Facebook faced criticism for failing to effectively block thousands of misleading political ads, particularly those featuring AI-manipulated videos and false information about politicians. 

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) reported that over 8,000 misleading ads were identified, many promoting investment scams with fabricated news articles and AI-manipulated images of politicians.

One mentioned a banking “scandal” involving UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, another claimed that “the charges against [Swedish politician] Jonas Sjöstedt are confirmed!” and a third bid “goodbye to [Polish politician] Slawomir Mentzen” alongside photos from a cemetery. 

The ease with which the ads evaded Facebook's rules raises significant concerns about Meta's capacity to manage misinformation and dinformation, especially in the context of political elections in Europe. 

TBIJ's findings indicate that less than half of the flagged ads were removed by Meta at the time of their analysis, highlighting a substantial gap in enforcement. Many of the ads also breached Meta's transparency rules, which require political ads to be labeled as such. 

The TBIJ also discovered a separate set of Facebook pages using AI-edited videos of politicians, including Romanian president Klaus Iohannis and Italian president Sergio Mattarella, to promote a scheme promising to “get rid of diabetes in 7 days”. 

This inconsistency in enforcement varied significantly between countries, with the UK seeing a higher removal rate compared to the Netherlands and Spain.

A Meta spokesperson claimed that their systems had removed nearly all cited ads at the time they were run. 

However, TBIJ's investigation revealed that the actual removal rate was much lower than suggested, raising questions about Meta's honesty and the effectiveness of it's ad review processes.