Need voluntary guidelines for social media during elections, says expert

Terming misinformation the biggest threat to democracies, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) President Anthony Banbury has said there was a need for working out voluntary guidelines for social media companies.

Banbury was in Delhi to attend the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s international conference on the use of technology election integrity on Monday and Tuesday. The conference was a part of the United States-led Summit for Democracy, which was held for the first time in December 2021 and the second summit would be held virtually in March this year. The ECI, along with IFES, Mauritius and Greece, was selected to lead the cohort on election integrity in the run-up to the second summit.