With this year’s U.S. midterm elections shaping up to be highly contentious, Meta is getting in early with its plan for how it will manage political information and integrity in the lead-up to the November polls, according to a Thursday press release.
And Meta’s main message is clear: “We have spent more than $30 billion in the areas of safety and security over the last decade, including to protect elections. On Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, we enforce our policies against voter interference, electoral violence and inaccurate information about when, where, and how to vote in an election.”
The company is looking to underscore its commitment to upholding these principles, which have remained consistent despite Meta itself changing its approach to political content, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemingly aligning himself with the Trump Administration.
Despite this, Meta insisted it is impartial, and emphasized the measures it plans to implement in order to protect election integrity.
First, Meta says that any advertiser that runs ads about elections, politics or social issues is required to complete an authorization process and include a “paid for by” disclaimer. “These ads are then stored in our publicly available Ad Library for seven years,” the company said in the release. “Currently, there are more than 18 million US entries in our Ad Library.”
This is designed to ensure transparency and allow anyone to explore the promotions run by any candidate or campaign. In addition, anyone will be able to see what a candidate’s or campaign’s messaging is, who they’re targeting, the money spent, who’s paying for it and more.
This is a critical transparency measure that allows researchers to dig into election approaches and examine core tactics.
Meta says there will also be a restriction period, with all new political, electoral, and social issue ads blocked during the final week of the campaign.
“Ads that have recorded at least one impression prior to this restriction period will be allowed to run during this time,” the company said “Our rationale for this remains the same as it has been for years: in the final days of an election, we recognize that there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”
Meta also has new parameters to cover AI use in political promotions, with all advertisers required to disclose when they use AI to create or alter ads about social issues, elections or politics, albeit only in certain cases.
“When an advertiser discloses this to us, we will add information on the ad and in our Ad Library,” the company said. “Our approach to labeling ads created or edited using AI continues to evolve to make it easier for people to recognize ads that may have been edited or generated from AI.”
Meta added that it will also use its own detection systems to identify and label AI-generated content, and will implement penalties for any organic content that features photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that has been digitally created or altered.
In the lead-up to the polls, Meta says that it will display top-of-feed notifications on Facebook and Instagram to connect people with local and state voting information.
“On Facebook, we’re making these notifications easier to understand by showing them in both a person’s selected app language and an additional language if they engage with content in another language,” the company said. “If someone on Facebook or Instagram has moved or we incorrectly detect their location, they can select Change State to be directed to the right government information.”
Meta will also include similar prompts within related searches. It also plans to send voting alerts to remind people to register and participate, in conjunction with state and local election officials.
Finally, Meta is also working to mitigate foreign interference in order to avoid another Russia-influenced scandal.
Meta says it has removed 200 networks that were found to be engaging in Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior since 2017. The company will also have staff from its threat intelligence group monitoring the midterm discussion in real-time to detect any potential abuse.
Overall, this should ensure that Meta is prepared for all possible outcomes in the lead-up to the polls as the battle for power in the U.S. hangs in the balance.
