Platforms and Big Tech Tracker
Disinformation Policy benchmark recently updated to reflect changes to Meta’s fact-checking and content moderation processes
We recently updated the Disinformation Policy benchmark within our Platforms and Big Tech Tracker to reflect changes Meta announced it would be making to its fact-checking processes, beginning in the US. The platform plans to end its third-party fact-checking programme, which it launched in 2016, in favor of a ‘Community Notes’ programme based on user-generated disclosures similar to that used by X since October 2023. In doing so, Meta will be the second major platform to implement a system of community notes.
Our benchmark tracks 14 company policies on disinformation from eight online platforms (Adobe, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok and X). Excluding Meta’s switch to community notes, four other policies have been adopted within the last 12 months including TikTok’s in-app ‘Election Centres’ ahead of the 2024 EU elections and OpenAI’s rule changes which stopped users from impersonating political figures with AI. In the past year, Meta has been the most active company we’ve tracked on disinformation policy, adopting three significant new policies with its community notes system yet to come. With the continued development of AI capabilities in recent years, we’ve also seen the introduction of seven new policies on labeling image and video content that was created with or modified by AI.
Our Tracker also includes the policy approaches to disinformation of 15 countries and regions. Of these, nine have already adopted some voluntary policy or binding regulation on the issue. Most recently, in October 2024, Singapore introduced a bill amending a 1991 Elections Act to update prohibitions on the misrepresentations of political candidates through content such as AI-generated deepfakes. Of the countries we track, Canada was the first to pass legislation on disinformation, having adopted Bill C-76 prohibiting false statements about elections in 2019. According to our benchmark, two countries – Australia and South Africa – have abandoned planned changes to disinformation as of 2024, highlighting the still contentious nature of these policies.
