(COLOMBO, LANKAPUVATH) – lection monitoring organization Peoples for Free and Fair Election (PAFFREL) says it has received 940 complaints about propaganda on social media in the past 9 hours after Election campaigning ended at midnight on Sunday (02) until 9 am Monday (03).
PAFFREL Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi stated at a media briefing held at PAFFREL Headquarters today that 140 such violations have already been removed as per the notifications issued by the Elections Commission to the relevant institutions.
Mr. Hettiarachchi said that during the past two months of the pre-election period, 3444 instances of violations of election laws on Facebook were observed. He added that the vast majority of these complaints were about posting incidents of violating election laws in the Facebook.
Among the complaints were 2483 incidents of election campaigns violating health guidelines and posting them in the Facebook and 30 of them were hate speeches
He said that 2483 election campaigns violating the health laws and putting them on the face book were among the complaints, adding that 30 of them were hate speeches.
Hettiarachchi said 75 incidents of harassment of candidates including women candidates and 45 are about posting false information.
He further said that PAFFREL had learned this information from monitoring of social media during the election monitoring and steps will be taken to inform the relevant institutions about it in the future.
