Facebook posts allegedly misrepresenting the Australian Electoral Commission’s statements about voting multiple times in the voice to parliament referendum will be reviewed by Meta’s oversight board.
The oversight board, which independently reviews cases selected to examine Meta’s content moderation policy, said on Friday that the review of the two posts will look at how the company’s policy on false or misleading voter fraud operates, given the number of elections in 2024.
The posts by two different Facebook users showed screenshots of information shared by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on X ahead of the voice to parliament referendum in October.
The AEC had posted advice that: “If someone votes at two different polling places within their electorate, and places their formal vote in the ballot box at each polling place, their vote is counted.” It also posted a comment explaining the secrecy of the ballot would prevent the AEC from knowing which ballot paper belongs to which person, but that the number of double votes is always incredibly low.
The posters both left out other information posted by the AEC, including that voting multiple times is an offence in Australia.
One user posted: “Vote early, vote often, and vote NO.” The other posted: “so you can vote multiple times … they are setting us up for a ‘rigging’ … smash the voting centres … it’s a No, No, No, No, No.” The caption in the second case included a “stop” emoji followed by the words “Australian Electoral Commission”.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, flagged the posts and they were reviewed and removed for violating Meta’s coordinating harm and promoting crime policy. The users appealed against the decision, ultimately leading to the oversight board review.
Both users claimed to the board they were posting content from the AEC, with one user claiming the post was a “warning to others” that the “election may be fraudulent” for allowing multiple voting.
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Just over 60% of Australian voters rejected the voice to parliament in the referendum. During the campaign Meta’s moderation policies were a key focus from the no camp. No voice campaigners – including the Sky host Peta Credlin, Liberal senator James Paterson and the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs – claimed RMIT FactLab, which factchecked posts for Meta, was biased and demanded the platform remove it.
Meta temporarily suspended RMIT Fact Lab from the program, blaming the lack of accreditation by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), which had lapsed, and the upcoming referendum, as well as complaints from Sky News.
It was later restored after being reaccredited. The third-party factchecking program Meta runs with the Australian media outlets AAP and AFP continued.
