Chief Election Commissioner of India Rajiv Kumar along with Election Commissioner’s Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel today inaugurated a two day international conference on the theme ‘Use of Technology & Elections Integrity’. The conference which is second in a series of three conferences to be organized by Election Commission of India is hosted at New Delhi under Cohort on Election Integrity led by ECI. 16 countries including Heads/Dy Heads of nine EMBs or Election Authorities are participating. Speaking on the occasion on pressing challenges before the Election Management Bodies, CEC Rajiv Kumar stressed on the impact of new media especially the social media on the intersection of technology with EMBs’ functioning. He added that a disturbing trend of deep fake narratives have become a common feature in elections worldwide, where disruptive elements attempt to alter public perception and mislead the user by repetitively presenting the deep fakes as “fact”. While recalling his keynote address from the previous conference, Kumar stressed that social media intermediaries through their algorithm power and AI, have the capability to detect the deep fakes proactively, especially in jurisdictions like India, where electoral cycles are definite and well announced.
