Challenging disinformation is a duty we must not avoid

Yuliia Bond

Yesterday Wales woke up to a political earthquake. For the first time in modern Welsh political history, Labour has lost control of Wales.

Final 2026 Senedd results now show:

• Plaid Cymru: 43 seats

• Reform UK: 34 seats

• Welsh Labour: 9 seats

• Welsh Conservatives: 7 seats

• Wales Green Party: 2 seats

• Welsh Liberal Democrats: 1 seat

After more than a century of Labour dominance, the political landscape of Wales has fundamentally changed. And honestly, I do not think enough people fully understand what just happened. Because this was not only a normal democratic swing.

It was also the result of a much deeper emotional and informational transformation that has been building quietly across society for years and social media played a massive role in accelerating it.

And maybe some people will think I’m exaggerating this. I genuinely hope I am. But coming from Ukraine probably makes me much more sensitive to changes in public language, disinformation and emotional radicalisation than the average person here.

People from my part of the world do not really assume democratic stability is permanent anymore.

The Caerphilly numbers alone should make people stop and think

In the 2024 general election, Reform UK won 20.3% in Caerphilly. One year later, in the 2025 Caerphilly Senedd by-election, Reform jumped to 36%. That is a 15.7 percentage point increase in barely over a year.

Then during the 2026 Senedd election campaign, final constituency models for Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni projected Reform around 31-35% of the vote, directly competing with Plaid while Labour collapsed dramatically in former Valleys strongholds.

That is not “just a protest vote” anymore. That is a structural political realignment. And it did not happen in a vacuum.

Modern political conflict increasingly operates through information warfare

People in the UK often still imagine “disinformation” as something abstract. Something foreign. Something extreme. Something only relevant during wars.

But one thing Ukraine understood very quickly is that modern conflicts are fought not only on physical battlefields, but also inside digital information spaces.

Russia weaponised disinformation for years before tanks crossed borders. Emotional narratives spread faster than factual corrections. Algorithms rewarded outrage. False stories repeated until they emotionally felt true. Trust slowly eroded. Society polarised.

Ukraine realised very quickly that defending democracy was not only the responsibility of soldiers. So society mobilised. Not only the military. Ordinary people. Researchers. Teachers. Journalists. Volunteers. Students. Community organisers. Online investigators. Digital activists.

Ukraine created a Digital Army, but beyond cyber operations there was also something much deeper: a society-wide understanding that information itself had become strategically important.

People tracked propaganda. Reported manipulation.Countered false narratives. Protected vulnerable communities. Strengthened digital literacy.Built civic resilience.

And honestly, watching the growth of emotionally driven populism, anti-migrant rhetoric and algorithmic outrage in the UK now, I genuinely believe Britain has a lot to learn from countries like Ukraine.

Because many people here still underestimate the danger.

Immigration became the emotional explanation for everything

One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming propaganda looks like old Soviet posters or dramatic state television.

Modern propaganda looks far more ordinary.

Facebook comments.

TikTok clips.

Emotionally manipulative headlines.

Rage-bait videos.

Out-of-context crime stories.

“Someone I know said…”

Repeated emotionally charged narratives.

And over time, those narratives emotionally reshape political reality itself.

Can’t get housing? Migrants.

Public services struggling? Migrants.

Crime? Migrants.

Economic insecurity? Migrants.

National decline? Migrants.

And this is why social media matters so much. Because algorithms are not designed to reward truth. They reward emotional engagement. Fear spreads faster than nuance. Anger spreads faster than statistics.Outrage spreads faster than context.

A person can now live in an area with relatively little migration, yet consume hours of emotionally charged immigration content every single week online.

Which means political perception is increasingly shaped less by lived reality and more by algorithmic reality.

And algorithms do not ask:

“Is this accurate?”

They ask:

“Will this keep people emotionally engaged?”

And honestly, in Ukraine I fully realised just how emotionally reality-shaping social media has become politically.

Not just persuasive.

Reality-shaping.

Social media no longer only shapes opinions – it increasingly shapes identity

This is where things become genuinely dangerous for democracy. Politics stops becoming: “What policies actually work?” And starts becoming:“Which group am I emotionally against?”

People become psychologically attached to outrage itself. And once political identity becomes emotionally dependent on permanent anger, compromise becomes almost impossible.

That is exactly how democratic cultures slowly become unstable. Not suddenly. Gradually.

This is not only about Reform voters

And this is important to say clearly. I do not think every Reform voter is racist. That explanation is intellectually lazy and emotionally convenient.

Many people are genuinely struggling. Communities genuinely feel abandoned. Public services are under pressure.

People are exhausted financially and emotionally. Many towns across Wales genuinely do feel forgotten.

The anger itself is often real. But modern populism is extremely effective at redirecting that anger toward emotionally convenient targets. That is the real danger.

Because instead of discussing:

• housing policy,
• austerity,
• economic inequality,
• underinvestment,
• collapse of local journalism,
• long-term industrial decline,
• or failures of governance,

society becomes emotionally organised around permanent blame.

And once politics becomes psychologically based on outrage and identity rather than problem-solving, democratic culture itself starts weakening.

Wales is not immune anymore

For a long time, people liked imagining Wales as somehow protected from the culture wars exploding elsewhere.

Kinder.More community-minded.

More grounded.

More resistant to hostility.

But social media does not respect national political culture.

It imports outrage at industrial scale.

And unless Wales actively protects its democratic culture, it may slowly lose the very political identity many people valued in the first place.

And honestly?

Sometimes I open Facebook comments now and it genuinely shocks me how quickly people can become emotionally cruel once politics turns into permanent outrage.

You can actually feel the atmosphere changing sometimes.

Not dramatically.

Not openly hostile most of the time.

Just slightly colder.

Slightly more suspicious.

Slightly more “us and them”.

And migrants absolutely feel the atmosphere changing

Today I was sitting with friends just casually talking about life and elections, and suddenly the conversation turned into this strange quiet moment where we realised that maybe a quarter or even a third of voters in the country where I rebuilt my life now support a movement heavily centred around immigration fears.

And honestly, something about hearing it said out loud hit me emotionally much harder than reading polls online ever did.

Especially when you came from war.

People often looked at me as “a refugee they could help”.

But not necessarily as someone equal they could also learn from.

And that is one of the biggest mistakes many Western societies still make.

Countries that see themselves as fully “developed” often underestimate how much they can learn from societies that have already experienced propaganda, democratic destabilisation and information warfare firsthand.

Ukraine learned these lessons through survival.

The UK still has time to learn them before things deteriorate further.

And this is the complicated part for me personally:

I still love Wales.

I have met incredible people here.

Kind people.

People who helped me at my absolute lowest moments.

People who became like family.

Which is exactly why watching this emotional shift happening online feels so unsettling sometimes.

Because there will be consequences if this continues

And we need to speak honestly about those consequences.

Hate crime will likely increase.

Safeguarding concerns will increase.

Community tensions will increase.

Political extremism will normalise further.

Trust between groups will weaken.

Online radicalisation will deepen.

And perhaps most dangerously:

people will slowly lose the ability to distinguish genuine political debate from emotionally manipulative content.

That is how democracies become unstable.

Not overnight.

Gradually.

Democracy does not only collapse through dictatorships or coups. Sometimes it deteriorates through emotional exhaustion. Through permanent outrage. Through algorithmic radicalisation. Through dehumanising language becoming normal. Through society slowly losing shared reality itself.

Ukraine understood something many Western democracies still underestimate: information warfare does not only aim to make people believe lies. Its deeper goal is to destroy trust itself.

Trust in institutions.

Trust in the media.

Trust in neighbours.

Trust in objective reality.

Because once societies stop agreeing on what is real, democracy becomes extremely fragile.

Wales still has a choice 

But this situation is not hopeless. And the answer is not censorship. Nor is it dismissing everyone who voted Reform as evil.

That usually makes polarisation worse.

What Wales urgently needs now is democratic resilience.

A serious cross-society strategy.

What should actually happen now?

𝟭. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶-𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽𝘀

Build powerful volunteer-based local networks.

Low commitment.

Even one hour a week matters.

People helping to:

• monitor misinformation trends

• fact-check viral claims

• challenge false narratives

• report hate speech

• support vulnerable communities targeted online

• share trustworthy sources

• identify coordinated disinformation campaigns

Not censorship.

Democratic resilience.

𝟮. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Part of the reason Wales still has some social resilience is because organisations have been doing this work, often quietly and under enormous pressure.

Groups like Stand Up to Racism Valleys

Honestly, part of the reason we are not in an even worse situation already is because people inside organisations like these have been exhausting 24/7 trying to challenge misinformation, hate and radicalisation before it spreads further.

But they need far more support.

More volunteers.

More resources.

More partnerships.

More visibility.

More ordinary people willing to help.

Because combating disinformation and hate cannot be left only to a few exhausted activists doing permanent damage control while algorithms continue rewarding outrage at industrial scale.

𝟯. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗪𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗵 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺 Wales desperately needs stronger independent media ecosystems. Support Nation.Cymru, Will Hayward, Byline Times and others. Because when local journalism collapses, misinformation fills the vacuum.

𝟰. 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲

Churches.

Schools.

Community centres.

Youth groups.

Universities.

Trade unions.

Everyone should be discussing:

• how algorithms work

• how outrage spreads

• how manipulation functions online

• how misinformation emotionally shapes political behaviour

• practical tools for identifying false narratives

• online hate speech and safeguarding risks

Not abstract lectures.

Practical democratic self-defence. With actual facts and data on crimes, immigration and hate crimes

Church newsletters should discuss media literacy.

Community centres should invite speakers.

Schools should teach algorithm awareness early.

Youth workers and safeguarding professionals should be trained to recognise online radicalisation dynamics.

Because online dehumanisation does not always stay online.

𝟱. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀-𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆

One of the biggest lessons from Ukraine was collective mobilisation.

Everyone contributed however they could.

Some fought physically.

Some volunteered.

Some tracked propaganda.

Some educated communities.

Some documented abuses.

Some strengthened public morale.

Democracy survives when ordinary people actively participate in protecting truth and social trust.

𝟲. 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 – 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 “𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲”

Because once misinformation becomes emotionally embedded, factual correction becomes much harder.

And honestly, I think anti-migrant disinformation and emotionally manipulative political content in the UK will intensify significantly over the next few years.

Especially online.

Especially during elections.

Especially during periods of economic pressure.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘄

And to be absolutely clear:

Democracy means accepting election results even when they are uncomfortable.

The issue is not that people voted.

The issue is the information environment people are increasingly voting inside.

A healthy democracy requires not only free elections, but also a public capable of distinguishing evidence from manipulation, and genuine debate from algorithmically amplified outrage.

Maybe I’m wrong about some of this.

I honestly hope I am.

But I also think pretending this emotional shift is not happening anymore would probably be even more dangerous.

Because societies do not suddenly become divided overnight.

Usually they become divided by one emotionally manipulative headline, one algorithm, one rumour and one dehumanising narrative at a time, until eventually people stop seeing each other as neighbours at all.

Yuliia Bond is a refugee from Ukraine who has lived in Caerphilly since 2022.