Meta, Google, Microsoft to support INEC in tackling false claims ahead of 2027 elections

The companies pledged their support at different forums in the past week.

Big Tech companies, including Meta, Google and Microsoft, have promised to support Nigeria’s electoral commission, INEC, to tackle false information and AI-generated manipulations during the 2027 general elections.

Nigeria’s 2027 election is scheduled to begin on 16 January 2027 with the presidential and National Assembly elections, while the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections are on 6 February 2027.

The electoral commission has expressed concern over the rise of AI-generated contents, particularly during the elections, but maintained that AI won’t determine the outcome of the elections.

Microsoft said their generative AI tools from creating unrealistic images of political candidates ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general election.

Speaking at the AI and Democracy Forum (AIDF) in Abuja, Microsoft’s Senior Director of Global Elections, Dave Liechtman, said the company would load INEC’s final list of candidates into its system to prevent generative AI from creating unrealistic images of the candidates.

Mr Liechtman said the initiative was part of the companies’ commitment to preventing the unauthorised use of candidates’ likenesses on their platforms.

“I offered to INEC at their offices this week that, – I think you just finalised the candidate list this weekend – we’re going to load that candidates’ list into our system to make sure that generative AI cannot be used to generate unrealistic images of candidates,” he had said.

Google has also opened SynthID Detector, its artificial intelligence watermark-detection platform, to the public as concerns grow about manipulated images, videos and audio ahead of the general elections.

SynthID Detector allows users to upload media files and check whether they contain invisible watermarks placed by supported AI-generation systems.

It can currently identify SynthID watermarks in content created using tools operated by Google and participating companies, including OpenAI, NVIDIA and Kakao.

Google said the platform was designed for everyday users, including journalists, fact-checkers and members of the public who need additional information when examining suspicious online content.

Speaking at the launch of #AI4Elections Hackathon organised by Rise Networks, in collaboration with INEC, Meta’s head of public policy for Anglophone West Africa, Sade Dada, said the mother company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp would work with INEC to promote trustworthy election information and tackle false claims, including fabricated images and videos generated using artificial intelligence.

The Artifical Intelligence Hackathon was launched to develop technology solutions to electoral challenges ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general elections. It will bring together Nigerian developers, researchers, university students, electoral experts, and civil society organisations to develop practical, responsible AI tools to support electoral processes.

The initiative also have the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), the International Press Centre and other civil society and academic institutions as partners.

Ms Dada highlighted Meta’s “Remove, Reduce and Inform” approach to content moderation, which involves removing content that violates its policies, reducing the distribution of certain harmful content and providing people with information to help them assess what they see online.

She also cited GovGuide Nigeria, an AI-powered chatbot that provides government information in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, as an example of how AI can be used to improve public access to information.

Ms Dada stressed that AI tools used during elections must remain politically neutral and subject to human oversight.

She said Nigeria’s experience with trustworthy election information could provide lessons for other countries, noting that the credibility of the 2027 elections would have implications beyond the country.