Dr Alexia Maddox
Dr Alexia Maddox is a Director of Digital Education and Senior Lecturer in Pedagogy and Education Futures in the School of Education. Dr Maddox specialises in digital society and the intersection of technology with everyday lives. She also investigates digital frontiers and emerging technologies and their relationship to social change and policy.
Topics to discuss:
- Why Meta's announcement timing is significant
- What fact-checking Australia has in place
- What are the risks associated with Meta's decision?
Dr Maddox is available via [email protected], or 0417 058 571.
Alternatively, via La Trobe's media team: [email protected]
The following can be attributed to Dr Maddox:
"The timing is particularly significant for Australia - with our Federal Eelection approaching, these changes to Meta's platforms could substantially impact how Australians access and verify political information.
"In Australia, specifically, we currently have three professional fact-checking organisations working with Meta (RMIT FactLab, AFP, and AAP FactCheck). The shift to a community-based system raises questions about maintaining verification standards in our market, where we already have limited fact-checking resources compared to larger markets like the US.
"Meta is framing this as expanding free speech, but the real challenge is ensuring everyone can participate meaningfully in online discourse. When misinformation spreads unchecked, it can effectively prevent certain groups from participating in public debate.
"The shift toward "personalised" political content could create information asymmetries, where different users see radically different versions of political and social discussions based on their existing views and engagement patterns. This could make it harder for users to encounter diverse perspectives or verify claims across different communities, especially during election periods. Democratic discourse requires a shared information environment where citizens can engage with common facts and diverse viewpoints - when different groups of voters are seeing fundamentally different versions of political discussions and news, it becomes more challenging to have the informed public debate that democracy needs to function effectively.
"While Meta's announcement focuses on US issues, their plan to relocate trust and safety teams from California to Texas raises questions. How will decisions be made around global content moderation and will Australian concerns will be adequately addressed?
"The success of Meta's "Community Notes" system will depend heavily on implementation, particularly how quickly and effectively misinformation can be addressed during critical events like elections, and how they'll ensure diverse Australian perspectives are represented in the community moderation process."
