![\"“We](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/social-media-generic-file-image-apps-FMPGUM6ZRNFBDHL73HL24FLH7A.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPolitical parties are spreading less disinformation online than at any point since 2020, a Victoria University researcher says, though young voters are unimpressed by parties trying to imitate youth culture.<\/p>\n
Victoria University internet, social media and politics research lab director Mona Krewel told Q+A that the New Zealand Social Media Study, which tracks party and party leader Facebook pages, had recorded its lowest level of disinformation yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are running the study since 2020, inside election times and outside of election times, and we never had less disinformation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The study found around 17 \u201chalf-truths\u201d – posts built mostly on accurate facts but containing one dodgy detail – and one fake-news post.<\/p>\n
Krewel put the drop down to populist fringe parties, which she said had been behind much of the issue in previous elections around Covid and vaccine mandates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it\u2019s an election about the economy, which is not a topic of the populist parties, and that\u2019s why they are staying pretty quiet,” the researcher said.<\/p>\n
“Given that it’s mostly just the established parties who are running the show in this election around the economy, we naturally find less disinformation.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are running the study since 2020, inside election times and outside of election times, and we never had less disinformation,\u201d she said. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n
But the researcher warned that fewer posts did not necessarily mean less harm, because posts with disinformation tended to attract more shares, comments and reactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cLow prevalence doesn\u2019t mean low impact,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are talking about Facebook pages that have a huge reach, so if they have one fake-news post, this could reach a very large audience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Inauthentic\u2019<\/p>\n
Krewel said young voters were finding a lot of what parties posted on social media \u201ccringe\u201d, particularly when parties copied youth culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey think they get the young age brackets by going on TikTok, doing a \u2018get ready with me\u2019 in the campaign or posting some memes. This actually doesn\u2019t resonate very well with the young people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey think it\u2019s inauthentic if they imitate a youth culture. They would rather see them delivering, really, on the topics that they care about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study found National was currently posting the most, followed by Labour and NZ Outdoors and Freedom, according to Krewel.<\/p>\n
For the full interview, watch the video above<\/p>\n
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Political parties are spreading less disinformation online than at any point since 2020, a Victoria University researcher says,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1073,111,43,139,69,135,145,270122],"class_list":["post-641299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-media","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-technology","tag-vote-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}