Meta's board signals 'recurring' failures in election content moderation
Summary
Meta’s oversight board said Tuesday it found recurrent content-moderation failures during the U.S. midterm elections and Brazil’s presidential election. The failures involved both excessive removals that suppressed political speech and insufficient enforcement that threatened electoral integrity. The board cited removed activist accounts in the United States and technical restrictions affecting a Brazilian presidential candidate. It urged Meta to make election enforcement more transparent and consistent.
Key Facts
- Brazil’s top electoral court gave Meta 24 hours on Monday to demonstrate equal treatment of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Flavio Bolsonaro.
- Lula’s campaign accused Meta of suppressing content on Instagram and WhatsApp to benefit Bolsonaro before Sunday’s runoff election.
- Meta said some Lula campaign advertisements were mistakenly deactivated because of technical errors and denied favoring either candidate.
- Meta apologized after the Instagram account No Kings was temporarily deactivated, attributing the action to automated systems responding to unusually high posting, sharing or commenting activity.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg presents the new line of smart glasses during the Meta Connect event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Sept. 23. Reuters-Yonhap
PARIS — The oversight board for social media giant Meta said Tuesday it found "recurrent enforcement failures" in content moderation related to the U.S. midterm elections and Brazil's presidential election.
The identified failures were often cases of "over-enforcement that suppresses political speech, and under-enforcement that undermines electoral integrity," said the board, which independently checks moderation on Meta's Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook platforms.
Social media is a go-to source of electoral information for many voters, raising fears in several countries that it could swing results in favour of certain interests.
Meta's oversight board, in a statement, noted "the removal of political activist accounts during protests in the U.S. ahead of the midterm elections" and "technical restrictions that hit the accounts of a presidential candidate in Brazil leading to allegations of electoral interference."
It added, "It's clear that Meta must do more to ensure that its enforcement practices during elections are transparent and consistent, and that political speech is protected rather than stifled."
Brazil's top electoral court on Monday gave Meta 24 hours to prove it is treating President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his right-wing opponent Flavio Bolsonaro equally.
The order came after Lula's campaign alleged that Meta was suppressing his online content on Instagram and WhatsApp to boost Bolsonaro ahead of a runoff election on Sunday.
Meta has denied taking any action to favor one side in Brazil's election, but previously said that some of Lula's campaign ads had been mistakenly deactivated due to technical errors not isolated to Brazil.
On Monday, the group run by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg apologised on X over another controversy in the United States.
An Instagram account called "No Kings" after citizen groups protesting what they saw as unconstitutional power grabs by President Donald Trump was temporarily deactivated on Saturday.
"We sincerely apologize," Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on X, blaming "automated systems" for taking down accounts that had "very high frequencies" of posts, shares or comments.
Meta's oversight board reiterated a call for the company to fulfil its promises to make fewer moderation mistakes around elections and political debate.
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