Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and X-rival Threads, announces plans to strengthen content moderation policies to combat disinformation by removing or hiding misleading posts, announcing plans to strengthen content moderation policies in upcoming European Parliament Preparations for the election have begun.
According to an announcement blog post written by Meta’s head of EU affairs, Marco Pancini, content that could contribute to “imminent violence” in EU elections or that is “intended to suppress votes” will be removed from the platform. It is said that it will be done.
Posts that do not violate these policies, even those related to elections, continue to be reviewed and evaluated by a network of 26 “independent” partner organizations across the EU, covering 22 languages. In preparation for the EU elections, Meta is partnering with three more organizations to cover France, Bulgaria and Slovakia.
To help these third-party organizations review and evaluate content more quickly and efficiently, Meta provides a “Keyword Discovery” tool and makes available a new research tool, the Meta Content Library. Achieve powerful search functionality. [would] Please support their work. ”
Meta also brought together a variety of experts from intelligence, data science, engineering, and legal teams to “identify potential threats and deploy specific mitigations across our apps and technology in real time.” , is establishing a so-called election operations center.
When content is debunked by these local fact-checking organizations, Meta places a warning label and reduces its distribution “so people are less likely to see the content.”
For example, in the last six months of 2023, nearly 70 million posts in the EU had fact-checking labels added to Facebook and Instagram. According to Meta, these labels are so successful that they prevent 95% of people from clicking on your content. .
And if the error is exposed, the content can no longer be used for political advertising. Advertisements must also comply with a set of standards. Anything that could prevent people from voting. Contains premature claims of victory. or if you question the legitimacy of the election, the electoral process, or its results, you will be immediately banned.
fact-checking army soldiers
One obvious question is why anyone would believe that Meta is unbiased, especially after Twitter files reveal that social media companies are in the pockets of left-wing forces and various intelligence agencies. That’s it. But beyond that, another question is: Who are the 29 “independent” organizations chosen to police our democracy, and how much power are they actually given? The question is, is it true?
Take a look at Meta’s independent fact-checking network, which is made up of 90 organizations fighting disinformation in 60 languages around the world, as well as selected partners across Europe.
In Europe, our largest partner, active in more than half of the EU member states, is the continent’s main news agency, France’s AFP (and DPA in all German-speaking countries). Like other global newswires, this media giant rarely makes political commentary of any kind, making it ideal for impartial moderation. Except it’s not. AFP’s fact-checking side has been given the most left-biased rating by AllSides for story and word choice, and is known for unfairly fact-checking right-wing politicians, Not to mention the past criticisms he has received for his blatant left-wing bias. Library too.
But apart from these two, Meta employs one or two local organizations in almost every EU country. These range from professional fact-checking NGOs to popular news sites and even tabloids, as long as they all carry the global IFCN (International Fact-Checking Network) certification, which guarantees non-partisanship. the company claims. transparency.
But the IFCN label means the opposite to those familiar with the inner workings of American politics. The network is a division of the shadowy Poynter Institute, and its funding comes from the notorious triumvirate of the American left: Silicon Valley tech giants, brokerage philanthropists, and the Democratic-led American government itself. IFCN’s early founders were also the usual suspects: Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Facebook, and the State Department-run United Democratic Party, which is notorious for interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. Fund. . It cannot get any less democratic.
In Germany, for example, Meta’s main partner is none other than a nonprofit but government-funded organization of investigative journalists. correction, the same one that published the infamous hit piece about the right-wing populist AfD’s alleged deportation master plan, which gave the left an opportunity for mass mobilization, but which was later put on the back burner and largely by them. He admitted that he had bribed him. Also, correction‘s Although he had a private meeting with Chancellor Scholz himself a few days before publishing this article, this does not imply “nonpartisanship.”
This list also includes various other news sites such as: france 24Irish journaland Italian Open, they all operate under some degree of liberal bias. However, you can also find free print publications from France. 20 minor a Belgian tabloid in Dutch Tips He has an avowedly “left-liberal” orientation.
However, the majority of Meta’s partners are local “independent” NGOs that only deal with online fact-checking.
In Spain, neutraland in Italy pagera politica, Both seem to be heavily influenced by US-based (and well-known Democratic leanings). Politifact. Both men also appear to fact-check the populist right (Vox, Rega, Fratelli) more frequently than other politicians, potentially committing bias through their article selection. neutralamong others, is created and run by prominent figures in Spain’s well-known leftist media.
Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have adopted three interrelated organizations with the same name (demagogue). At first glance, they primarily deal with Russian disinformation, but they also frequently fact-check politicians, most of them right-wing. The Czech site has been repeatedly accused of engaging in unilateral “smearing” by politicians, and has also drawn criticism for receiving funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
croatian fact graph During the pandemic, she came under fire for reporting coronavirus misinformation to Facebook for removal, though many of her posts were later proven correct. The organization was founded and still runs by journalist Petar Vidov, who previously wrote: indexIt is one of the country’s largest news sites and has been described as having a “reputation as an independent, liberal and strongly oppositional news organization” with a “strong liberal bias”.
Re:BalticaThe group, which covers Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, focuses its debunking efforts on three main areas: Russia, climate change and LGBT issues, but its political alignment is not that difficult to guess. do not have.Danish checkdet At first glance it’s pretty neutral, but it’s worth mentioning that it’s from a weekly magazine mandag morgen Its target audience is business and political decision-makers, and its front page always features at least one or two articles complaining about the lack of diversity in the workplace.
You get the picture. It’s also true that the entire “fact-checking” industry is inherently left-leaning, and Meta typically chooses the largest organizations with the most resources in each country. But the problem isn’t a lack of right-wing fact-checkers; any “leaning” should be unacceptable when it comes to democracy. The problem is that these organizations are given the tools, the power, and even paid to restrict the publication of content or remove it. Technically, of course, the button is pushed by the meta, but the meta does not independently verify each claim, especially when it comes to local circumstances.
Liberal censorship disguised as fact-checking is far more common than you might think, and again, remember the Twitter file – and especially in 2024, which could bring about the biggest advances. It would be naive to think that it won’t happen during the EU elections in 2020. For conservatives, it’s been decades.
