Mike Buonaiuto is the executive director of Shape History and co-founder of Out4Marriage campaign

If like me you’re a progressive who believes in the march of global human rights, it’s been a bit of a depressing time since 2016. Vote after vote just hasn’t gone our way.

We’ve all had to get uncomfortably familiar with bitter disappointment. From Brazil’s far-right crackdown on LGBT+ rights, with their new leader calling himself a “proud homophobe” to Poland’s Supreme Court being attacked for serving “the ideology of homosexual activists.” And most recently it was Taiwan’s turn to cause upset and anguish – its recent referendum on marriage equality after a 2017 court ruling to introduce same-sex marriage ended in a devastating defeat for equality.

The common thread running through so many of these votes is fake news on Facebook.

In Taiwan, the vote itself was organised by Christian groups; organisations that make up only 5 per cent of the country’s population. And by now it’s clear that online campaigning tactics fuelled and funded by Christian organisations and the Chinese disseminated fake news materials across Taiwanese social networks. Read more via Independent