Ahead of the 2020 US Presidential Election, Facebook has announced its plan of ensuring that its platform is not used for political and democratic interference around the globe.
The social media platform made the announcement yesterday while outlining its efforts to clamp down on misinformation, which include a special security tool for elected officials and candidates that will monitor their accounts for attempted hacks such as login attempts from unusual locations or unverified sources.
It also stated that it would invest the sum of $2 million in a media literacy program.
Facebook disclosed that it had gotten rid of four networks of fake, state-backed misinformation-spreading accounts based in Iran and Russia. It was discovered that these networks’ sole purpose was election disruption in the US, North Africa, and Latin America. The company has in the past year taken down 50 such clusters of accounts.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that elections had changed since 2016 and facebook had too. The company had been found wanting after it had been used to spread fake information, manipulate voters, and meddle with the democratic process during the 2016 election.
Still speaking on its efforts to make sure that history did not repeat itself, facebook revealed that it would add more prominent labels on debunked posts on its platform as well as on Instagram, putting labels on “false” and “partly false” photos and videos.
