Meta escapes rap for posts

Group says ‘nonsense conspiracy theories’ missed by fact-checkers

Meta flooded Australians with more than 150 dodgy and dangerous posts but got off scot-free, it can be revealed.

The posts, including “nonsense conspiracy theories”, ran on Facebook without “fake content” warning labels from late last year and were presented to the Digital Industry Group Inc for investigation.

Online safety group Reset Tech Australia, which lodged the complaint, claimed the posts had been fact-checked posts by a third found to be false.

RTA gave examples where small changes to wording were enough to beat Facebook’s automated controls, including extra spaces, capital letters and emojis.

It said Meta’s 2023 Transparency Report was potentially misleading because it stated it applied “a warning label to content found to be false by third-party fact checking organisations”.

But DIGI’s independent subcommittee found there was no party and

“convincing evidence” the transparency report was misleading and Meta did not have to correct the record – although the social media giant said it would clarify its “moderation and fact-checking process” in the next report

Bizarrely, DIGI wears two hats – not only administering the voluntary Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation but also representing the tech giants.

Rob Nicholls, a University of Sydney policy and regulatory specialist, said there was a limit to DIGI’s independence.

“That’s because the complaints sub-committee, who are excellent people, are also members of the [Digi] administration sub-committee and there’s no real reason to do that,” Dr Nicholls said.

“It lacks rigour in an environment that really requires rigour.”

Reset Tech Australia executive director Alice Dawkins said the decision showed Australia’s self-regulatory model had left the country “under protected’.

“Without public transparency and proper accountability, this is largely a ‘he said she said’ exercise where the onus is on the complainant to produce evidence that is virtually impossible to produce,” Ms Dawkins said.

The Reset investigation found “nonsense conspiracy theories” were being posted without warning labels, including one with the question: “Did you know ONLY 2 countries are still considered Sovereign? Russia & Australia.”

It was found to be false by

Meta’s fact-checkers labelled with a warning.

But tweaked to read: “There’s only two countries that are still sovereign in the world. Australia and Russia”, it was left unlabelled.

Ms Dawkins said Meta needed to “publicly acknowledge the limitations of [the] labelling system”.

Meta denied its Transparency Report contained false statements and said it applied warning labels to content that is identical or near identical to fact-checked content. and