Facebook failed to detect test ads that threatened election workers in the US: Report

Facebook logo (Representational)

An investigation by Global Witness and the NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy (C4D) has revealed that Facebook isn't as good as YouTube or TikTok in removing death threats against US election workers on the eve of the US midterm elections.

The investigators tested Facebook's ability to detect death threats by "identifying 10 of the worst examples of death threats issued against election workers in the US and then submitting them to the three platforms in the form of advertisements and recording whether the platforms accepted them for publication or not."

All of the ads contained real life examples of previous threats issued against political workers. The reason the team choose to submit them as ads was because of the ability to schedule them and remove them before they go live, while still undergoing the platform's moderation process.

The team then sent the ads for approval on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook. The ads contained an image of an election worker with death threats written clearly on top of the image, to make it easier for moderation to catch.

TikTok and YouTube immediately flagged the ads and suspended the accounts they were uploaded from. Facebook, on the other hand, approved 9 out of the 10 questionable ads in English. It also approved 6 of the 10 Spanish language ads.

Global Witness reached out to Meta for a comment.

”This is a small sample of ads that are not representative of what people see on our platforms," said a Meta spokesperson.

"Content that incites violence against election workers or anyone else has no place on our apps and recent reporting has made clear that Meta’s ability to deal with these issues effectively exceeds that of other platforms. We remain committed to continuing to improve our systems.”

The team then did another investigation dealing with election misinformation in Brazil and the US. They submitted ads with blatant misinformation to both Facebook and YouTube.

Both platforms accepted the ads without question in Brazil, and the research team pointed out that Facebook, "continued to accept some of the ads when we submitted them a second time".

In the US, TikTok accepted all of misinformation, while Facebook accepted 20% to 50% of the ads served for the test. YouTube flagged the ads and once again suspended the accounts.