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With simply two months left till the US presidential election, Facebook says it’s taking extra steps to encourage voting, decrease misinformation and cut back the probability of post-election “civil unrest.”
The firm stated Thursday it’s going to limit new political adverts within the week before the election and take away posts that convey misinformation about Covid-19 and voting. It may even connect hyperlinks to official outcomes to posts from candidates and campaigns that declare untimely victories.
“This election is not going to be business as usual. We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a put up on Thursday. “That means helping people register and vote, clearing up confusion about how this election will work, and taking steps to reduce the chances of violence and unrest.”
Facebook and different social media firms are being scrutinized over how they deal with misinformation, given issues with President Donald Trump and different candidates posting false info and Russia’s ongoing makes an attempt to intrude in US politics.
Facebook has lengthy been criticized for not fact-checking political adverts or limiting how they are often focused at small teams of individuals.
With the nation divided, and election outcomes doubtlessly taking days or perhaps weeks to be finalized, there might be an “increased risk of civil unrest across the country,” Zuckerberg stated.
Civil rights teams stated they instantly pitched Zuckerberg and different Facebook executives to make lots of the adjustments introduced Thursday.
“These are really significant steps but everything is going to depend on the enforcement,” stated Vanita Gupta, who was head of the Obama Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and now leads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “I think they’re going to be tested on it pretty soon.”
In July, Trump refused to publicly commit to accepting the outcomes of the upcoming election, as he scoffed at polls that confirmed him lagging behind Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump additionally has made false claims that the elevated use of mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic permits for voter fraud. That has raised concern over the willingness of Trump and his supporters to abide by election outcomes.
Under the brand new measures, Facebook says it’s going to prohibit politicians and campaigns from working new election adverts within the week before the election. However, they’ll nonetheless run current adverts and alter how they’re focused. And many citizens are anticipated to vote by mail properly forward of Election Day.
Posts with apparent misinformation on voting insurance policies and the coronavirus pandemic may even be eliminated. Users can solely ahead articles to a most of 5 others on Messenger, Facebook’s messaging app. The firm additionally will work with Reuters to present official election outcomes and make the knowledge out there each on its platform and with push notifications.
After being caught off-guard by Russia’s efforts to intrude within the 2016 US presidential election, Facebook, Google, Twitter and others firms put safeguards in place to stop it from occurring once more. That contains taking down posts, teams and accounts that interact in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” and strengthening verification procedures for political adverts. Last 12 months, Twitter banned political adverts altogether.
Zuckerberg stated Facebook had eliminated greater than 100 networks worldwide participating in such interference over the previous couple of years.
“Just this week, we took down a network of 13 accounts and two pages that were trying to mislead Americans and amplify division,” he stated.
But specialists and Facebook’s personal staff say the measures should not sufficient to cease the unfold of misinformation –- together with from politicians and within the type of edited movies.
Facebook had beforehand drawn criticism for its adverts coverage, which cited freedom of expression as the explanation for letting politicians like Trump put up false details about voting.
Trump marketing campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager criticized the ban on new political adverts, saying it will stop Trump from defending himself on the platform within the final seven days of the presidential marketing campaign.
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