THE POLITICS YOU NEVER SAW: MICROTARGETING AND THE MANUFACTURE OF MISINFORMED VOTERS

Abstract

In today's information economy, fake news takes many forms. One of its less discussed but structurally most destructive forms is electoral misinformation driven by microtargeting. This practice has transformed political communication from a public contest of ideas into a fragmented marketplace of personalised promises. Campaigns abuse behavioural and psychographic data to selectively present conflicting versions of their manifesto—promising welfare to one community while assuring fiscal restraint to another. This selective disclosure shapes multiple political realities, leading to widely misinformed citizens.
Our chapter analyses this practice, emphasising that the harm done by strategic omission manipulates electoral choice while remaining legally invisible. Existing Indian frameworks—the Model Code of Conduct, the Representation of the People Act, and the newly enacted DPDP Act—are architecturally designed for the "visible spectacle" of public campaigning and fail to address persuasion in the private digital domain. Drawing from the structural failures of US transparency models and EU content regulations, the chapter warns of a "regulatory blind spot." We propose that rather than policing truth, the law must enforce procedural safeguards to restore the shared field of contestation essential for democratic legitimacy.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199328655.2026.10-21