Facebook wants millions of people to register to vote for the 2020 US election.
Angela Lang / CNET
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, said late Tuesday that the social network is setting up a new online voter information center to get 4 million people to vote in the 2020 U.S. election.
In a comment published in USA Today, Zuckerberg said the new center would include information on how and when to vote, voter registration, postal voting, and early voting. More than 160 million people in the U.S. will see this new online hub, which appears at the top of the Facebook news feed and on its photo sharing service Instagram. Information from state and local election officials is also displayed in the center.
“The 2020 elections will be different from everyone else. It was already a heated campaign, and that was before the pandemic – and before the murder of George Floyd and so many others who forced us again to face the painful reality People want accountability, and in a democracy we ultimately want it through voting, “said Zuckerberg in the statement. Facebook calls it the “largest election information campaign in American history”.
The campaign shows how Facebook is trying to show that it can be a driving force in elections. The company has been criticized for not doing enough to combat misinformation, including lies by politicians who are exempt from verifying facts on the platform. During the 2016 US presidential election, Russian trolls also used the social network to sow discord among Americans.
Democratic presidential candidate last week Joe Biden asked Facebook to change its mostly straightforward approach to political speech. Biden’s campaign sent a letter to Zuckerberg asking the company to review all political ads on the platform two weeks before they ran and to review election content that went viral. Facebook, which says that the political speech is already under scrutiny, replied that if legislators set new rules for campaign ads, they would follow them.
Facebook also plans to turn off political ads.
“And for those of you who have already decided and just want the elections to be over, we’ll hear you – so we’re also introducing the ability to turn off political ads,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We will still remind you to vote.”
The company has been pushed back by its own employees who raised concerns about President Donald Trump’s posts, which they said could result in violence in protests against police brutality. Facebook’s response was different from Twitter, which obscured a president’s tweet about protests in Minnesota, behind a statement saying it violated the company’s “glorify violence” rules. Facebook found that Trump’s controversial statements, saying that “when the looting begins, the shooting begins” do not violate the rules against inciting violence.
Zuckerberg commented on the company’s approach to the political speech. Voting is the best way to hold politicians accountable.
Facebook helped people register to vote beforehand. In 2016, the company said it more than helped 2 million people Register to vote.
“Everyone wants politicians to be held accountable for what they say – and I know that many people want us to moderate and remove more of their content. We have rules against language that do immediate physical harm or voting oppress and no one is exempt. ” But accountability only works if we can see what those who seek our voices say, even if we viscerally reject what they say, “he said.
Twitter users could still see Trump’s remarks when they clicked the hint, but Facebook doesn’t do the same thing.
Zuckerberg also admitted that the company was slow to stop Russian interference in the 2016 elections, but said it was better prepared this time. Facebook has removed more than 50 malicious account networks last year and 18 networks of accounts this year.
“This work is never finished, but we have learned a lot and adapted our interference protection systems,” he said.