Platforms' policies on elections misinformation

This EU DisinfoLab factsheet, updated as a second version in June 2024 from an original 2023 edition, compares how Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and X define and enforce election-related misinformation policies. As with the organization's companion factsheets, it is a comparative policy analysis rather than an empirical study of content prevalence, examining how each platform defines prohibited content, what detection mechanisms it uses, and which internal actors are responsible for enforcement across both organic posts and paid advertising.

The update situates its analysis within the 2024 'election super year,' noting that all five platforms formally acknowledge the risks electoral misinformation poses to democratic trust, voter turnout, and public safety, while cautioning that election-specific rules are often difficult to disentangle from platforms' general misinformation policies.

The report concludes that platform approaches remain uneven despite shared recognition of the threat, and flags that a separate EU DisinfoLab factsheet addresses the related and growing concern of AI-generated election misinformation specifically.