Platforms, Promises and Politics: a reality check on election pledges

Drawing on more than 200 platform election-related commitments made between 2016 and 2023 across 27 countries, with detailed case studies of elections in India (2019), Brazil (2022) and Liberia (2023), the research compared interventions platforms deployed in the Global Majority against those offered in the US and Europe.

It found platforms concentrated at least 62% of their geography-specific interventions exclusively in the US or Europe, and that measures rolled out elsewhere — chiefly digital literacy programs, fact-checking partnerships and content-moderation updates — were often near-identical "template" packages applied across very different national contexts, including Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia. US and European efforts leaned more heavily on political advertising regulation, while other regions relied on content moderation commitments undermined by cuts to trust and safety teams. Gaps also emerged around oversight of WhatsApp and Telegram and language coverage of fact-checking programs.

The report concludes that platforms' approach to election integrity outside wealthy democracies is formulaic and under-resourced, reflecting unequal priority given to markets with less regulatory leverage.