This is the second in a series of weekly briefs produced by MedDMO in the run-up to Malta’s general election on 30th May 2026. The first brief can be found here.
This week saw the call for nominations for Malta’s general election close, with 162 candidates submitting a total of 282 candidatures. But other things happened, including more AI slopaganda, the removal of a political-party-affiliated Facebook page following mass reports, the prevalence of political adverts in violation of platforms’ own terms of service, and a wave of xenophobia spurred by populism from the prime minister. We outline these below.
- AI slopaganda continues to spread
We highlighted this tactic in last week’s brief. AI slopaganda – low-quality AI-generated images created with the intention of influencing political opinion, thus distorting debate – has continued to propagate on social media, particularly on Facebook, which is one of the most popular platforms in Malta.
From what we have seen, this kind of content only seems to concern the two major political parties, the Labour Party (in government) and the Nationalist Party (the opposition). There are also differences in the way each party is targeted. Slopaganda against the Nationalist Party appears to target candidates directly – with particular focus being put on the party’s leader. Conversely, content targeting the Labour Party concerns the party’s reputation and actions more generally.
The first case of slopaganda, which stems from Labour Party supporter groups, targets the Nationalist Party leader. The second case, which came from a Nationalist Party candidate, pokes fun at one of the Labour Party’s election promises.
- Facebook page of Nationalist Party-owned media outlet taken down after seemingly coordinated reports
On 11th May, Net News – which is owned by the Nationalist Party – published an article on its website stating that its Facebook page was removed from the platform following a wave of reports. It said that this was the second of such “attacks” in five months. According to MaltaToday, the Nationalist Party got in touch with Meta over the issue, and the page was restored.
This case is an example of swarming tactics: mass reports are made against content to get it removed from the social media platform.
- Political adverts abound online – in violation of platforms’ own terms of service
You may have also noticed sponsored political content on platforms like Facebook and as banner ads hosted by Google across websites you regularly visit. Meta and Google banned political advertising on their platforms in the EU in October 2025. However, the platforms are still carrying sponsored political content that is simply not labelled as such, which is a violation of the platforms’ own terms of service following the EU’s Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulations.
In the past few days alone, we have come across dozens of such ads on Facebook through the Meta Ad Library, and hundreds in the Google Ads Transparency Center. Notably, because platforms are not yet labelling content as a political ad as per the EU regulations, Google has categorised hundreds of ads paid for by ONE Productions Ltd, the media company owned by the governing Labour Party, as “Arts and entertainment”, “Travel and Tourism”, and “Books and Publications”, despite their being election campaign adverts.
These adverts are being flagged to the platforms.
Screenshot of Google Ads Transparency Center report for one of the many political adverts. Note its classification: “Arts and Entertainment”.
- Populist rhetoric instigates xenophobia
During a Labour Party campaign event last week, Prime Minister Robert Abela distastefully declared that his government’s €1,000 “super bonus” pledge for workers had been carefully designed to exclude most foreigners, in contrast to the Nationalist Party’s alternative, which he framed as a failure to the Maltese.
Nationalist MEP Peter Agius replied with a video in which he made equally distasteful remarks about foreigners clogging up hospitals and the transport system, and affecting wages.
That Malta is overpopulated is indisputable. But using the issue in populist rhetoric is harmful. These narratives instigated a wave of xenophobic comments among supporters of both political parties, each accusing the other of pandering to foreigners.
