Facebook: a new option lets you hide political messages 1

Facebook: a new option lets you hide political messages

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The presidential elections are approaching and the outgoing candidate Donald Trump will face his opponent Joe Biden. It is a very important election for the US as well as for Facebook. The social network was criticized a lot in 2016, but it intends to make up for this. For this, on Facebook Will fully embrace American politics for a few months.

The Palo Alto firm did indeed announce a wide information campaign to help users vote next November. It was Mark Zuckerberg himself who announced this in an article published in the USA Today newspaper.

Provide information about voting

The CEO states: information cards will be published In the Facebook or Instagram news feeds of users living in the United States. These cards will notify you of the voting date (you never know) but will also provide other important information.

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So users will be able to control it. if they are registered on the voter lists with one click. They will also be able to see where vote-by-mail centers are or get information about voting. Mark Zuckerberg says he can raise awareness among 160 million American users with this information. The goal is to persuade at least 4 million hesitant people to go to the polls. A campaign run by local governments.

“We invite people to vote. Voting is synonymous with choice. It is the strongest expression of democracy (…). I believe that Facebook has a responsibility not only to abstain from voting that concerns people of color, but also to provide information to voters. »

Delete ad campaigns

Moreover, Facebook announced that it is offering this opportunity to users removal of all political ads By checking a box in the options (on Facebook or Instagram), it will be possible to disable these posts paid for by organizations identified as political.

If you choose to opt out, you will be shown a notification that the ad has been purchased. By an organization with political aims, To be as transparent as possible:

“We have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the game. In 2016, we were slow to detect foreign interference on our platform. Since then, we have designed the world’s strongest systems to protect against this type of manipulation (…). We have learned from this experience and have protected more than 200 elections around the world. »

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Facebook is walking on eggshells

Facebook knows there is no room for error at this decisive moment. In 2015, a data leak of 87 million users allowed some political parties to take advantage of the social network, namely the Cambridge Analytica incident.

Some parties, especially in England and the United States, later sent it. Aggressive and highly politically oriented ads. The misleading messages, which have been appearing in users’ news feeds for months, could have helped change the course of the election, with some experts even claiming that the operation contributed to Brexit and Donald Trump’s victory in 2016.

Since then, Facebook has been targeted by the American government; Mark Zuckerberg was even questioned in front of Congress. His company no longer has the right to make the same mistake. To fix this, Facebook will use:all possible precautions. For example, it recently announced that government-owned media would be flagged as biased.

Encouraging beginnings, promising a peaceful election. But Facebook will have to do it. Confronting the creativity of political parties Who will do absolutely anything to get around these new rules.

Source : USA Today