Facebook won't take down fake posts about two prominent Australian Leftists

Facebook has rebuffed an appeal by the ACTU to take down fake tweets purporting to be from Sally McManus and Bill Shorten, arguing the content doesn’t violate the social media giant’s community guidelines.

Screenshots of the fake tweets, one from McManus saying the Labor conference had endorsed an inheritance tax, and another from Shorten saying “immigration of people from the Middle East is the future Australia needs”, are posted on the Facebook pages Respect Australia Rally – National and I’ll Stand by Tony Abbott.

The fake McManus tweet declaring Labor’s support for an inheritance tax first appeared on 21 April, and the ACTU secretary disavowed it immediately.

The Respect Australia Rally – National Facebook page posted a screenshot of the tweet later in April. The post acknowledges there is debate about whether the tweet is authentic, but says it doesn’t matter. “Just because Labor says it’s a fake doesn’t make it a fake, so share it far and wide,” the post says.

According to correspondence seen by Guardian Australia, the ACTU told Facebook this represented the “deliberate dissemination of false news”, but a response from a client support analyst said while “we understand that the content was upsetting and we’re sorry you had to experience this” the content “doesn’t violate our community guidelines”.

Facebook revealed in October it removed two instances of “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” on its platform during the May federal election. But the company has said repeatedly it does not want to be the arbiter of truth, or to “referee political debates”.

It told the joint standing committee on electoral matters in a submission: “Facebook does not believe that it’s an appropriate role for us to be the arbiter of truth over content shared by ordinary Australians or to referee political debates and prevent a politician’s speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny.”

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