Facebook obviously does not want a repeat of what happened during the U.S. presidential elections. It has been taking steps in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections to ensure that the spread of misinformation on its platform can be prevented. The company has said that it’s going to ban all misinformation related to voting ahead of the upcoming elections.
The misinformation that it’s going to take off from the platform includes false information about voting requirements. It’s also going to fact check reports about violence or long lines at polling stations. The company says that this will reduce voter manipulation on the social network.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s cybersecurity policy chief, is among the company executives who confirmed this new policy to Reuters. The idea is to ban false information about voting methods to prevent the election process from being influenced.
The report about violence and long lines at polling stations will be referred to fact checkers. If they mark the reports as false then they will not be removed from Facebook. It will be up to the fact checkers to recommend whether or not a post about violence and long lines at polling stations should be removed or not.
The report mentions that Facebook has even considered drastic measures such as banning all political ads which account for less than five percent of its revenue. The idea was rejected because project managers didn’t like leaving advertising dollars on the table while policy staffers felt that blocking political ads would favor the incumbents and wealthy campaigners who have bigger war chests for print and TV ads.
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