Meta worked exceptionally hard to fight off bad actors purposefully trying to influence election results around the world.
Of note is the fact that Meta says that only one percent of fact checked misinformation was AI generated.
Aware of this, the company set out to do its best to keep election misinformation to a minimum given that 2024 saw an unprecedented number of elections taking place in different countries. India, Indonesia, Mexico,“Since 2016 we have been evolving our approach to elections to incorporate the lessons we learn and stay ahead of emerging threats.
“In the UK, our Election Day Reminder reached 43.6 million people on Facebook and Instagram, with nearly 900 000 people clicking through to register to vote or check their registration status,” reports Clegg. That’s an impressive figure when you consider that,Meta also reports that its content directing users to register to vote performed rather well. It also worked with governments such as India to deploy the WhatsApp API to remind around 400 million citizens to vote.
That wasn’t the only guardrail in place. Meta AI was also trained to respond to questions about when and how to vote using authoritative sources that used the most up-to-date information.Of note is Meta’s work to fight influence operations or as it calls them Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior networks. These are foreign actors who try to sow division and discord ahead of an election.
One of the CIB networks singled out by Meta is Doppelganger. The company describes the network as a vast web of fake websites akin to a hydra. While 6 000 domains linked to the network have been exposed since 2022, the network tends to reappear in other places faster than they can be shut down.