Facebook announced this Tuesday (26) that, starting in the next few weeks, it will insert labels in posts about elections with redirecting users to the Electoral Justice page on the internet. The measure will also apply to 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 misinformation and threats to the integrity of the electoral process. 
“The integrity of elections is a priority for us and we have been working in recent years with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in Brazil to protect the democratic process, identifying and acting against threats and helping people gain access to reliable voting information As part of our work with the TSE for the 2022 presidential election, we will direct people using Facebook and Instagram in Brazil to official information about the voting system and articles refuting misinformation about the electoral process,” the statement said.
According to the platform, in the coming weeks, users in Brazil will begin to see a label on posts on platforms dealing with elections and will be directed to a page on the Electoral Justice website.
According to the company, since 2016 the number of employees working in the area of safety and integrity of the platforms has quadrupled, going to more than 40 thousand people. The social networks acted last year, during the municipal elections, establishing rules for transparency in the advertising of candidates.
“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 nearly 3 million people aged 16+ eligible to vote in the country clicked to see more information about the election in the days leading up to the poll. In 2018, we launched in Brazil our transparency tools for political and electoral propaganda and, since 2020, any person or organization needs to go through an authorization process confirming identity and address in the country to run advertisements on these topics. Since then, advertisements about politics or elections have been publicly stored in our Announcements Library for a period of seven years,” the statement said.
Also according to the statement, during the 2020 electoral campaign, around 250,000 advertisements about politics or elections that did not contain the label “Electoral Advertising” or “Pago por” aimed at people in Brazil, the so-called boosted content, were rejected.
The statement also informs that WhatsApp, another platform belonging to Facebook, had already launched, last year, in partnership with the TSE, a chatbot (automated account) to help circulate official data about the electoral process and voting. In addition, the messaging app has made available a specific communication channel with the TSE to report suspected accounts of carrying out mass shootings, which is not allowed in the app’s Terms of Service and electoral legislation.
