With just two months left until the
The company said Thursday it will restrict new political ads in the week before the election and remove posts that convey misinformation about COVID-19 and voting. It also will attach links to official results to posts from candidates and campaigns declaring premature victories.
“This election is not going to be business as usual. We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy,” Facebook CEO
Facebook and other social media companies are being scrutinized over how they handle misinformation, given issues with President
With the nation divided, and election results potentially taking days or weeks to be finalized, there could be an “increased risk of civil unrest across the country," Zuckerberg said.
In July, Trump refused to publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming election, as he scoffed at polls that showed him lagging behind rival candidate
Under the new measures,
Posts with obvious misinformation on voting policies and the coronavirus pandemic will also be removed. Users can only forward articles to a maximum of five others on Messenger, Facebook’s messaging app. The company also will work with Reuters to provide official election results and make the information available both on its platform and with push notifications.
After getting caught off-guard by Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election,
Zuckerberg said
“Just this week, we took down a network of 13 accounts and two pages that were trying to mislead Americans and amplify division,” he said.
But experts and Facebook’s own employees say the measures are not enough to stop the spread of misinformation –- including from politicians and in the form of edited videos.
Facebook had previously drawn criticism for its ads policy that cited freedom of expression as the reason for letting politicians like Trump post false information about voting.
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