Less than two months earlier than Brazil’s 2022 election, a report from worldwide NGO discovered Facebook guardian firm Meta “appallingly” did not detect false political adverts. The group examined Facebook’s capability to catch election-related misinformation by submitting 10 adverts.

Five of the ads featured blatantly false details about the election. For occasion, some talked about the unsuitable election date and strategies residents may use to solid their votes. The different 5 adverts sought to discredit Brazil’s electoral course of, together with the digital voting system the nation has used since 1996. Of the ten adverts, Facebook solely rejected one initially however later permitted it with none additional motion from Global Witness.

In addition to their content material, the adverts had different purple flags Global Witness contends Meta ought to have caught. To begin, the non-profit didn’t confirm the account it used to submit the ads by means of the corporate’s . “This is a safeguard that Meta has in place to prevent election interference, but we were easily able to bypass this,” Global Witness mentioned.

Additionally, the group submitted the adverts from London and Nairobi. In doing so, it didn’t want to make use of a VPN or native cost system to masks its identification. Moreover, the adverts didn’t function a “paid for by” disclaimer, which Meta notes all “social issue” ads in Brazil should embody by June 22, 2022.

“What’s quite clear from the results of this investigation and others is that their content moderation capabilities and the integrity systems that they deploy in order to mitigate some of the risk during election periods, it’s just not working,” Jon Lloyd, senior advisor at Global Witness, .

Meta didn’t instantly reply to Engadget’s request for remark. A Meta spokesperson informed The Associated Press it has “prepared extensively” for Brazil’s upcoming election. “We’ve launched tools that promote reliable information and label election-related posts, established a direct channel for the Superior Electoral Court (Brazil’s electoral authority) to send us potentially-harmful content for review, and continue closely collaborating with Brazilian authorities and researchers,” the corporate mentioned.

This isn’t the primary time Global Witness has discovered Facebook’s election safeguards wanting. Earlier this 12 months, the non-profit carried out an identical investigation and reached lots of the identical conclusions. Then, as now, Global Witness known as on Meta to strengthen and improve its content material moderation and integrity programs.