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  • BORIS JOHNSON: The stakes for this country

  • have seldom been higher, and the choice has never been starker.

  • WILL MOY: We're monitoring the election pretty

  • comprehensively.

  • We're monitoring TV, we're monitoring online,

  • we're monitoring the news debates, manifestos.

  • The where we stopped and were really surprised

  • was when the conservative party chose

  • to masquerade as an independent fact checker

  • during the first TV debate.

  • That was a clear choice to make, and I

  • think is a choice-- a step to cross a line.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: It also just shows us

  • the level of aggression in the Tories' current strategy.

  • They then tweeted things as if they

  • were facts throughout the debate against Jeremy Corbyn,

  • and at the end, pronounced Boris Johnson the winner.

  • Either they were trying to fool people,

  • or they were trying to get a reaction,

  • making what they'd done go even more viral,

  • because that's one of the strategies.

  • WILL MOY: I think we're seeing quite aggressive campaigning

  • from all the political parties.

  • Fairly consistent misrepresentation by political

  • parties of other political parties' positions.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: The internet allows

  • you to doctor videos and other content

  • to make it seem like something has been said

  • or something has been done that actually isn't true.

  • PIERS MORGAN: Why would the EU give you a good deal

  • if they know that you're going to actively

  • campaign against it?

  • WILL MOY: To see a political party manipulate

  • a video of its opponent giving an interview

  • to make it look like, in this case,

  • Keir Starmer had no answer to a question,

  • which he actually managed to answer in that interview,

  • was a very surprising thing.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: And clearly, they had

  • used a shot of him waiting to answer a question,

  • and then put it after the question was asked.

  • It was a deliberate ploy to make it look like Labour's Brexit

  • minister didn't know what he was talking about.

  • WILL MOY: That is a sort of classic disinformation tactic.

  • It's not the sort of thing you expect

  • in a responsible democratic election.

  • We haven't seen the Labour party manipulating videos.

  • We haven't seen the Labour party impersonating journalists

  • in their election communications.

  • JEREMY CORBYN: 451 pages of unredacted documents

  • and information.

  • WILL MOY: What we have seen is aggressive examples

  • of them trying to misrepresent the position of other parties,

  • certainly in the view of other parties.

  • Labour is claiming that the Tories are going to do a trade

  • deal with the US that will cost the NHS 500 million pounds

  • a week.

  • That's an extraordinarily large amount of money.

  • That's equivalent to about a fifth

  • of what we spend on health.

  • The US would have to do a trade deal with us, where

  • UK drugs costs go up 2.5 times to match what is currently

  • paid in the US, and the British government

  • would have to be willing to absorb

  • extra costs of about 27 billion pounds to the public purse.

  • That's a pretty extraordinary claim,

  • based on a very extreme scenario.

  • We think it's unrealistic.

  • Labour are, nonetheless, repeating it heavily

  • to their voters.

  • WOMAN: You need to vote for the Liberal Democrats.

  • WILL MOY: Both the liberal Democrat party

  • and for conservative party have been creating

  • campaign leaflets that are dressed up to look

  • as if their local newspapers.

  • We think that's misleading.

  • We think it's trespassing on independent journalism, which

  • is vital in an election campaign.

  • And we think it's inappropriate for political parties

  • to do that.

  • WOMAN: We deserve better than what--

  • WILL MOY: There was a tactic from the Lib Dems

  • we've seen repeatedly in local constituencies, which is

  • bar charts of who can win here.

  • This sort of claim that we're second

  • or we're on the verge of winning possibly the most far fetched

  • we've seen so far was using the results of a recent police

  • and crime commissioner election as

  • if it was some guide to how people will

  • vote in the general election.

  • To put that in context, 15% of people in that area

  • had voted for the police and crime commissioner,

  • and a general election turnout we would

  • expect to be nearer 70% or 80%.

  • So it's no guide whatsoever.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: The spotlight is on the Tories.

  • I think they have taken a more aggressive strategy.

  • If you look at some of their Facebook ads, a lot of them

  • are targeting Jeremy Corbyn, fear based messaging in order

  • to make people worried about what a Jeremy Corbyn led

  • government would be like.

  • WILL MOY: If the most common tactic we've seen from Labour

  • in this election is to look at what might happen in trade

  • negotiations with the US, take the worst case scenario,

  • and then tell that story as vividly as they can.

  • The most common tactic we saw from the conservatives,

  • particularly early in this election,

  • was to imagine what Labour might do,

  • despite the fact that they haven't published

  • their manifesto, make something up,

  • and then say it's going to cost you a fortune.

  • They came up with essentially a completely false number,

  • and then they got wall to wall coverage of it for a day.

  • And journalists who are trying to honestly report

  • on the campaign are in danger of being used

  • to spread false information.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: The Tories launched a website called

  • labourmanifesto.co.uk And so if you were to search Labour just

  • before the launch of the manifesto,

  • the top result would be this fake Tory website called

  • labourmanifesto.co.uk.

  • WILL MOY: They were buying online adverts

  • to get to the top.

  • There's a lot of spend going into that.

  • And there's not a lot of scrutiny about spending.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: Google have said that they're no longer going

  • to allow political adverts that are targeted based on someone's

  • supposed political leanings, but they are obviously

  • still allowing this kind of thing that can

  • manipulate potential voters.

  • WILL MOY: Elections are fought and won

  • based on thin margins in many places,

  • and it will be a relatively small number of constituencies

  • and a relatively small number of votes that determine

  • the outcome of this election.

  • If some of those votes are retained by deception,

  • then we have a problem.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: Yes, digital strategy

  • will have an impact on the election outcome.

  • MARK ZUCKERBERG: Even if we wanted to ban political ads,

  • it's not even clear where you draw the line.

  • JEMIMA KELLY: Facebook makes huge majority of its revenues

  • from advertising.

  • So if it was to stop all political advertising,

  • as a lot of people are saying it should do,

  • that would massively dent its revenues.

  • The impetus is not going to come from big tech,

  • it's probably not going to come from government.

  • The impetus is probably going to have

  • to come from some sort of external pressure,

  • whether that be campaign groups or just the general public.

  • WILL MOY: And we have had almost two decades of warnings

  • from the electoral commission and others

  • that our election laws are out of date.

  • That principals that are long established in our election

  • law, like campaigning materials should be transparent

  • and should say who they come from,

  • although they apply offline, do not

  • apply online, simply because we haven't updated election laws.

  • We need to do that.

  • We need to do it urgently.

BORIS JOHNSON: The stakes for this country

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