How worried should Victorians be about election misinformation? - The Swanston Gazette Print Edition

Misinformation is expected to ramp up online as Victorians prepare to head to the ballot box on November 28.

In the 2026 Global Risks Report, misinformation and disinformation ranked second in severity for short term risk, and fourth for long term. 

The report identified misinformation and disinformation as high technological risks, capable of amplifying political polarisation. It also reported that AI technologies have increased false information risk over the last year.

So, how worried should Victorians be approaching election time?

Some experts say existing anti-misinformation measures might not be enough. 

University of Melbourne senior research fellow John Cook said that an intervention being used to tackle misinformation is through online games. 

“They are effective in the limited sense that when we test people being exposed to our interventions, we do find a significant improvement,” he said.

Cook said his game Cranky Uncle exposes the rhetorical techniques used in misinformation to foster critical thinking skills.

The game uses examples of climate misinformation for players to identify the technique used. 

He said that there are also games developed overseas to tackle election based misinformation, like Bad News by Cambridge University.

“So when people play my games, they come out more resilient. They’re better able to spot misinformation, and there's other people developing misinformation games that have found the same,” Cook said. 

He explained that while these games do appear to be an effective intervention, people do need to keep coming back for more.

“Games are an opt-in intervention. It’s hard to push it out to the public,” he said.

What have we learnt about misinformation from the 2025 federal election?

The University of Canberra’s report ‘Unpacking Election Misinformation’ found 60 per cent of survey respondents had encountered misinformation ahead of the 2025 federal election. 

It also found one in 10 participants had encountered deepfakes of politicians made using artificial intelligence. 

AI is making it increasingly difficult to discern what is real and what is fake – no less so during election time.

An investigation by ABC Verify found ‘Oceania Unfiltered’, a Youtuber based overseas, had been using AI to fabricate an Australian accent, using it for political commentary. 

These videos can gain significant traction online, with some videos pushing up to 100,000 views.

So why are online personas from overseas imposing themselves on Australian politics? 

“There’s usually direct effects that misinformation are trying to achieve, but then you have misinformation that is more subtle or has more deeper goals like polarising the public,” Cook said.

Cook said foreign actors could “undermine” democratic processes such as elections by spreading misinformation.

Cook said that these campaigns can easily influence policy. 

“When the public believe misinformation about climate change, and don’t think that it’s real, then they don’t support climate action,” he said.

Coming into the state election and the line between fact and fiction can be blurred online, can misinformation be tamed?