How Meta is Preparing for the Voice to Parliament Referendum

By Mia Garlick, Director of Public Policy for Meta Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Japan and Korea

• Meta has been preparing for this year’s Voice to Parliament Referendum for a long time, leaning into expertise from previous elections. We will be using a comprehensive strategy to combat misinformation, voter interference, and other forms of abuse on our platforms.
• We’re expanding capacity for our third-party fact-checking program in the lead up to the Voice to Parliament Referendum by providing a one-off funding boost to our fact-checkers.
• We’ll also partner with mental health organisation ReachOut to offer further support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

With the Voice to Parliament Referendum set to take place towards the end of the year, the referendum will be a significant moment for Australia. Many Australians will use digital platforms to engage in advocacy, express their views, or participate in democratic debate. At Meta, we’re committed to playing our part to safeguard the integrity of the referendum. Alongside our ongoing integrity measures we’ve implemented for previous elections, we’ll also roll out additional measures to promote safety and integrity across our platforms ahead of this year’s referendum. This will include:

Combating Misinformation and Foreign Interference Using a Comprehensive Approach

• Expanding capacity for Meta’s Australian Fact-Checkers. We know the importance of ensuring Australians have access to reliable information about the Voice to Parliament Referendum in Australia. Therefore, we’ll be providing a one-off funding boost to our Australian fact-checkers, to increase their capacity in the lead up to the referendum. Our fact checkers are independent and work to reduce the spread of misinformation across Meta’s services. When they rate something as false, we significantly reduce its distribution so fewer people see it. We also notify people who try to share something rated as false and add a warning label with a link to a debunking article.
• Update (29 August 2023): Due to a recent development with RMIT and IFCN, we’re temporarily pausing our referendum work with RMIT.
  We are also working with RMIT CrossCheck to increase monitoring for misinformation trends in the lead-up to the referendum, and sharing best-practice guidance on combating false information with journalists and other stakeholders.
• Empowering People to Identify False News. Since we know it’s not enough to just limit or remove harmful or misleading misinformation that people see, we’ll launch a new media literacy campaign with Australian Associated Press, building on our “Check The Facts” campaign which ran ahead of the 2022 Federal Election in October 2021 and early 2022. This will share tips and advice with people so that they can make informed decisions about what they read, trust and share.
• Combatting Influence Operations. We have specialised global teams to identify and take action against threats to the elections and referendums, including signs of coordinated inauthentic behaviour across our apps. We are also coordinating with the Government’s election integrity assurance taskforce and security agencies in the lead up to the referendum. We’ve also improved our AI so that we can more effectively detect and block fake accounts, which are often behind this activity.

Providing support to third party organisations and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

• Hate speech policies: No one should have to experience hate or racial abuse online and we don’t want it on our platforms. We recognise that hate speech can be offensive, even when implicit or veiled. We have rules against different types of harm, including hate speech, and don’t allow attacks against people based on their protected characteristics, which includes race, religion and sexual orientation. If hate speech is being used to attack, we remove it. But there are instances where we will allow it if hate speech is being shared to condemn. We have dedicated teams in place to review and remove this content from our platforms.
• Offering mental health support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. We are committed to working closely with First Nations communities, and we have been consulting with them on our approach to the referendum. Feedback we’ve heard is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples may need additional support, before, during and after the referendum. With this in mind, we’re partnering with ReachOut to create a dedicated youth mental health initiative. We’ll have more to share on this in the coming months.
• Providing safety training to MP’s, advocacy groups and NFPs. Towards the end of July, we’ll host a Safety School training session with MPs, advocacy groups, and not-for-profits. This session will include an overview of our policies and tools, how to use Facebook’s latest moderation tool, Moderation Assist, and show how MPs, NFP’s and advocacy groups can keep their accounts and Pages safe in the lead-up to the referendum.
• Supporting third-party organisations to amplify authoritative information. We’ve provided ad credits to enable charity and non-for profits to amplify their messaging on Voice related topics. For example, we’re providing ads credits to UNICEF Australia to raise awareness of Voice related media literacy and their work to raise the voices of a range of young people in support of the Voice to Parliament, including Aboriginal youth.

Encouraging transparency around political, election and social issues ads

• Mandatory transparency for political ads. Since 2019, we’ve made a series of changes for advertisers in Australia that want to run electoral, political and social issue ads. Advertisers are now required to go through an authorisation process using government-issued photo ID, and place a “Paid for by” disclaimers on their ads. This includes any person creating, modifying, publishing or pausing ads that reference political figures, political parties or elections. It also includes social issue ads that seek to influence public opinion through discussion, debate or advocacy for or against important topics. Any political, electoral or social issue ads on Facebook and Instagram that do not have the correct authorisation or disclaimers will be removed from the platform and archived in a public Ad Library for seven years.
• Allowing Australians to control their experience. While political and social issue ads play an important role, people have told us they want the option to see fewer of them in their Facebook and Instagram feeds. We have tools that allow people to control if they’d like to see fewer social issues, electoral, and political ads.

As we get more information regarding the date of the referendum, we’ll stay vigilant to emerging threats and take additional steps if necessary to prevent abuse on our platform while also empowering people in Australia to use their voice by voting.

“AAP has always been committed to supporting Australians with fact-based journalism, and our media literacy collaboration with Meta allows us to also help people build the skills they need to make properly informed decisions. Drawing heavily on AAP’s fact-checking expertise, the next phase of our successful media literacy campaign will share practical ways for people to recognise and avoid misinformation.”
— AAP CEO Lisa Davies

“We are grateful for this support which recognises our pre-emptive approach to information integrity. In the Voice to Parliament Referendum some narratives may not fit into a clear ‘fact check’ yet are still important in terms of educating the public safely and calmly. This multimedia project will allow us to highlight themes including via social media and support democratic discussion.”
— RMIT FactLab CrossCheck APAC Director Anne Kruger

“Accurate information is critical during the lead up to the referendum and for voters to make their decision. Meta’s lead in helping trusted sources like UNICEF Australia share information for voters, and the perspectives of our younger generations on this issue is a meaningful use of social media and valuable contribution during the debate.”
- UNICEF Australia Head of Child Rights Policy, Advocacy and Child/Youth Voice Katie Maskiell