ISFED releases first interim report on pre-election social media
By Khatia Bzhalava
Thursday, September 16
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), presented on September 14 its first interim social media monitoring report amid the upcoming local elections. The local watchdog analyzed 1,126 public posts during August 2-22 and revealed that twenty social media accounts work against the ruling Georgian Dream party, while twenty-five pages operate against the opposition.
ISFED says that the pages campaigning against the government mainly target Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, PM Irakli Garibashvili, ruling party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, ruling party head Irakli Kobakhidze and Culture Minister Tea Tsulukiani, who was subjected to sexist remarks, while anti-opposition pages mostly campaign against the head of the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party Nika Melia, his father Anzor Melia, who is running in the upcoming municipal elections, and ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.
ISFED revealed that female members of the opposition parties were targeted with sexist attacks.
According to the report, during the monitoring period, the highest number of political ads (892) was posted by Georgian Dream, followed by Third Force – Strategy Agmashenebeli with 155 posts, and the UNM with 93.
The watchdog reports that twelve fake media pages were releasing anti-western messages following the ruling team’s decision to quit the April 19 agreement in July.
The report identified several pages aimed at discredit critical media outlets. ISFED says that they have identified two Facebook pages discrediting their (ISFED) activities.
ISFED also observed anonymous pages and found that 23 pages supported Georgian Dream, while 25 were active in favor of opposition parties, of which 13 pages were mostly engaged with pro-UNM activities and 4 support ex-Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia.
The watchdog stated that the majority of the official pages of the local self-government bodies did not publish party-related articles, but actively shared information about Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s visits to the municipalities during the campaign. The report said that as some of the mayoral and municipal council (Sakrebulo) candidates are incumbent officials, they were put in an advantageous position compared to other candidates as they received coverage on the relevant local municipality pages.
ISFED further identified 52 civil servants from 29 municipalities who published 118 election posts between August 2 and August 22, most of which were in favor of the ruling party.
