Meta’s independent oversight board will be examining two cases regarding the handling of potentially misleading posts shared on the social media platform ahead of the Australian referendum on Indigenous recognition in October last year.
These cases were chosen by the board to evaluate Meta’s content moderation policies regarding false or misleading voting information and voter fraud. The referendum, where Australians rejected a proposal to constitutionally recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, occurred amidst a highly divisive national debate and concerns over misinformation influencing voters.The board specified that the posts in question were screenshots shared by two Facebook users, featuring partial information from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) originally posted on X (formerly Twitter). The screenshots highlighted certain AEC statements, such as the process of counting votes if cast at multiple polling places within one’s electorate, without mentioning that multiple voting is illegal in Australia.One user captioned their post with “Vote early, vote often, and vote NO,” while the other user insinuated potential rigging by stating, “so you can vote multiple times … they are setting us up for a ‘rigging’ … smash the voting centres … it’s a No, No, No, No, No.”Meta identified and subjected these posts to human review, leading to their removal. Both users appealed Meta’s decisions, claiming they were merely sharing AEC content.These cases align with the oversight board’s strategic priority of Elections and Civic Space. The Board has the authority to issue policy recommendations to Meta, which must respond within 60 days, although these recommendations are non-binding.As the world gears up for elections in countries representing over half of the global population, including the US, India, and Russia, social media platforms like Facebook and X are under increasing scrutiny for their roles in election campaigns worldwide.