The Digital Battlefield – Mapping the 6-Month War Against the Truth
In the high-stakes arena of the 2024 Sri Lankan Presidential Election, the primary weapon of choice wasn’t just the political stage—it was the smartphone screen. While candidates crisscrossed the island for rallies, a more invisible, insidious campaign was being waged in the palm of the voters’ hands. This was a war of perception, fought with fabricated documents, decontextualized videos, and a “behind-the-curtains” alliance of the old guard desperate to stop a rising tide.
Our six-month monitoring project, which analyzed hundreds of digital assets between March 21 and September 21, 2024, reveals that the disinformation targeting Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) was not merely a collection of random lies. It was a calculated, multi-layered operation designed to dismantle the credibility of a frontrunner during a historic turning point for the nation.
The Global Context: A 2024 Pandemic
Sri Lanka’s experience was not unique. 2024 was dubbed the “Year of Elections” globally, with over half the world’s population heading to the polls. From the United States to India, a common trend emerged: Information Integrity is under siege. Disinformation works by exploiting “confirmation bias”—the human tendency to believe information that confirms our pre-existing fears. In a polarized society, these lies act as a wedge, widening the gap between communities until a shared reality no longer exists. When voters cannot agree on basic facts, they cannot make an informed choice, and democracy itself begins to fray.
The Post-Aragalaya Pulse: Why the Target Was AKD
To understand why the disinformation machine in Sri Lanka went into overdrive, we must look at the unique political landscape of 2024. The 2022 “Aragalaya” (The Struggle) was more than a protest; it was a total collapse of the old social contract. For decades, Sri Lankan politics functioned like a cozy club. Dynastic elites from opposing parties would “shout” at each other in parliament but share tea and business deals in private.
The Aragalaya shattered that illusion. It created a vacuum where the “common man” stopped looking for a savior from the elite class and started looking for a mirror of themselves. As the 2024 election approached, the shift was visceral. Even in the early stages, it was obvious that AKD and the NPP were the primary beneficiaries of this new public mindset.
This surge in popularity created a “state of emergency” for the establishment. For the first time, the traditional contestants—the heirs and the careerists—found themselves tacitly aligned. They realized that their mutual survival depended on halting AKD’s momentum. Because the ground reality—the massive crowds at rallies—could no longer be denied, they moved the battle to the digital realm. They formed an unwritten alliance to “systematically deconstruct” Anura’s character..
Because the ground reality—the rallies and the public favor—could no longer be suppressed by traditional means, the establishment turned to Disinformation.
Defining the Weapon: What is Disinformation? Why when elections?
Before dissecting the 2024 campaign, we must clarify a fundamental concept: Disinformation is not a mistake. In media circles, we often hear the term “misinformation,” which refers to the accidental spread of false info. Disinformation, however, is the deliberate creation and sharing of false or manipulated information with the intent to deceive, mislead, and cause harm. Disinformation is a crime of intent. It is a manufactured product. In this context, it is created in “political war rooms,” boosted by paid accounts, and timed to cause maximum damage.
In 2024, disinformation was the “invisible hand” trying to nudge the public back toward the old guard. It sought to replace post-Aragalaya hope with a very specific, curated kind of fear. It wasn’t just about making people hate AKD; it was about making them feel that choosing him would be a “danger” to the nation’s survival.
“An election is a preview of a society,” stated Manjula Gajanayake, Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Reforms and Electoral Studies (IRES), while reflecting on the evolution of Sri Lankan political culture.
Gajanayake drew a stark contrast between the current environment and the brutal violence of the past. He recalled a harrowing incident from 1999, where a 95-year-old woman was reportedly forced to walk nude along the Kuliyapitiya road by political supporters simply for backing an opposing party. “There were some elections where over 20 election-related murders were reported,” he noted, emphasizing that the 2024 cycle appeared remarkably different.
The Executive Director attributed this shift to several factors, including a more robust performance by the Police and the Election Commission. Furthermore, he observed that the “Aragalaya” (The Struggle) had fundamentally altered the mindset of the nation’s youth, leading to a significant reduction in reported physical altercations.
However, Gajanayake cautioned against viewing this decline in physical violence as a sign that politics has reached a “holy level.” Instead, he argued that the “real ugliness” has merely migrated to different arenas.
“Platforms changed, strategies changed, but the ugliness remains the same,” Gajanayake said. He explained that while past violence often erupted during physical confrontations—such as groups clashing while pasting posters on walls—the digital age has moved the conflict online. “Now there is no need for posters; social media posts have become the new tool,” he further mentioned, suggesting that the battlefield has shifted from the streets to the digital ecosystem.
“The Sri Lankan Election Commission is not a source of law,” stated Saman Sri Ratnayake, Former Commissioner General of Elections, clarifying the constitutional limitations of the body during the 2024 electoral cycle.
Ratnayake observed that a significant portion of the public often confuses the powers of the Sri Lankan Commission with those of its Indian counterpart. He emphasized that the local commission lacks the authority to independently create laws or unilaterally bypass existing legal loopholes. “There is no mention about ‘independence’ in the Act, even though people refer to us as an ‘Independent Election Commission.’ We simply do not have such power,” he noted.
Addressing the challenges of the 2024 Presidential Election, the Commissioner General highlighted that while the commission exerted its maximum effort to manage the process, it remained handicapped by a lack of legislative authority over the digital sphere. “We still don’t have the power to regulate what is being posted online,” Ratnayake said, underscoring the growing and unregulated influence of social media on the democratic process.
The Five Pillars of Deception: A 6-Month Analysis
Our team monitored Facebook—the primary source of news for millions of Sri Lankans—from March to September. Out of hundreds of flagged pieces, we isolated 100 “strong” disinformation assets. Our analysis revealed five strategic themes, each designed to trigger a specific social anxiety:
- Incompetence: Framing AKD and the NPP as amateurs incapable of governance who would drive the economy into further ruin.
- Illiteracy: A classist attack portraying AKD as “uneducated” or lacking the intellectual depth for the Presidency.
- Anti-Culture/Anti-Establishment: Exploiting religious and cultural fears by claiming the NPP would dismantle Buddhism or traditional Sri Lankan values.
- The “Big Liar” Narrative: A psychological projection where the attackers labeled AKD as a “chronic liar” and untrustworthy to prevent voters from believing his manifesto.
- The Ethnic Wedge: Using race-based disinformation to claim AKD favored Tamil interests over Sinhalese, or vice-versa, depending on the audience.
While these five themes provided the background noise of the campaign, two specific case studies stood out for their sheer coordination and the involvement of powerful entities.
Case Study A: The Fabricated “Depression” Report
As the election drew closer, the attacks moved from the political to the personal. In late August 2024, a rumor began to emerge: AKD was supposedly losing his mental grip. By September 10th, this rumor was transformed into a coordinated “digital hit.”
A Facebook post surfaced featuring a “medical report” allegedly from Asiri Hospital. The document claimed AKD was diagnosed with “Clinical Depression” and was on the verge of being admitted to a mental asylum.
The Anatomy of a Hit:
We observed that multiple profiles posted the exact same format and the same “doctor’s note” on the same day. Upon closer inspection, these accounts were clearly inauthentic—likely created or paid for specifically for this campaign. The lie was sophisticated. It included a secondary layer of “verification”: posts claiming that prominent NPP lawyer Sunil Watagala had sent a letter to Asiri Hospital regarding “violated medical ethics by leaking the report.”
To add visual “proof,” the campaign circulated photos of Mr. Watagala and Sunil Handunneththi going to court to file a case. However, our investigation revealed these were recycled photos from a 2021 sugar tax fraud case. The hospital itself eventually issued an official statement confirming the report was a total fabrication. This wasn’t just a lie; it was a well-timed, multi-platform operation designed to make voters doubt a candidate’s biological fitness to lead.
Case Study B: The Paranthan Factory – When Frequencies are Weaponized
The most tactically significant disinformation effort was the “Paranthan Chemical Factory” campaign. This operation targeted AKD’s identity as a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) graduate from the University of Kelaniya, striking at the core of the meritocracy valued by the post-Aragalaya generation, which sought to send educated people to power instead of people from powerful families. .On July 17, 2024, Hiru TV—a mainstream broadcaster using public frequencies—aired a report regarding a speech delivered by AKD in Gampaha. The report alleged that AKD claimed a future NPP government would produce sulfuric acid (H2SO4) from seawater at the Paranthan factory..
The Strategy of Decontextualization:
Our review of the original speech footage proved that AKD never made such a claim. Yet, the moment the TV segment aired, a wave of Facebook posts emerged with the exact same misleading captions. We observed that this campaign was active for at least another week.This is the ultimate pincer move: a mainstream media outlet provides the “credibility,” and a digital army provides the “reach.”
Hiru TV has been repeatedly flagged by organizations like Ethics Eye for biased reporting and editing videos to change a candidate’s meaning. In this case, they weren’t just reporting news; they were manufacturing a “scientific blunder” to support the “illiteracy” pillar of their disinformation strategy.
“We didn’t simply get this election in an easy way,” stated Dissanayake Dasanayake, Attorney-at-Law and representative of the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), while reflecting on the struggle for democratic franchise leading up to the 2024 polls.
Dasanayake pointed out that the path to the ballot was marked by systemic resistance, noting that former President Ranil Wickremesinghe “postponed elections as much as he could.” He brought the human cost of this struggle into sharp focus, reminding the public of the tragic death of a protester due to tear gas poisoning during demonstrations demanding that elections be held.
“So it wasn’t like the people who were in power were ready to give up their power easily,” Dasanayake said. He further mentioned that this resistance to the democratic process was not just a physical reality but a visible trend across digital spaces. “That’s what we observed on social media platforms,” he added, linking the state’s reluctance to relinquish power to the broader atmosphere of tension monitored throughout the campaign period.
The Cost of the Lie
The implications of these findings are profound. When a pincer movement consisting of mainstream media and coordinated digital bot networks can manufacture a “mental health crisis” or “academic fraud” out of thin air, the fundamental integrity of an election is compromised.
The “Behind the Curtains” alliance of 2024 demonstrated a clear intent to preserve the status quo by subverting the public’s perception of reality. They did not merely target a candidate; they targeted the voter’s right to an informed choice. They sought to prove that any attempt at “system change” was inherently dangerous, utilizing fear as a surrogate for policy.
“The transition from physical violence to digital manipulation does not make the threat any less real; it simply makes it more difficult to see,” warned Manjula Gajanayake of IRES. He advised that before any citizen clicks ‘share’ or accepts a sensational claim as truth, they must engage in a moment of critical pause. “In the past, you could see a group of thugs coming down the street. Today, the ‘thug’ is an algorithm or a coordinated bot farm disguised as a news alert. Before you internalize a post, verify the source, look for the original footage, and ask yourself who benefits from your anger or your fear.”
Saman Sri Ratnayake emphasized that while institutional reforms are necessary, the law is often several steps behind technology. “Because the Election Commission currently lacks the legal teeth to police every corner of the internet, the first line of defense is the voter,” he stated. He advised that people must be hyper-aware during election cycles because disinformation is specifically timed to trigger emotional responses that override logical policy considerations. “Awareness is your only shield when the regulatory framework is still being built,” he noted, urging voters to rely on trusted sources rather than random social media handles.
Adding a legal and activist perspective, Dissanayake Dasanayake of CMEV stressed that the right to vote was a hard-won victory, often paid for with the lives of citizens. “We cannot afford to let that right be stolen by a fabricated medical report or a deceptive video edit,” he warned. He suggested that safeguarding democracy is not solely the burden of the police or the commission. “It is a collective responsibility. If you see something that looks designed to incite hate or spread a lie, report it and debunk it. Protecting your vote means protecting the information environment in which you cast it.”
Finally, Manjula Gajanayake returned to the core principle of democratic survival. “People should be very well aware that the things we saw in past haven’t simply disappeared; it has just evolved into a more sophisticated form of psychological control,” he cautioned. He concluded by stating that the ultimate safeguard of a democratic right is an informed and skeptical electorate. “Do not wait for a law to protect you from a lie. In the digital age, being a responsible citizen means being your own fact-checker. If we fail to do this, we allow the democratic process to be hijacked by the very people who fear an educated public.”
This is an amazing read. Explaining what happened back in 2024
thanks