Meta struggles to curb hate speech before US vote: researchers

Meta is struggling to fully contain and address hate speech ahead of the U.S. election, according to research.

Meta - the owner of Facebook and Instagram - is struggling to fully contain and address hate speech ahead of the U.S. election, according to research shared exclusively with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Non-profit Global Witness tested how Facebook was dealing with hate speech ahead of the presidential vote by analysing 200,000 comments on the pages of 67 U.S. Senate candidates between September 6 and October 6.

When Global Witness researchers used Facebook's reporting tool to flag 14 comments that they considered particularly egregious violations of Meta's hate speech rules in its "community standards", Meta took days to react.

The comments flagged by the researchers referred offensively to Muslim and Jewish people, and speculated about one candidate’s sexual orientation in a dehumanising manner.

Meta removed some but not all of the 14 comments from Facebook after Global Witness emailed the company directly, the researchers said.

"There was a real failure to promptly review these posts," said Ellen Judson, a researcher with Global Witness who oversaw the test.

The findings come as Meta has long faced criticism from researchers, watchdog groups, and lawmakers for not fostering a healthy information ecosystem during elections across the globe.