Before Mark Zuckerberg and pals start creating the Metaverse, perhaps Meta should focus on making sure its house is in order.
We say this following publication of a worrying investigation from Global Witness ahead of Brazil’s elections later this year. The social justice organisation sought to test Facebook’s claims regarding protecting the integrity of elections around the world.
To do this, Global Witness created ten Brazilian Portuguese language adverts for Facebook. Five of the ads contained false election information and the other five aimed to delegitimise the electoral process.
“Alarmingly, all of the election disinformation examples were approved,” Global Witness reports.
While one ad touting false information was rejected, Global Witness simply resubmitted the advert and it was approved. To be clear, all of the ads submitted violate Meta’s election ad policies and the account that submitted the adverts wasn’t even verified.
“When placing the ads, we were not physically located in Brazil nor did we use a VPN to mask our location – in this instance we posted the ads from Nairobi and London, which should have raised flags given the content of our ads. We were not required to put a ‘paid for by’ disclaimer on our ads, as would be required for political ads. Moreover, we did not use a Brazilian payment method to pay for the ads. All of which raises serious concerns about the potential for foreign election interference and Facebook’s inability to pick up on red flags and clear warning signs,” the organisation reports.
The organisation has legitimate fears that Facebook could be a breeding ground for misinformation ahead of the October elections. This further illustrates just how lacking Facebook’s content moderation is outside of the US.
While it’s all good and well to have content moderation, if those moderators don’t understand the cultural context and nuance of a region. Now, we recognise that this sounds simple but as Global Witness itself points out, content moderators also require psychological support. This is of course costly but a requirement for people who are tasked with removing content the wider audience shouldn’t be subjected to. This has been a failing of Meta’s for many years now and a lack of human moderation can lead to instances where content that shouldn’t be online makes it online.
With that having been said, the real worry here is that Global Witness was able to get misleading ads through Meta’s protections. Despite Meta saying it has launched tools “that promote reliable information and label election-related posts”, these tools aren’t working effectively enough.
As Global Witness concludes, even though lawmakers are trying to force meaningful oversight on big tech firms, these firms really should be acting of their own volition to ensure all users, no matter which country they’re in, enjoy the same protections.
