2020 US election: Facebook taking on disinformation
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook on Thursday spotlighted steps it is taking to combat foreign interference and online disinformation in the 2020 US elections.
Measures include better securing the accounts of elected officials, indicating the ownership of political pages, and introducing clearer fact-checking labels, the social media giant said in a statement to investors.
“We have a responsibility to stop abuse and election interference on our platform,” said the text, based on a blog post issued late last month by Facebook’s vice-president of integrity Guy Rosen and other executives.
The stepped-up measures, first announced by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, are the latest effort by Facebook to prevent a repeat of the online disinformation that marred the 2016 US election.
Online activist network Avaaz warned in a report released on Wednesday that a “tsunami” of political disinformation is pounding Facebook users.
An analysis by the NGO of the top 100 debunked news stories about US politics that went viral on Facebook in the 10 months ending October 31 showed that politically tinged false news got more than 158 million views.
TECH BRANDS FOCUS ON UK GENERAL ELECTION
LONDON: As the December 12 UK election looms, Facebook is opening up a war room to quickly respond to election hoaxes. Twitter is banning political ads. Google plans to crack down on bogus videos on YouTube.
Social media platforms say they are mounting a vigorous campaign against misinformation in the build-up. Digital misinformation experts believe British voters remain vulnerable to the same type of misleading ads and phony claims that played a role in the Brexit vote three years ago.