Like others companies active in the social network sector (TikTok, for example)Meta is also working hard in view of the Italian political elections, scheduled for 25 September.
The aim is always to fight disinformation and counter violent messages, but Zuckerberg’s company has one more problem than its competitors: in addition to controlling Facebook e Instagramalso has to think about the chats of WhatsAppon which there is often the risk of fake news circulating, being shared among people and spreading.
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Fighting those who invite not to vote
From Menlo Park they recalled that they have been “investing in teams, technologies and partnerships to ensure the safety of the people who use our platforms “and above all that” since 2016 we have quadrupled the size of the teams that deal with security and integrity and which today include over 40 thousand people all over the world “: only last year, to tackle these problems,” we invested nearly $ 5 billion“. It is work that is also done country by country, because “we are aware that it is essential to know the local context for this to be effective” and therefore “we have a team that constantly monitors the political situation in Italy”.
What is actually done is (for example) to remove content that violates the policies on disincentives to vote, as posts that discourage people from voting. Great attention is also paid to fake accounts and groups that use them in a coordinated way to influence public debate: from Meta they let it be known that “currently, 99.7% of fake accounts that we remove from Facebook they are eliminated by artificial intelligence even before they are reported by users ”.
Also on Meta’s platforms there is a Virtual Center for Elections dedicated to Italywhich has already existed since 2018 (the last year in which Italy voted for Politics): the company has started a collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior to inform people in view of the upcoming elections and starting from 20 September election reminders will be posted on Facebook for people who are at least 18 years old: by clicking, you will reach a page on the ministry website where you can find reliable information on the vote.
Also from September 20, on Instagram will be available 3 new stickers created by the illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli to remember the importance of voting: they can be used in the Stories, and by clicking on them you can reach the same useful page of the ministry’s website.
Disinformation and WhatsApp chats
Meta also collaborates with independent fact-checking organizations (in Italy they are Pagella Politics, Facta and Open) to verify the veracity of the reported posts and make sure that they do not violate Community Standards, even giving incorrect information on the date of the elections or on the candidates: “When fact-checkers report a post as fake, we reduce its visibility on Facebook and Instagram and we add a label with a link of the fact-checker that offers more information on the analyzed content “.
As mentioned, in Menlo Park they also have to face the WhatsApp issue and they explained that “we fight disinformation on WhatsApp through measures aimed at reducing the virality of messages”. It works like this: “Forwarded messages are identified by a tag and from 2020 those forwarded 5 or more times can be forwarded to a single chat”, which “led to an overall reduction of 70% in the number of frequently forwarded messages” . This year a new limit was introduced e each forwarded message can only be forwarded back to one group WhatsApp at a time. The idea is to reduce the exponential spread of fake news in the chats of hundreds or thousands of people.
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Unlike other social platforms, Facebook and Instagram allow paid listings on political issues, but there are some conditions to be respected. One, above all: in Italy, advertisers who want to publish ads on these topics must complete an authorization process e include the disclaimer Financed by on their ads. All posts with the wording Financed by they then end up in the Listing Library (which is this), where they remain archived for 7 years. This allows anyone to retrieve detailed information on political ads, such as who created them, audience demographics, and an investment estimate.