Important elections are due in Brazil at the beginning of October, and the president could lose his office. When it comes to election advertising, Facebook doesn’t seem to pay that much attention.
Facebook has approved advertising with false and misleading information about the upcoming elections in Brazil, although it violates its own guidelines. This is what the NGO Global Witness claims, which claims to have placed such ads on purpose and had them approved without any problems.
All 10 ads clearly violated the rules for election-related ads and contained false information, including an incorrect election date and incorrect information on how to vote. It is also about content that discredits the election. Nevertheless, they were released; you yourself have prevented publication.
Violations not detected
In view of important and sometimes tight elections in various countries, Facebook’s handling of election advertising has recently come back into focus. The subsidiary of the Meta group assures that the security measures have been strengthened in order to remove manipulation campaigns and to be able to identify dangers at an early stage. Global Witness raises more doubts about this. The advertisements placed by the NGO from London have, according to them, violated Facebook’s guidelines on various occasions.
This does not only refer to the content. For example, the ads were also placed by unauthorized accounts. In addition, one did not log in from Brazil, but from Nairobi and London; That too should have set alarm bells ringing. In addition, no Brazilian payment methods were used. According to the organization, there should have been enough evidence that the advertising should be filtered out. One of the ads was initially not approved, but this was made up for a few days later without any action by Global Witness.
Facebook said in a statement that it could not comment on the allegations because it did not know the entire report. However, extensive preparations have been made for the elections in Brazil. A direct channel to election supervision has been set up in order to be able to quickly get information about potentially harmful content. The group has always been committed to protecting and protecting the integrity of elections in Brazil and around the world.
Facebook and the elections
In Brazil, not only the president will be elected on October 2nd, the parliamentary elections and other votes will also take place then. The vote is considered tricky because it seems possible that controversial President Jair Bolsonaro could be voted out of office.
Only a few days ago, Facebook came into focus in Kenya. There, the National Commission for Cohesion and Integration had threatened to shut down the platform. She had accused Facebook of not stopping hate and hate speech. Important elections are also coming up in the USA in the fall and Facebook’s actions will also be closely monitored there.
(mho)
