19 US lawmakers slam Meta’s election safeguards ahead of 2026 polls

A group of 19 US lawmakers has slammed Metarsquos election safeguards as inadequate warning that its rollback of factchecking and growing reliance on artificial intelligence could leave American voters exposed to deepfakes and political disinformation ahead of the 2026 electionsDemocratic Congressman Kevin Mullin led the lawmakers in demanding answers from Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg They questioned whether the company was prepared to counter rapidly changing threats across Facebook Instagram Threads and WhatsAppldquoGenerative AI has made it easier than ever to create convincing deepfakes and other deceptive content and wersquore already seeing these tactics used to influence Americarsquos electionsrdquo Mullin saidldquoMeta headquartered in my district has rolled back key safeguards over the last few years designed to prevent the spread of misinformation and this raises serious questions about whether it is prepared to meet todayrsquos rapidly evolving threatsrdquo he saidThe lawmakers cited Metarsquos decision to discontinue its thirdparty factchecking programme in the United States The programme worked with more than 90 independent organisations to review potentially false contentMeta replaced it with Community Notes which allows participating users to add context to posts The lawmakers said the change had shifted the burden of verifying information to users who may lack the time resources or expertise to do soldquoWe believe that Metarsquos approach to the 2026 election cycle is inadequate to address the threats now facing American elections ndash particularly given Metarsquos rollback of factchecking the automation of risk review and the proliferation of AI generated content on Metarsquos platformsrdquo they wroteThe letter pointed to ldquoEmily Hartrdquo a fake conservative MAGA influencer reportedly created by a 22yearold medical student in India using AI toolsThe synthetic persona promoted antiabortion and antiimmigration views It gained millions of views and thousands of subscribers before Instagram removed the account for fraudulent activityThe lawmakers also cited deepfake incidents in Senate contests in Texas and Georgia These included an advertisement showing a fabricated lifelike video of Texas Senate candidate James Talarico appearing to speak directly to the cameraThey asked Zuckerberg to compare Metarsquos US electionintegrity staffing and budgets for 2020 2024 and 2026 They also sought details about policies covering deepfake videos synthetic audio and accounts impersonating political figuresOther questions focused on whether paid political influencers must disclose their compensation and who funded the content The lawmakers also asked whether advertisers must identify misleading AIgenerated images or audio in political advertisementsThey sought information on dedicated reporting channels for state and local election officials the time taken to remove deceptive content and the effectiveness of Community Notes Zuckerberg was asked to respond by September 18Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create realistic but fabricated videos voices or images Their growing accessibility has intensified concerns that false material can circulate widely before candidates election officials or technology companies can challenge itThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever