•  Women politicians faced higher levels of technology-facilitated gender-based violence during 2024-2025 election cycle

Sixty-six TikTok accounts impersonated political parties and candidates during Sri Lanka’s recent election cycles, while women politicians faced increased technology-facilitated gender-based violence, research presented at a forum on electoral disinformation has revealed.

The findings were presented at ‘Beyond the Algorithm’, an event organised by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) in Colombo on 30 October, bringing together representatives of the Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL), the media and civil society to discuss ways to protect the integrity of election-related information.

The research, presented by DRI Digital Democracy Research Officer Camila Weinmann and Digital Research Analyst Prihesh Ratnayake, examined three recently concluded elections in Sri Lanka.

Of the 66 TikTok accounts identified as impersonating political parties and candidates, 45.5% had been active during the 2024 Presidential Election, while 21.2% remained active until the 2025 Local Government Elections. Following reports made to TikTok and the ECSL, 51 of the accounts were removed.

The research also examined the spread of inaccurate electoral information through chatbots, the continued publication of political advertisements during the silence period of the Parliamentary Election campaign and the risks posed by generative artificial intelligence (AI) to electoral integrity.

Opening the event, DRI Executive Director Nicola Schmidt said disinformation was a global phenomenon, with generative AI, deepfakes and social media platforms contributing to the rapid spread of misleading information.

“Social media and different platforms are contributing to the speed of the spread of disinformation. We as DRI are looking into this globally, looking at what algorithms do,” she said, explaining the rationale behind the event’s title.

She stressed that examining the contribution of algorithms to disinformation was important in promoting digital rights and holding technology platforms accountable for their actions.

Addressing the gathering, ECSL Member A M Faaiz said the impact of digital platforms on elections had to be considered in terms of how information shaped voters’ decisions.

“Algorithms decide what appears on our screen, but algorithms do not vote. Behind every screen sits a citizen and behind every ballot lies a judgment that a citizen has formed from what he or she has read, heard and come to believe,” he said.

He added that the focus should be on the quality of voters’ decisions and the conditions under which they were formed, noting that democracy depended on citizens being able to make informed choices.

Faaiz said that, with the support of DRI and Factum, the ECSL was formulating a strategic action plan on disinformation and harmful content while mapping its digital capacities to develop a roadmap for the Commission’s digital presence.

“What began as a project is becoming part of the institution. Our purpose is to protect the voters, not to police opinion,” he said.

He stressed that measures to safeguard electoral integrity must remain consistent with freedom of expression and media freedom, warning that such efforts should not be used to suppress legitimate political debate or criticism, including criticism of the ECSL itself.

The event also featured two panel discussions examining challenges to electoral information integrity and practical responses to disinformation.

The first discussion, titled ‘The Election Information Ecosystem’, focused on disinformation, accountability and threats to electoral integrity. Panellists discussed protocols that traditional newsrooms could adopt when public figures made unverified claims, as well as the effectiveness of counter-narratives delivered through drama, podcasts and interviews.

The discussion also examined the effectiveness of voluntary codes of conduct and memorandums of understanding between the ECSL and technology platforms in addressing disinformation, the need for legislative support and growing political polarisation as a threat to information integrity.

The second panel, titled ‘Resilience in Practice’, drew on experiences from fact-checking, advocacy and media literacy initiatives.

Participants discussed the difficulties of verifying information, responses from social media companies during fact-checking processes, efforts to equip local journalists to counter disinformation and the lack of interest in funding fact-checking initiatives.

Project Manager at DRI Aingkaran Kugathasan thanked participants and partners for their contributions at the conclusion of the event.

The forum was held under the ‘Strengthening Resilience Against Disinformation in Sri Lanka’ project, co-funded by the European Union, and brought together international partner organisations, stakeholder institutions, media representatives and civil society groups.