Human rights organization Global Witness published the results of the test yesterday, January 19. Meta, which owns Facebook, has previously said it plans to block content that aims to incite violence, but still accepts ads that do just that.

What happened?

On January 8, supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro raided and destroyed Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace. They demanded the resignation of the newly elected head of state, Lula da Silva, who, according to them, had unfairly won. This is very reminiscent of the events and hence the events after the loss of Donald Trump in the last presidential election in the USA. Facebook quickly responded, saying it would block unsubstantiated allegations of election interference and calls for violence.. But Meta seems to have issues with this.

• Global Witness sent 16 ads to Facebook.
• Some urged people to raid government buildings, some called the last elections “stolen” and some even Calls for killing children whose parents voted for the new president Brazilian Luis Inácio Lulu da Silva. “Dig up and shoot all the rats that seize power”One of the advertisements accepted for publication includes the phrase -.
• Facebook approved all but two of the adsRosie Sharp, who campaigns against digital threats at Global Witness, says Facebook isn’t doing enough to enforce its advertising policies.

In the wake of the violence in Brasilia, Facebook said it was “actively monitoring” the situation and removing content that violated its policies. This test shows how bad they are at keeping their word. Violent content of the kind we protest has no reason to be approved for publication.
He said sharply.

Global Witness removed the ad before offensive messages such as “Death to the children of Lula’s voters” could be broadcast. None of the test ads made it publicly available.

At the same time, human rights activists conducted a similar test on YouTube and claimed: Google video platform has not approved any ads. YouTube has also taken the extra step of blocking accounts trying to run such ads.