Big Tech companies such as TikTok and Facebook struggled to remove political ads containing misinformation about the elections despite their promises to protect information sharing in the 2022 midterm elections.
TikTok failed to block all but two of 20 test ads filed by a research team, according to a report released on Friday by the nonprofit group Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy at New York University. The organization filed several ads presenting false information about the elections to see if the platforms would block them as their policies stated. Facebook and YouTube did significantly better but still platformed several misinformation ads.
“For years, we have seen key democratic processes undermined by disinformation, lies, and hate being spread on social media platforms — the companies themselves even claim to recognize the problem,” Jon Lloyd, a senior adviser at Global Witness, said in a statement. “But this research shows they are still simply not doing enough to stop threats to democracy surfacing on their platforms.”
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Facebook blocked 13 of 20 ads filed, which included 10 in English and 10 in Spanish. YouTube blocked all of the ads and a dummy channel.
Content moderation appears to be weaker outside of the United States. A similar test was run before the Brazil elections, but Facebook and YouTube allowed every single ad containing misinformation.
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Meta pushed back on the conclusions of the analysis. The results “were based on a very small sample of ads, and are not representative given the number of political ads we review daily across the world,” the company said in a statement.
The report arrives a day after Meta’s Oversight Board announced a shift in its priorities to focus on content moderation decisions made in connection to election misinformation, gender expression, and hate speech.
Big Tech has made several gestures toward stopping misinformation in the midterm elections. YouTube and Google said they are moderating what information will be shared via search and promoting “high-quality election information” through tabs and search results on Election Day. Twitter announced that it was incorporating unique labels for candidates and releasing “pre-bunks” to combat misinformation. TikTok announced its election center, which will help the video social platform monitor the promotion of political content. Meta also said it was taking action to stop any possible election or voter interference.
