Facebook has been under fire for years for its role in spreading misleading political information. On Monday, the company announced new plans to help safeguard the 2020 election. Among them:
- Letting campaigns enroll their workers in the Facebook Protect security program, which will require two-factor authentication and watch their accounts for hacking attempts.
- Labeling “state-controlled media” organizations that are under the control of their governments, starting in November. Publicly funded but editorially independent media organizations won’t get specially labelled.
- More prominently flagging content on Facebook and Instagram that has been labeled as false by independent fact checkers.
- Removing false information about when and how to vote, like posting incorrect voting days, or threatening violence related to elections.
- Providing more information about organizations affiliated with Facebook pages and political spending, including sharing how much presidential candidates are spending, highlighting geographical patterns in advertising, and showing which Facebook platforms ran which ads.
- Continuing to crack down on what Facebook calls “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” where multiple pages or accounts work together to spread information under assumed names to make it look like real people are sharing certain beliefs.
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