Joshua Ferrer, who wrote a 2020 report into online campaigning in New Zealand for Transparency International, was more than wary.
“We haven’t had Cambridge Analytica moment, we haven’t had a Russia interference moment,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean that the threat isn’t real.
“The technology is there for one of those moments to happen.”
His 2020 report found the guardrails around political online campaigning were weak or missing here.
This at a time when the threat was becoming more “sophisticated”, and as tactics honed overseas were imported, according to Internet New Zealand.
InternetNZ has sounded warnings about online interference following the last two elections, and in 2020 said: “Over the past two years, our concerns have become more pressing, but as far as we know remain unaddressed.”
At the same time, the price of interfering was only going down.
A thousand dollars could buy a lot of very aggressive, one-eyed messaging pumped into social media echo chambers, the experts say - whether you were a political party, a party’s proxy, an anti-vaxxer, or Russia.
It was “possible to test thousands of message variations, assessing how each individual responds to them, and changing the content in real time and across media in order to target and retarget specific voters”, a study said.
It was debated globally just how effective this was and been suggested pscyhological microtargeting could actually help politics.
A 2022 US MIT study said its results “suggest that political microtargeting can confer a sizeable persuasive advantage over more traditional messaging strategies”.
And where campaigners of whatever stripe were looking for an edge, and do not have to reveal just what they were doing - as was largely the case in New Zealand - well, why wouldn’t you?
‘Profoundly disturbing’
Hattotuwa has deep fears, spawned from years looking at the growing use of disruptive campaign data since 2010 in Sri Lanka, since 2020 in New Zealand most recently around Covid and since early 2022 to do with Russia’s misinformation campaigns locally centred on its war against Ukraine.
“What we have been studying going on and wrong ... is going to impact the democratic fabric and electoral integrity for all elections henceforth,” he said.
“It is profoundly disturbing.
“It is extremely dangerous. It is highly divisive, and it is intended to go to the heart of electoral integrity. That is not a future projection, a hypothetical future scenario, that is what is present, pulsating, expanding and entrenched.”
Victoria University professor Jack Vowles helped with research that found some online half-truths in 2020′s election, but little fake news.
Microtargeting was a valid tool that had been used for years, such as using the electoral roll to target teachers with education policy brochures in the mail, so banning it would be “draconian”, Vowles said.
It was only manipulation that was the danger - though whether it even worked was another question.
“There is clearly evidence that people try to do these things.
“But overall, looking at the results of an election in aggregate, it’s not clear that this kind of thing has a great deal of effect”, though determining the effects was difficult, Vowles said.
Michael Daubs said it was speculative to talk of impacts on the election at this distance.
But like Hattotuwa and Ferrer, he was certain New Zealand was behind the eight-ball.
“We’re not necessarily ready to deal with an onslaught of misinformation in relation to the election,” Daubs said.
“What we’re really looking for is that, when an ad is delivered, because these ads can be microtargeted, that individual person at that moment needs to understand exactly where that message is coming from.”
Reports by the Electoral Commission after the vote were no help, he said.
“This is about making decisions when someone goes to vote.”
Follow Europe?
Ferrer asked if it was good enough for Europe to act now, to curtail microtargeting and resist interference in the 2024 EU parliament elections, what about New Zealand in 2023?
“We know the parties are spending lots of money using them [voter targeting tools].
“Now is the time before a huge crisis of confidence occurs to do something about it. I think the European Union has taken a tremendous step forward.
“And I think it’s time for us to, as well,” Ferrer said from California, where he lives.
The Electoral Commission said prohibiting microtargeting would require legislative change.
All election advertisements, in all mediums, had to include a promoter statement that tells people who’s behind the ad, it said.
There were also spending limits for parties, candidates and third parties in the run-up to an election, and rules around when election advertisements can be broadcast on television and radio.
