Social Media Algorithms Amplified Disinformation Campaign in Honduras Election
October 6, 2021
In October 2021, a coordinated network of over 317 fake Twitter accounts leveraged AI-driven algorithms to amplify disinformation about the Honduran presidential election, targeting opposition candidate Xiomara Castro. The campaign spread false narratives to suppress voter turnout and undermine the election's integrity. Social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, removed the accounts only after being alerted, which also raised concerns about inadequate moderation.
- Alleged deployer
- national-party-of-honduras-supporters, juan-orlando-hernandez-supporters, unknown-twitter-users, unknown-facebook-users
- Alleged developer
- x-(twitter), meta, facebook
- Alleged harmed parties
- xiomara-castro, libertad-y-refundacion-(libre)-supporters, honduran-electorate, honduras, democracy, electoral-integrity
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/846
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.