The Election Commission says social media and artificial intelligence have already influenced how Sri Lankans vote, and has warned that the effect “could reach dangerous levels in the future.”
The warning came from Additional Commissioner of Elections (Legal) Chinthaka Kularatne, the Daily Mirror reported.
The commission is citing outside research, not its own
The finding the commission is relaying comes from research conducted by Democracy Reporting International and Factum. On the commission’s account of that work, social media and artificial intelligence influenced voters at the 2024 Presidential election and the parliamentary election, and the same trend appeared at the local government elections held last year.
That is three consecutive national or nationwide polls in which the effect was observed — a span, rather than a single contest.
It is worth being precise about what is and is not being claimed. The commission is reporting that voters were influenced; it is not reported as alleging that any particular result was changed, that any specific campaign deployed AI, or that any law was broken. Nor does the filing describe the research method, sample, or what “influence” was measured as.
What the commission has not said
The filing does not report any regulatory step. There is no proposed rule, no referral, no code of conduct for parties, and no statement on whether the commission believes its existing powers reach AI-generated campaign material at all.
It also does not say when or where Kularatne spoke, whether the research has been published in full, or whether the commission commissioned it or is simply citing it.
Why the warning carries weight here
Sri Lanka’s current electoral cycle began with the 2024 presidential and parliamentary votes and continued through last year’s local government elections. A commission official saying the effect was present across that whole run — and is expected to intensify — is a statement about the elections already held, not only about ones to come.
Sourcing note
Only the Daily Mirror had filed on these remarks at the time of writing; no other verified newsroom had covered them.
Readers should also be aware that searches on this subject surface a substantial body of 2024-era Sri Lankan reporting on election monitoring, influencer activity and talks with large technology platforms. That material concerns earlier work and is not part of this week’s statement. This article reports only what the commission is quoted as saying in this filing, and deliberately excludes figures and initiatives that belong to that older coverage.
