Meta (Facebook) is boosting its fact-checking tools and bringing in tougher rules around political advertising ahead of this year’s federal elections.
The social media company says it has been preparing for the elections, expected to be held in May, following criticism around misinformation on the platform during previous polls.
Meta has expanded its third-party fact checking program in Australia. From March 21, RMIT FactLab will join Meta’s global independent fact-checking program in reviewing and rating the accuracy of content in the lead up to the election, alongside Agence France Presse and AAP (Australian Associated Press).
Meta will also provide one-off grants to all its fact-checkers to increase their capacity in the lead up to the election.
“Our fact checkers work to reduce the spread of misinformation across Meta’s services,” says Meta Australia head of public policy Josh Machin.
“When they rate something as false, we significantly reduce its distribution so fewer people see it. We also notify people who try to share something rated as false and add a warning label with a link to a debunking article.”
Meta is also working with organisations such as First Draft to increase monitoring for misinformation in the lead-up to the election and publish related analyses and reporting on their website. First Draft will also be providing pre-election training for Australian journalists on how to identify and prevent amplifying mis and dis information.
Meta has also introduced mandatory transparency for political ads. As part of the changes, advertisers are now required to go through an authorisation process using government-issued photo ID, and place a “Paid for by” disclaimers on their ads. This includes any person creating, modifying, publishing or pausing ads that reference political figures, political parties, or elections.
“It also includes social issue ads that seek to influence public opinion through discussion, debate or advocacy for or against important topics, such as civil and social rights, crime, environmental politics, education or immigration,” Machin says.
“We launched these requirements for social issue ads last year, before the first possible election date, to ensure it was in place for the Australian federal election. Any political, electoral or social issue ads on Facebook and Instagram that do not have the correct authorisation or disclaimers will be removed from the platform and archived in a public Ad Library for seven years.”
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