Facebook to set up guard rails for Thai elections

Meta announced last night it has set up a dedicated election operations team to safeguard next month’s election from misinformation.

The company, which has been blamed for ignoring or enabling abuse of its platform in past elections, said it will work to prevent misinformation spreading via political ads in the run-up to the May 14 general election.

The company said it will monitor content that might violate community guidelines including hate speech that incites violence or discourages people from voting as well as false information.

Additionally, Meta said it will use AI technology to combat false news.

However Facebook insists it won’t block legitimate content. While political parties can set up pages to advertise, their identities must be verified to post sponsored content.

Claire Amador, head of public policy for Thailand and the Philippines, said Meta has worked with political experts, universities and electoral commissions to prevent interference and a transparent election.

Amador went on to say that Meta recognizes its responsibility to be involved in the 2023 elections in Thailand and has been planning to work proactively on cyber security under the ultimate goal to prevent electoral interference including the fight against false information and dangerous content.

Failure to comply with community guidelines will result in pages being shut down.

Facebook has never acknowledged or taken responsibility for the role it played in instigating violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya population in 2017. It did apologize a year later for its role in atrocities in Sri Lanka.