With major elections due to take place in several countries, including India and the US, across the world, social media platforms are under greater scrutiny to provide safety and security; as the threat of social media misuse through misinformation, AI-generated content, deepfakes, etc, looms large.
Since the start of 2024, Mark Zuckerberg-owned Meta has announced several measures and initiatives to secure global elections on its platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.
Meta claims to have developed a comprehensive approach to elections on its platforms over the years. But no two elections are the same. The newest announcements come with the South African elections around the corner. “Our team is developing a tailored approach to help preserve the integrity of the South African elections on our platforms, drawing on lessons learnt from the previous election in the country, and our involvement in over 200 elections globally,” says Balkissa Idé Siddo, Public Policy Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Meta.
Over the last eight years, Meta says it has rolled out industry-leading transparency tools for ads about elections or politics, developed comprehensive policies to prevent election interference and voter fraud, and built the largest third party fact-checking programme of any social media platform to help combat the spread of misinformation.
The company claims to have around 40,000 people working on safety and security, with more than $20 billion invested in teams and technology in this area since 2016. This includes 15,000 content reviewers who review content across Facebook and Instagram in more than 70 languages.
Read More: Meta strengthens AI content oversight for Indian General Elections 2024 amid misinformation threats