Facebook owner to help train Australian politicians, influencers in run-up to election
Facebook owner Meta Platforms will help train Australian political candidates on aspects of cyber security and coach influencers to stop the spread of misinformation in a bid to boost the integrity of an upcoming election, it said on Tuesday.
Facebook owner Meta Platforms FB.O will help train Australian political candidates on aspects of cyber security and coach influencers to stop the spread of misinformation in a bid to boost the integrity of an upcoming election, it said on Tuesday.
Australia has not yet set a date for its next election, which is due by May. Authorities are already on high alert for electoral interference, having previously highlighted foreign interference attempts aimed at all levels of government and targetting both sides of politics.
Meta election preparation too little too late: Reset Australia
Reset Australia has weighed in on the Meta’s misinformation strategy for the upcoming Australian Federal Election, citing concerns that Meta’s election preparation will not address the primary drivers of foreign interference and disinformation.
The policy research and advocacy organisation, focused on digital threats to Australian democracy, described the measures as too late, woefully inadequate and an attempt to distract from the algorithmic amplification of problematic content.
According to Reset Australia, Meta’s reliance on third-party fact checking is too slow in the election context as it occurs after Facebook’s own algorithm has served up harmful content to Australian users. The group is also critical of Meta’s failure to consider algorithmic adaptions implemented during the last US election to reduce the distribution of sensationalist material and prioritise content from authoritative sources.
This Is What Meta Says It’s Doing to Prevent Misinformation in the Lead up to the 2022 Federal Election
Meta (the former Facebook) is adding RMIT FactLab to its cohort of third-party fact-checking organisations in the lead-up to the 2022 Australian Federal Election.
Meta says that it’s combatting misinformation, election interference and forms of abuse through a “comprehensive strategy” that it’s deploying for the coming election. The big news today is that the social media giant is adding RMIT FactLab to its third-party fact-checking program.
Supposedly, Meta has learned some key lessons over the more than 200 elections it has been a part of since 2017 (including the massively volatile 2020 U.S. presidential election that resulted in a platform-wide ban of Donald Trump), which it’s taking into consideration for the Australian Federal Election.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, we don’t have a locked-in date for the Australian election just yet, but we know it’s coming in the first half of this year (we’re expecting May).
This year’s different however, at least as far as Meta is concerned. Meta says it has invested $7 billion (in Aussie terms) over 2021 internationally in addressing problems with its platform and misinformation, election interference and online harms. Meta wants to stop abuses before they occur and not after they happen, it says.
As a part of this, Meta is adding another official fact-checker to its third-party fact-checking program in Australia – RMIT FactLab. RMIT FactLab is a research division at RMIT University that debunks misinformation online. It also produces its own research on digital news.