Facebook is looking to avoid misinformation about US elections by adding official information about voting to related posts. More directly, recent reports indicate that the company will add label-style links to the posts. The news was confirmed by Facebook VP of Integrity Guy Rosen via Twitter. The links in question will take users to official pages informing them of facts about the 2020 US elections, in line with Facebook efforts to build out its „Voting Information Center.”
Posts about absentee voting or mail-in ballots, for instance, will link to a government website on the matter. The end-goal, of course, is to ensure that votes aren’t suppressed and to reduce potential voter manipulation. And that’s going to apply not just to the general populace. The executive notes that it will explicitly apply to federal candidates and elected officials too.
So politicians and constituents alike will see the labels appear in Facebook apps and online. Twitter, for example, recently flagged a tweet from US President Donald Trump for spreading misleading information about mail-in ballots. But Facebook, at the time, gave the president a free pass on the same subject matter. Now, Facebook is marking even posts from the President.
To prevent any bias, the labels will be added to all posts on the topics, rather than just to those that are potentially misleading.
Other Facebook tactics are helping tackle its US voting-related problems too
Facebook is taking things much further with regard to information about voting this year too. In June, insiders suggested that the company would go so far as to block political ads entirely on the platform. At the very least, that would be for the 2020 presidential election. Later in the month, it was revealed that users could turn off political ads.
The measure likely doesn’t go as far as many would like, but it is a start. And that’s arguably better than nothing, with consideration for the many controversies the company has been and is still embroiled in.
This feature is already rolling out
Facebook says that it started rolling out its new voting-related labels and links as of July 16. So users across the board should already be seeing those. It’s not immediately clear whether or not that will be enough to curb the spread of misinformation spread on the world’s biggest social media platform.
We’re rolling out labels that link to official info about the 2020 US elections on posts about voting from federal candidates and elected officials, while we work to build our Voting Information Center and add labels to all posts about voting. More here: https://t.co/yQtri6pBlZ pic.twitter.com/P0hlXZRrzv
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) July 16, 2020
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Source: ndroidheadlines.com