Advertising for US elections
TikTok and Facebook nod to false information
According to the NGO Global Witness, TikTok and Facebook have approved advertisements with blatantly false statements just a few weeks before the US presidential election. It is "shocking" that the companies are "still endorsing thoroughly disproven and blatant disinformation on their platforms", explained Ava Lee from Global Witness on Thursday.
According to the NGO, it had submitted eight ads with false claims about the election to TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. For example, the ads falsely claimed that voters could vote online. In addition, it was advertised that certain groups of people would be prevented from voting, violence against candidates was called for and election workers were threatened.
According to Global Witness, TikTok performed the worst in the test. Four of the ads were accepted, although the rules of the online service prohibit any political advertising. Facebook waved one of the eight ads through.
There is "no excuse for these platforms to continue to undermine the democratic process" given the well-known danger of election disinformation, Lee argued.
"Wrongly" endorsed
A TikTok spokeswoman said the ads were "mistakenly approved in the first phase" of the review. A spokeswoman for Facebook parent company Meta dismissed the study's findings, saying they were based on a small sample of ads and therefore did not reflect "how we enforce our policies at scale".
"Higher hurdles" on YouTube
Global Witness announced that the video platform YouTube, which belongs to the online giant Google, had initially approved four of the ads, but then blocked their publication with reference to the client's identification requirements. The NGO spoke of a "significantly higher hurdle for disinformation disseminators" than with other online services.
Online platforms are under increased scrutiny this election year due to the spread of misinformation following the 2020 US presidential election. Former President Donald Trump and his entourage spread the false claim that his election defeat to current President Joe Biden was the result of manipulation.
Advertising ban at Google and Meta
Google announced on Thursday that it would no longer publish any advertising in connection with the election until after the polls close on November 5. Meta stated that the company would not allow any new political ads in the week before the election.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB. Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.