Meta says AI had only ‘modest’ impact on global elections in 2024
Al Jazeera
The tech firm says its defences were able to defeat AI-driven misinformation operations from gaining an online foothold.
Despite global fears that artificial intelligence (AI) could influence the outcome of elections around the world this year, the United States technology giant Meta said it detected little impact across its platforms.
That was in part due to defensive measures designed to prevent coordinated networks of accounts, or bots, from grabbing attention on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg told reporters on Tuesday.
“I don’t think the use of generative AI was a particularly effective tool for them to evade our trip wires,” Clegg said of those behind coordinated disinformation campaigns.
In 2024, Meta says it ran several election operations centres around the world to monitor content issues, including the major elections in the US, Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil.
Most of the covert influence operations it has disrupted in recent years were carried out by actors from Russia, Iran and China, Clegg said, adding that Meta took down about 20 “covert influence operations” on its platform this year.
