Ngo: Facebook does not detect political ads with disinformation

Global Witness claims that Facebook fails to detect and remove disinformation political ads. In response to upcoming Brazilian elections, the NGO has been able to post Facebook ads containing political misinformation.

The non-governmental organization Global Witness placed says ten advertisements on Facebook in response to the upcoming elections in Brazil. Five of those ads contain false information about the elections that will take place in that country in October, such as the wrong date of election day or misinformation about how Brazilians can vote. Five other advertisements aimed to undermine confidence in Brazil’s electoral system.

According to Global Witness, an ad was still stopped by Facebook’s advertising service that had previously had promised that it would monitor more strictly the placement of political advertisements in Brazil, among others. This advertisement was later approved and this happened without Global Witness taking any action.

The NGO also had other criticisms of Facebook. The NGO was able to place advertisements without verifying the accounts they used to do so. According to Facebook’s policy, that shouldn’t be allowed. The NGO also did not have to specify who paid for the advertisement during the publication process; that information could be requested by users. The NGO placed the advertisements from Nairobi and London and, according to them, that should have also rang a bell at Facebook. The fact that Global Witness had not used a Brazilian payment method should also have prompted Facebook to take action.

Facebook says it has one Elections Operations Center set up. This center must prevent the spread of disinformation on its platforms during elections in the US, Brazil, India and Europe, among others. With additional measures, the platform also wants to offer more transparency about advertisements that deal with social issues or politics.