Facebook accused of failing to combat election disinfo ads in Brazil

A prominent human rights group published a report Monday (August 15) accusing Facebook of failing to combat election disinformation ads ahead of what is expected to be a tense Brazilian election in October, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Global Witness submitted 10 ads in Brazilian Portuguese to Facebook with election disinformation in a bid to "to test whether Facebook was able to detect outright election disinformation as well as it suggests it can," it said.

The organization found that it was able to submit ads from outside of Brazil and fund them with non-Brazilian payment methods.

The report said: "In total, we submitted 10 Brazilian Portuguese-language ads to Facebook – five containing false election information and five aiming to delegitimize the electoral process.”

“Alarmingly," said Global Witness, "all of the election disinformation examples were approved."

Facebook is accused of failing to combat election disinformation ads ahead of what is expected to be a tense Brazilian election in October - Photo. Pixabay

The report said: “Given the high stakes nature of the Brazilian election, Facebook is failing in its efforts to adequately protect Brazilians from a disinformation nightmare.”

Ahead of Brazil's vote on Oct. 2, many Brazilian observers have raised concerns following far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s repeated unsupported claims that Brazil's electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud.

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Jon Lloyd, a senior adviser at Global Witness said: “The disinformation that Facebook allows on its platform feeds into the ‘stop the steal’ narrative in Brazil – a growing tactic intended to set the stage for contesting the election and risking similar violence as we saw during the January 6th insurrection attempt in the US.”

Lloyd alleged that Facebook is aware that the social media "platform is used to spread election disinformation and undermine democracy around the world" and called on it to do "better.”

He said: "It’s not enough to say they’ve hired thousands of content moderators and have invested in AI detection – when clearly these safeguards are failing. They need to show their work.”

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Lloyd added: “Despite Facebook’s self-proclaimed efforts to tackle disinformation – particularly in high stakes elections – we were appalled to see that they accepted every single election disinformation ad we submitted in Brazil.”

João Brant, coordinator of the Desinformante platform in Brazil, argued that "this investigation shows that (Facebook parent) Meta prioritizes its profit over the protection of Global South democracies. The company shows its inability to control the use of its platform to spread fake news, and this has a direct negative impact on our democracy."

Nevertheless, the social media giant has insisted that it has prepared "extensively" for Brazil's election this year.

In a written statement, Meta said it cannot comment on the findings without access to the full reporting.

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It said: "We’ve launched tools that promote reliable information and label election-related posts, established a direct channel for the Superior Electoral Court to send us potentially-harmful content for review, and continue closely collaborating with Brazilian authorities and researchers.”

"Our efforts in Brazil’s previous election resulted in the removal of 140,000 posts from Facebook and Instagram for violating our election interference policies and 250,000 rejections of unauthorized political ads. We are and have been deeply committed to protecting election integrity in Brazil and around the world.”

Brazil’s October election will be the first since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019 as fears persist of potential political violence if the results are contested.

Source: aa