Facebook is preparing to launch an election integrity effort to avoid online meddling in the upcoming Canadian elections of 2019.
There are many reports that elements using the world's largest social media platform managed to influence the outcomes of the US presidential elections of 2016. Many of these allegations point to actors operating out of Russia, and Facebook has already begun purging accounts which it believes are involved in this phenomenon. The election integrity effort will most likely try and reduce divisive and sometimes factually incorrect posts, groups, and ads on hot topics such as race and immigration.
It seems Facebook is trying to avoid voters from being swayed by misinformation.The Canadian minister of democratic institutions will speak at a Facebook event next week to launch the new election protection measures.
There are warnings from Canada's spy agencies that there are hackers who want to influence the result of the Canadian election, and it wants to ensure that there are new cyber measures in place to stop this from happening, hence the agencies are advising various political parties on how to deal with these types of threats.
Facebook is not the only company which has been accused of not doing enough, and even profiting from, the spread of fake news over recent years, with Twitter and Google also finding themselves under the spotlight. However, Facebook appears to have taken these criticisms seriously by deploying a number of new features which might assist people in making sure they are well informed.
Hopefully, enough details will emerge as to what exactly these online election protection measures are, as undoubtedly some people and critics might be concerned about this kind of effort becoming a form of censorship.
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