Meta’s Plan for Lok Sabha Election 2024
As the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 are approaching, the political parties have started their campaign to lure voters’ attention. The PR teams of political parties are also running campaigns through the official social media platforms and utilizing the digital world to connect with youth. It is one of the best and easiest ways to convey your message to millions or billions of people. However, these platforms are also used to spread misinformation, despite making all the efforts, misinformation and fake news easily get spread.
To avoid such issues ahead of general elections, Meta is all set to tackle spreading fake news. Meta, the owner of famous social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram and Threads has recently shared a “comprehensive approach” to cling to misinformation, limit fake news, and remove voter interference. With the help of a comprehensive approach, Meta is looking to create transparency and accountability among voters through its platforms in the wake of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
It is worth noting that the Election Commission had shared the schedule of the 18th general elections. As per the Election Commission, the Lok Sabha elections will be conducted in 7 phases starting from 19 April and ending on 1 June. While unfolding the comprehensive approach, Meta states that the company is enabling an India-specific Elections Operations Centre to recognise potential threats to stop them as well as implement appropriate measures in real-time across the numerous applications of the company.
Mark Zuckerberg’s owned company further added that its India-specific operations centre will combine experts from numerous areas across the firm such as legal, data science, research, engineering, content policy, and operations teams. Meta also said that the company has joined forces with the Election Commission of India and both are working through a voluntary code of ethics penned in 2019. This provides the Election Commission of India with a “high-priority” channel for indicating unlawful and wrong content.
What Is The Approach Of Meta To Tackle The Information?
Meta discloses its approach to handling the increasing threat of AI-generated content and wrong news that could easily influence and disturb the electoral process. The comprehensive strategy of Meta comes after the concern raised by the ECI who are worried about the fake and wrong news in the context of the upcoming election. To tackle the situation of misinformation, Meta has already worked to eliminate the most serious types of false information, including content that could combat voting or lead to imminent harm or violence.
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Meta will also take down the content that is related to false information and claims that someone of one religion is physically harassing or harming another individual of a different religion, based on inputs from its “local partners”. Moreover, Meta is also looking to increase its network of independent fact-checkers as well as making it easier for fact-checkers to locate and then rate the content that is related to upcoming elections. The Facebook parent company made it clear that it will also use the tool “keyword detection:” to make it an easy way for fact-checkers to rate wrong and false information. It will also be able to flag content as “change” meaning that the video, photo or audio has either been “transformed, manipulated, fabricated or wrongly created.”
When flagged as changed, the content will automatically appear lower on social media platforms. Moreover, different approaches will be used across different platforms of Meta to halt the spread of such content.