With only two months to go until the US presidential election, Facebook says it is taking more steps to encourage voting, minimize misinformation and reduce the likelihood of post-election “civil unrest”.
The company said Thursday that it will restrict new political ads in the week before the election and remove posts that convey misinformation about COVID-19 and voting. You will also attach links to official results to candidate posts and campaigns declaring premature victories.
With the nation divided and election results that could take days or weeks to complete, there could be a “higher risk of civil unrest across the country,” Zuckerberg said.
In July, Trump refused to publicly commit to accepting upcoming election results, while poking fun at polls that showed him lagging behind Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump has also made false claims that the increased use of vote-by-mail due to the coronavirus pandemic allows for voter fraud. That has raised concerns about the willingness of Trump and his supporters to comply with the election results.
Under the new measures, Facebook says it will ban politicians and campaigns from posting new election ads in the week before the election. However, they can still run existing ads and change the way they are targeted.
Posts with obvious misinformation about voting policies and the coronavirus pandemic will also be removed. Users can only forward articles to up to five other people on Messenger, Facebook’s messaging app. The company will also work with Reuters to provide the official election results and make the information available both on its platform and with automatic notifications.
After being caught off guard by Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Facebook, Google, Twitter and other companies put security measures in place to prevent it from happening again. That includes eliminating posts, groups and accounts that engage in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” and strengthening verification procedures for political ads. Last year, Twitter completely banned political ads.
Facebook had previously been criticized for its advertising policy, which cited free speech as the reason for allowing politicians like Trump to post false information about the vote.
