Takeaways
- For the 2026 U.S. elections, we are using the same thorough measures we have relied on for years. We support free expression, encourage voter participation, and are transparent about AI-produced content.
- Like in past election cycles, we will keep blocking new political ads on our platforms during the last week of the campaign.
- We are still running our election operations center and focusing on protecting people from scams on our platforms, especially those that misuse images of politicians.
This November, millions of Americans will vote in the U.S. elections. Every election is different, but Meta has built a thorough approach for our platforms. We support free expression, encourage civic participation, and offer strong transparency for political and social issue ads.
As we prepare for the 2026 elections, we are explaining how our established policies and safeguards will operate on our platforms.
Industry-Leading Transparency Around Political Ads
Advertisers who want to run ads about elections, politics, or social issues must go through an authorization process and add a “Paid for by” disclaimer. We have kept these ads in our public ad library for seven years. Right now, our ad library has over 18 million U.S. entries.
Restriction period column as before. We will block new political, electoral, or social issue ads during the last week of the US election campaign. Ads that have already shown at least once before this period can keep running. We do this because in the final days of an election, there may not be enough time to challenge new claims in ads.
Political ads created or edited using AI: advertisers must tell us whether they use AI to create or change ads about social issues, elections, or politics. In certain cases, when they do, we add this information to the ad and our ad library. We are always improving our labeling so people can more easily spot ads that may have been edited or made with AI.
Identifying Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content Beyond Political Ads
Use industry standards and technologies, such as C2PA, to spot content created or altered with AI outside ads on our platforms. We label this content to keep things transparent. If we detect that the content was made by an AI tool, we show an AI info label and explain if the label comes from industrial signals or self-disclosure. People must use this label when posting organic content that includes photorealistic video or realistic audio that was digitally created or altered. If they do not, we may apply penalties.
Continuing To Connect People with Information From State And Local Officials
Voting Information and Election Day Reminders: As in the past years, we show notifications at the top of Facebook and Instagram feeds to connect people with local and state voting information, including during primaries. On Facebook, these notifications are now easier to understand because we show them the input the users choose a language and another language if they interact with content in that language. If someone has moved or we get their location, they can select “Change state” to get the correct government information.
Search Engine Results: When people search for election-related ITAC terms on Facebook, we show results that link to state government websites for more information.
Voting Alerts: On Facebook, we keep working with state and local election officials to send timely voting alerts about registering and voting to people in their communities. State and local officials have sent over 1 billion notifications through Voting Alerts on Facebook.
Instagram stickers: On Instagram, we continue to highlight stickers on stories that guide people to official voting information before registration deadlines and Election Day.
Empowering the community to add expanded context
Last year, we launched Community Notes so people can add context to posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads that might be misleading or confusing. Unlike terrestrial third-party fact-checking, Community Notes are written and rated by contributors, not by Meta or a small group of fact-checkers. Notes can be added to most public content, including posts by Meta, our executives, public figures, and politicians. Contributors decide which content could use greater context. A note is only published if it reaches consensus, which means contributors who usually disagree on it. This helps reduce bias and improve the quality of published notes. Anyone in the US can sign up to be a contributor if they are over 18, have an account that is more than 6 months old and in good standing, and either have an authenticated phone number or use two-factor authentication.
Combating Scams
Focusing on protecting people from scams, including those that misuse politicians’ images, we consistently review and update our approach. Our policies do not allow ads that use images of public figures to scam or defraud people. We continue to invest resources to fight these fraudulent ads and are continually improving our enforcement, including suspending and deleting accounts, pages, and ads that break our rules.
Fraudsters use elections to trick people into engaging with content that appears to be political campaigns. To help people spot and avoid these threats, we have created resources in our Scam Prevention Hub. We also use facial recognition technology to detect and stop celeb bait ads that use images of public figures to defraud people. We remove imposter accounts that are reported for impersonating others.
Operational Readiness: We have invested over $30 billion in safety and security over the past decade, including efforts to protect elections on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. We enforce our rules against voter interference, electoral violence, and false information about when, where, and how to vote. We remove content that breaks our rules as soon as we find it. We also remove content that could cause physical harm or disrupt elections.
They are also continuing to expose and disrupt foreign influence operations, including those targeting elections, and have identified 200 networks of coordinated inauthentic behavior since 2017. Our Election Operations Center, which brings together subject matter experts across Meta, including our threat intelligence, data science, engineering, research, operations, and legal teams for real-time monitoring to tackle potential abuse flowing across our network, as we have since 2018. This is for elections around the globe, including the Brazilian presidential election.
Source: How Meta Is Preparing for the 2026 US Midterm Elections
