Is Facebook really ready for the 2020 election?
Ever since Russian agents and other opportunists abused its platform in an attempt to manipulate the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Facebook has insisted — repeatedly — that it's learned its lesson and is no longer a conduit for misinformation, voter suppression and election disruption.
But it has been a long and halting journey for the social network. Critical outsiders, as well as some of Facebook's own employees, say the company's efforts to revise its rules and tighten its safeguards remain wholly insufficient to the task, despite it having spent billions on the project. As for why, they point to the company's persistent unwillingness to act decisively over much of that time.
“Am I concerned about the election? I'm terrified,” said Roger McNamee, a Sili con Valley venture capitalist and an early Facebook investor turned vocal critic. “At the company's current scale, it's a clear and present danger to democracy and national security.”
The company's rhetoric has certainly gotten an update. CEO Mark Zuckerberg now casually references possible outcomes that were unimaginable in 2016 — among them, possible civil unrest and potentially a disputed election that Facebook could easily make even worse — as challenges the platform now faces.
“This election is not going t o b e b u s i n e s s a s u s u a l , ”
Z u c k e r b e r g w r o t e i n a September Facebook post in which he outlined Facebook's efforts to encourage voting and remove misinformation from its service. “We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy.”
Ye t f o r y e a r s F a c e b o o k executives have seemed to be caught off guard whenever their platform — created to connect the world — was used for malicious purposes. Zuckerberg has offered multiple apologies over the years, as if no one could have pred i c t e d t h a t p e o p l e woul d use Facebook to live-stream murders and suicides, incite ethnic cleansings, promote fake cancer cures or attempt to steal elections.
While other platforms like Twitter and YouTube have also struggled to address misinformation and hateful content, Facebook stands apart for its reach and scale and, compared to many other platforms, its slower response to the challenges identified in 2016.
In the immediate aftermath of President Donald Trump's election, Zuckerberg offered a remarkably tone-deaf quip regarding the notion that “fake news” spread on Facebook could have influenced the 2016 election, calling it “a pretty crazy idea.” A week later, he walked back the comment.
Since then, Facebook has issued a stream of mea culpas for its slowness to act against threats to the 2016 election and promised to do better. “I don't think they have become better at listening,” said David Kirkpatrick, author of a book on Facebook's rise. “What's changed is more people have been telling them they need to do something.”
The c o mpany h a s h i r e d outside fact-checkers, added r e s t r i c t i o n s — t h e n more r estricti ons — on politi cal a dvert i s e ments a nd t a ken down thousands of accounts, pages and groups i t f ound to be engaging i n “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” That's Facebook's term for fake accounts and groups that maliciously target political discourse in countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe.
It's also started added warning labels to posts that contain misinformation about voting and has, at times, taken steps to limit the circulation of misleading posts. In recent weeks the platform also banned posts that deny the Holocaust and joined Twitter in limiting the spread of an unverified political story about Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, published b y t h e c o n s e r v a t i v e New York Post.