Meta will be activating a unique election operations center to identify potential threats while placing mitigating factors in place ahead of the elections.
Part of Meta’s plan will be to:
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● Have the largest fact-checking network of any platform with partners in South Africa
fact-checking in English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Sotho, and Setswana.
● Help preserve the integrity of the South African elections on our platforms, drawing on lessons
learned from the previous election in the country, and our involvement in over 200 elections globally.
Meta has introduced some transparency measures for ads on elections or politics in order to prevent election interference, voter fraud as a means to help combat the spread of misinformation.
Taking action against harmful content
Meta says it wants users to be able to talk openly on issues that matter to them.
The updated community standards explain what content is allowed on Facebook and Instagram when it comes to election content.
These include policies on harassment and incitement to violence, as well as detailed hate speech policies that ban attacks on people based on characteristics like ethnicity or religion.
“As election day approaches, we will activate a South Africa-specific Elections Operations Center
focused on identifying potential threats across our apps and technologies in real time. This initiative will bring together experts from across our company, including those based in South Africa, from our intelligence, data science, engineering, research, operations, public policy and legal teams.,” says Meta.
Meta plans to make it easier to fact-check partners in the country to find and rate content related to the elections.
Systems such as keyword detection to group-related content will make it easier for fact-checking.
In preparation for the elections, Meta has signed the “Voluntary Framework of Cooperation to
Address Disinformation in the 2024 National and Provincial Elections in South Africa” – an
agreement to collaborate with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) and other industry partners, where possible, to mitigate the risks associated with elections.
As part of this collaboration, we (Meta) have been working alongside one of our fact-checking partners in the region, Africa Check, to train staff at the IEC to be able to better detect misinformation.
Meta has partnered with the IEC and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) to train over 160 government communicators on Meta’s approach to combating misinformation.
Empowering voters
Meta is committed to supporting an informed and engaged community on our platforms, as we know that access to reliable information and the responsible use of online platforms is especially important during an election period.
- Ahead of election day, we will launch our Voter Information Unit and Election Day Reminder feature on both Facebook and Instagram. These election features provide users with neutral reminders, redirecting them to the IEC website, where they can find authoritative information about how to vote on election day, says Meta.
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