Meta executive tells Canberra inquiry no fact-checking on Threads

An official from Meta, Facebook’s parent company, told a parliamentary committee in Australia that they didn’t know when they would be able to start fact-checking.

That the fact-checking would be on posts on Meta’s new social media platform, Threads.

Meta’s head of public policy in Australia, Josh Machin, appeared in Canberra on Tuesday before a parliamentary committee examining foreign interference through social media.

The committee wanted to assess how Australian elections and government agencies could be safeguarded from online threats.

Machin told the committee that the same content moderation policies applied to Facebook and Instagram would be in force on Threads, Meta’s new challenger to Twitter.

Meanwhile, the chair of the committee, Australian Liberal Party Senator James Paterson, accused Chinese social media platform WeChat and its parent company TenCent of being in contempt of parliament.

Paterson said that despite multiple requests for officials from WeChat to appear before the committee, the social media company had declined.

Sen. Paterson said the committee couldn’t force the company to appear as it was not based in Australia.

It’s estimated WeChat had more than one million users in Australia, and according to the Lowy Institute think tank, it played a strong role in electoral participation in Australia’s Chinese community.

“Compelling evidence has been put to the committee by expert witnesses that WeChat engages in surveillance, censorship, and foreign interference on its platform.

“Yet, senators will not have the opportunity to test these propositions with the company or potential regulatory solutions to them,’’ Paterson said.