reached as soon as possible, no later than end-September. A useful aphorism in that process would be: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” How did India and Indonesia tackle these formidable challenges? We shall explore that in the coming weeks. (Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene has been chronicling and critiquing information society for over 25 years. He tweets from @NalakaG)