Sri Lanka Electoral Commission receives over 150 poll-related complaints

<p>Sri Lanka’s Election Commission (EC) says it has received 156 poll-related complaints, 153 relating to a violation of election laws and 3 relating to electoral violence.</p> <p>In the last 24 hours, the EC had received 92 of said complaints of law violations and one incident of violence.</p> <p>These complaints have been lodged by the EC's Election Complaint Management Unit and similar units set-up in all districts. The EC was set up in September in the lead up to the Presidential election with commission officials stressing that social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram would be closely monitored this year.</p> <p><strong>Read more here:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/facebook-limits-message-sharing-s…">Facebook limits message sharing in Sri Lanka over hate speech</a></strong></p> <p>The role of social media in Sri Lanka has come under scrutiny after Anti-Muslim riots in Kandy, which were aided by propagation of racist content and conspiracy theories through social media platforms such as Facebook. In Sri Lanka, there are close to six million Facebook accounts.&nbsp;</p> <p>Facebook has claimed that it is working to combat the spread of hateful content on their outlets however concerns have been raised over the state blocking social media platforms during periods of emergency as there is a general distrust of the state's narrative.</p> <p>Read more <a href="http://www.sundaytimes.lk/article/1105656/more-than-150-poll-related-co…">here </a>and <a href="http://www.sundaytimes.lk/article/1101929/ec-to-set-up-poll-complaints-…">here</a>.</p>