Aware of how social media can make or break political candidacies, a coalition of legal, academic and civil society organizations has called on social media giants Google, YouTube and Tiktok to implement and enforce policies to rein in disinformation on their platforms and to crack down on websites and blogs that dispense fake news.
On Tuesday, the Movement Against Disinformation (MAD) convened by human rights lawyer Antonio La Viña sent an open letter to the three platforms outlining concrete calls to action to head off risks of voter interference in the May 2022 elections.
More moderators, checkers
“Few companies share your reach, sway and power over information,” the coalition said in its letter. “Fewer still are those who can match your resources, technology, and therefore, the moral and civic responsibility to ensure that an electorate is not only free from taint of falsehood but also that disinformation does not degrade both fair debate and cherished democratic principles.”
The coalition called on Google to improve the enforcement of policies against disinformation by engaging more content moderators and fact-checkers to counteract purveyors of fake news.
It also asked that the platform ban websites that spread disinformation, and that YouTube creators spreading electoral disinformation not be allowed to monetize their channels and be “removed if not pushed down” in search engine algorithms.
For TikTok, the most downloaded entertainment app in the Philippines in 2020 and now holding the strongest sway among the youth, MAD asked that it replicate the measures against disinformation that it initially implemented in the 2020 US elections.
The measures include, among others, providing an in-app guide for Philippine elections and flagging content and accounts spreading election-related disinformation.
Transparent guidelines
MAD also asked that TikTok conduct and publish a human rights audit, and make transparent its guidelines to flag content as electoral disinformation. “TikTok bears a responsibility to help young Filipinos, many of whom may be first-time voters, make informed choices in the voting precincts,” the coalition said. “The platform’s stewardship is made even more pressing because youth voters comprise 31.4 million, or 52 percent of the country’s total voters.”
MAD urged Google and TikTok to commit more resources for fact-checkers and partner with civil society organizations and the academic sector in improving the platforms’ fact-checking and voter-education initiatives.
On the rise
Cases of electoral disinformation have been “on the rise” amid the election season, the coalition said.
Independent fact-checkers said they had been responding to 30 to 50 requests daily to take down disinformation and fake news on Facebook, much of which “really have malicious intent to mislead [Filipinos],” said John Albert Pagunsan of Fact-checkers Philippines.
La Viña pointed out that disinformation on social media could greatly reinforce on-ground campaigns that could make or break elections
“Virtual content could cause real-world harm, as what happened in the … elections in 2016 and 2019. We urge you to see the changes through so that together we can help encode the 2022 elections with truth and transparency,” the coalition said.