Facebook is banning spreading false selective information about voting requirements and will also “ fact - substantiation simulated report of violence or long descent at polling stations ” as part of its preparations for the 2018 midterm elections , Reuters report on Monday .
Facebook ’s general insurance is not to delete fake or misleading selective information disseminate on the weapons platform per se — loathe toinvite partisan outrageand generally hesitant to ban content that stopsshort of incitementoutright , it ’s used methods likeremoving pagesit deems spammy or engaging in “ coordinated inauthentic behavior . ” It also uses fact - checkers ( albeit ace who often allege they areoverburdened and under - supported ) andmachine learningto demote fallacious or misleading military post as well as the pages that overspread them in news provender .
However , Facebook has made a gravid show of how much it care about elections after the bastard news debacle in 2016 , whichreally screwed all of us over . Reuters wrote the determination to ban lying about vote confinement outright is being ordain under pressure from Congress :
The ban on false information about voting methods , set to be announce later on Monday , comes six weeks after Senator Ron Wyden asked Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg how Facebook would foresee post aimed at subdue votes , such as by telling sure drug user they could vote by schoolbook , a hoax that has been used to slim down output in the past tense .
The entropy on voting methods becomes one of the few areas in which untruth are prohibited on Facebook , a policy enforce by what the companionship calls “ community of interests banner ” moderator , although lotion of its standards has been uneven . It will not stop the vast absolute majority of untruthful posts about candidates or other election issue .
As Reuters mention , spreading prevarication about when and where to vote is already banish by Facebook . CNBC reportedthat the changes broaden that ban to admit “ posts about overdone designation prerequisite , ” though it does not appear that lie or lead astray statement about condition at the polling places themselves will face anything more onerous than the stock fact - checking procedure .
The alteration also does not extend to generalized propaganda and misinformation about the elections .
“ We do n’t believe we should remove things from Facebook that are share by unquestionable people if they do n’t violate those community of interests standards , even if they are false , ” Tessa Lyons , a Facebook Cartesian product manager , recount Reuters .
According to Bloomberg , additional method Facebook is opening “ lineal line of business of communication with the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors , ” as well as let substance abuser “ directly report instances of voter suppression when they see a post in their news feeds . ”
Reuters write that Facebook ’s cybersecurity insurance chief , Nathaniel Gleicher , also disclosed that the companionship had considered ostracise all hacked fabric — something with obvious branching for materialleaked by whistleblowersorpassed on to journalist — while other source said it had briefly mull banning all political ads . Neither of those steps were taken .
It ’s debatable whether any of this will work on . Facebook has long stated it takes the issue seriously , but the measure it does have in place have beennowhere near enoughtostop the spreadof dust , phony , and hoax content on the situation . Nor is this problem unique to Facebook : Massive tech platforms in cosmopolitan likeTwitterandGoogleare similarly struggling torein in the beastthey’ve unleashed , and it for certain does n’t help that they ’d prefer tolimit their responsibilityfor what drop dead on via their platforms in the first place . In any case , Facebook wants everyone to know it ’s at least trying to do something before they needs start yelling at it again .
[ Reuters ]
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