Online Filter Bubbles: Misinformation and Disinformation

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Mark. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on securing the debate. I agreed with a lot of what was said by the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald)—did he say a “helpful Scottish nationalist”? I am not sure whether or not that was disinformation, but we will not debate that today.

I am extremely concerned about misinformation on a whole range of subjects. We saw it during the pandemic, with the vaccine debate; all Members will have received communications from constituents that were completely and utterly false, where people had been wound up online by fake doctors and people who were not vaccine specialists and were then presenting that information to us as fact. We see it in the immigration debate, where people are subjected to what is often racist commentary online, which then directs them towards other accounts—a lot of them anti-Muslim—which reinforce what they have heard. These people then appear in our inboxes, quoting that bile.

As others have mentioned, we also see it in election campaigns. I think all political parties can sometimes be a little guilty of promoting elements of disinformation. In the 2017 election in particular, I remember being on the receiving end of abuse and torrents of stuff that was put out about votes here, which, when I looked into the detail, just was not true. It was not as presented. I am afraid that all political parties sometimes cannot resist the urge to perhaps slightly misrepresent what has gone on in this place.

It will perhaps come as little surprise that I want to talk today about antisemitism—the anti-Jewish racism that remains prevalent and pernicious throughout our online platforms. Perhaps I am a hypocrite for talking about this, because I am not actually on any of these social media networks. I left them all, and it was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. I realised the power of filter bubbles, though, when I once looked at an account about a trainspotter, and ended up getting presented with lots of other trainspotting information. I thought, “Why is this all happening?”—it is because if someone looks at something once, they are driven down that path. Now, I could have become a radicalised trainspotter, but I was able to cut myself off just at the right point. I joke, but in other debates and on other accounts, this is incredibly frightening and dangerous.

We see it with antisemitism, with conspiracy theories reaching back hundreds of years, which, like artificial intelligence, mutate and evolve. It will be of little surprise to Members to hear that it can be found in relation to misinformation and disinformation too. We have particularly seen that since the start of the conflict in the middle east. Following the terror attacks on 7 October, there has been a significant proliferation of disinformation and misinformation. Shortly after the attacks, conspiracy theories emerged that were rooted in the anti-Jewish ideologies of those who wished to deny the atrocities that took place—denying that innocent civilians were attacked, that children were murdered and that women were subjected to gender-based violence.

I have seen some of that hate in the past 24 hours, following an outrageous smear somebody put out about me on social media that has resulted in a trickle of abuse coming at me, some of which is questionably antisemitic. Those emails have included a denial that Hamas was responsible for the deaths on 7 October, while someone else questioned, in relation to the Houthis, whether interrupting shipping lanes is really a heinous act. Worst of all, someone emailed me and described the hostages as “them Zionist rat hostages”. People have not come up with those comments and views themselves, but they have seen them online. They have been pointed in a particular direction through a series of misinformation and disinformation. It has had no effect on me, of course. I will continue to speak out and call out whatever I wish wherever I think it appropriate to whoever. It will not have any impact on me, but it has proven to me once again what a cesspit of hate and antisemitism social media can be. I will give a couple of examples to emphasise that.

One major conspiracy since 7 October is that the attacks on that day were a false flag operation by Israel—we have all probably had emails stating that. In one particular viral claim, social media users argued that the attack at the Nova music festival, in which 364 people were murdered and many abducted, was not carried out by Hamas but by Israeli forces, despite the fact that there was video evidence taken by the people there. Some try to be clever and deny one single aspect of the atrocity in order to skirt some of the social media rules.

In another example, it was claimed that the Israeli Government knew of the attack, but did not deploy the army in the hope that the crisis would help restore popularity. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that many of the conspiracies contain common antisemitic tropes. For example, sites affiliated with QAnon spread a conspiracy that the war was part of a plan to start a third world war, with a hidden ambition to start a new religion and cause chaos, which is of course a trope straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. We have seen that throughout.

AI has also played a major role in disseminating disinformation. I will use a few examples to demonstrate that. A Facebook post shows Israeli civilians cheering Israeli Defence Forces soldiers in an image that was heavily altered by AI. Of course, the people who shared it do not know that. There was a deepfake video of President Biden calling for a military draft in response to the war with Hamas. It appeared on TikTok and Facebook, where it managed to fool users into thinking that was real. I note that other people have talked about the difficulties of deepfake.

Deepfake images of abandoned and injured Palestinian babies in the ruins of Gaza have been viewed and shared millions of times. Because AI-generated content has become widespread, people now doubt genuine content. When authentic images of the luxurious homes of some Hamas leaders were shared, it was immediately pooh-poohed as an AI deepfake. Because of the algorithms that personalise the content, as other Members have said, users are drawn into filter bubbles on social media and continuously exposed to a specific narrative, with little or no exposure to counter-information.

The proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare was spot on. I am conscious of your guidance on time, Sir Mark, so I will end there. I will just say that there is more we can do. The ideas that my hon. Friend has outlined are important, as are the things about digital media literacy and all the rest of it that the Government can invest in.

BBC: Government Role in Impartiality

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

The Leader of the House is entitled to comment on the nature of Mr Lineker’s comments but, as far as I am aware, she applied zero pressure on the BBC to take action in relation to his contract.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I hope the shadow Secretary of State will reflect on her comparison of this Government to the Putin regime, which is of course engaged in war crimes and the murder of men, women and children in Ukraine. That was beneath her.

I am perfectly content with the BBC’s funding model and output, but one element of Mr Lineker’s statement on Twitter is completely unacceptable. I grew up surrounded by people who had their lives turned on their head by the Nazi regime in Germany, so I hope the Minister will comment on Mr Lineker’s references to 1930s Germany. He can say what he likes about the Illegal Migration Bill, but he should have the decency to apologise for comparing any action of a democratically elected Government in this country to 1930s Germany. It was disgusting.