Instagram and Facebook will insert labels in posts about elections in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Facebook announced on Tuesday (26) that, starting in the coming weeks, it will insert labels in posts about elections with redirection of users to the Electoral Court’s page on the Internet.

The measure will also be valid for Instagram, a social network that belongs to the conglomerate controlled by Facebook. The novelty is part of a joint effort with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to combat disinformation and threats to the integrity of the electoral process.

“The integrity of elections is a priority for us, and we have been working over the past few years with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in Brazil to protect the democratic process by identifying and acting against threats and helping people access reliable information about voting.”

“As part of our work with the TSE for the 2022 presidential election, we will target people using Facebook and Instagram in Brazil for official information about the voting system and articles rebutting misinformation about the electoral process,” the statement said.

According to the platform, users in Brazil will start seeing a label on posts on the media dealing with elections in the coming weeks. They will be directed to a page on the Electoral Court system website.

According to Facebook, since 2016, the number of employees working in the security and integrity of the platforms has quadrupled to more than 40,000 people. The social networks acted last year, during the municipal elections, establishing transparency rules for candidate advertising.

“We removed more than 140,000 pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram in Brazil for violating our voting interference policies before the first round of the election, and about 3 million people over the age of 16 eligible to vote in the country clicked to see more information about the election in the days leading up to the vote.”

“In 2018, we launched our transparency tools for political and election advertising in Brazil. By 2020, any person or organization must go through an authorization process confirming identity and address in the country to run ads on these topics. Since then, ads about politics or elections have been stored publicly in our Ad Library for seven years,” the statement said.

Also, according to the statement, during the 2020 election campaign, about 250,000 ads about politics or elections that did not contain the label “Election Advertisement” or “Paid for” targeted to people in Brazil, the so-called boosted content, were rejected.

The statement also reports that WhatsApp, another platform owned by Facebook, had already launched last year, in partnership with the TSE, a chatbot (automated account) to help circulate official data on the electoral process and voting.

In addition, the messaging app has made available a specific communication channel with the TSE to report accounts suspected of carrying out mass shootings, which is not allowed in the Terms of Service of the application or by electoral legislation.