Meta announces measure against fake news in EU elections – 02/26/2024 – Tech

Meta will create a team to combat disinformation and abuse of artificial intelligence in the run-up to the European Parliament elections in June, amid concerns about election interference and misleading AI-generated content.

The rapid growth of generative AI, which can create text, images and videos in seconds in response to requests, has raised fears that the new technology could be used to disrupt important elections around the world this year.

Elections for the European Parliament will take place from June 6th to 9th. Its 720 parliamentarians, together with European Union governments, approve new policies and laws for the bloc.

“As the election approaches, we will activate an Election Operations Center to identify potential threats and implement real-time mitigations,” said Marco Pancini, head of EU affairs at Meta, owner of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.

He said experts from the company’s intelligence, data science, engineering, research, operations, content policy and legal teams will focus on combating disinformation, confronting influence operations and combating risks related to AI abuse.

Meta, which currently works with 26 independent fact-checking organizations across the EU spanning 22 languages, will add three new partners in Bulgaria, France and Slovakia, Pancini said.

This month, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and 17 other technology companies agreed to work together to prevent misleading content created by artificial intelligence from interfering in this year’s elections around the world.