Facebook task force for 2019

Facing the uphill task of tackling election-related interference on its platform, as India gets ready for general elections next year, Facebook yesterday said it was establishing a task force comprising “hundreds of people” in India to prevent bad actors from abusing its platform.

“With the 2019 elections coming, we are pulling together a group of specialists to work together with political parties,” Richard Allan, vice-president of Policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa said yesterday.

“The team will have security specialists and content specialists, among others, who will try to understand all the possible forms of election-related abuse in India,” added Allan during a workshop on Facebook’s “community standards” in the capital. “The challenge for the task force in India would be to distinguish between real political news and political propaganda,” Allan noted.

Facebook came under intense scrutiny in the United States, following allegations of Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential poll.