Facebook team to tackle AI-generated disinformation in run-up to European elections in June

Meta currently works with 26 independent fact-checking organisations across the European Union covering 22 languages.

Facebook owner Meta will set up a team to tackle disinformation and the abuse of generative artificial intelligence in the run-up to European Parliament elections in June amid concerns about election interference and misleading AI-generated content.

The rapid growth of generative AI, which can create text, images and video in seconds in response to prompts, has triggered fears the new technology could be used to disrupt major elections.

European Parliament elections will take place June 6-9. 

"As the election approaches, we'll activate an Elections Operations Center to identify potential threats and put mitigations in place in real time," Marco Pancini, Meta's head of EU affairs, said in a blogpost.

He said experts from the company's intelligence, data science, engineering, research, operations, content policy and legal teams would counter the risks related to the abuse of generative AI.

“Advertisers who run ads related to social issues, elections or politics with Meta also have to disclose if they use a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that has been created or altered digitally, including with AI, in certain cases,” the company said in a statement.

Meta, which currently works with 26 independent fact-checking organisations across the European Union covering 22 languages, will add three new partners in Bulgaria, France, and Slovakia, Pancini said.

"When content is debunked by these fact checkers, we attach warning labels to the content and reduce its distribution in Feed so people are less likely to see it," it says.

"Between July and December 2023, for example, over 68 million pieces of content viewed in the EU on Facebook and Instagram had fact-checking labels. When a fact-checked label is placed on a post, 95% of people don’t click through to view it."

Meta, Microsoft,  OpenAI and 17 other tech companies earlier this month agreed to work together to prevent deceptive artificial-intelligence content from interfering with elections across the globe this year.

Also earlier this month, TikTok announced it would ramp up its fight against fake news and covert influence operations in the run-up to the European elections, with a local language app in all 27 countries.

TikTok said the individual local language "election centres" build on work it first started in 2021, which accelerated last year when Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Spain went to the polls.

"Next month, we will launch a local language Election Centre in-app for each of the 27 individual EU member states to ensure people can easily separate fact from fiction," TikTok's head of trust and safety EMEA Kevin Morgan said in a blogpost.