Election night unrest concerns
NEW YORK: Facebook Inc chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg, like many Americans, expects election night to be confusing. He is worried it could also be violent.
‘‘There is, unfortunately, I think, a heightened risk of civil unrest in the period between voting and a result being called,’’ Zuckerberg told Axios last month.
‘‘I think we need to be doing everything that we can to reduce the chances of violence or civil unrest in the wake of this election.’’
Social media companies are facing heightened scrutiny and pressure to do more to keep their platforms from becoming vectors of misinformation, election meddling and allaround disorder. Over the past two months, Facebook and rival network Twitter Inc have rolled out new policies as they brace for a complicated and possibly chaotic election night, in which results may be unclear or delayed. Both companies updated their rules in recent days, a sign that they are still finetuning their strategies less than a month before election day.
Any delay in the official declaration of winners on the night of November 3 is likely to cause confusion for voters — and could provide an opportunity for people, including the candidates themselves, to spread incomplete or inaccurate information online. Some watchers worry that a lack of clear answers or conflicting information about voting outcomes could lead to riots or protests. Others have warned about possible intimidation at polling places, or that misinformation about how or when to vote could mean people do not vote at all.
Facebook has added restrictions to political advertising, including blocking new campaign ads starting a week before election day. This week, the company said it would suspend political ads entirely after the polls close, a policy Google also announced. Facebook’s goal is to prevent candidates from promoting misleading claims via ads in the hours before or after the vote — a possibility because Facebook doesn’t factcheck political ads.
The social network will label posts from candidates that claim victory prematurely, and forbid ads that do the same, linking users to a Voting Information Centre that will include updated results compiled by Reuters. It will also add links to posts if a candidate tries to undermine election results, suggesting they are rigged, for example — TCA/ Bloomberg News