40K people on duty to safeguard global elections online, says Zuckerberg-run Meta

Meta, which offers popular apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has said that as global elections continue to dominate headlines in 2024, no tech company is investing more to protect elections online than the social media giant.

The company said that currently, it has more than 40,000 people working on safeguarding elections online worldwide.

The social media giant claimed that it has invested more than $20 billion so far in building teams and technology to protect elections online.

General elections will be held in South Africa on May 29 this year.

“As the election approaches, we’ll activate a South Africa-specific Elections Operations Centre to identify potential threats and put mitigations in place in real time,” Meta said in a statement.

The company said it has the largest fact-checking network with partners in South Africa, fact checking in English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Sotho, and Setswana languages.

“We have been working directly with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to help prepare for the elections,” the company informed.

The company said it has made it easier for its fact-checking partners in South Africa to “find and rate content related to the elections”.

“We’ll use keyword detection to group related content in one place, making it easy for fact-checkers to find.”

Before the election day, Meta will launch its ‘Voter Information Unit’ and ‘Election Day Reminder’ features on both the Facebook and Instagram platforms.