Here's how Facebook wants to push Americans to vote in the presidential election

The social network creates a voting information center to help Americans register for the polls. Users will be able to hide unwanted political announcements Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) In view of the US presidential election in November, Facebook has created the Voting Information Center within its social network thanks to which users will be able to obtain information on how to vote and manage how the platform will show them the advertisements of parties and candidates.

According to The Verge, the decision to grant users the power to hide unwanted political announcements could have the undesirable effect of fueling the disinformation that revolves around candidates for the presidential office.



"Everyone expects politicians to respond to what they say," writes Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, in his editorial published on Usa Today in which he announces the news related to the vote. But according to the patron of Menlo Parka, the solution is not to hide or moderate content, a not too veiled response to Twitter's move against some posts by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. "Responsibility only works if we can see what those who are looking for our vote say, even if we do not like it viscerally."

For this reason, voters will be able to continue reporting when an announcement or post sponsored by a politician violates the rules of the platform, but this will not be removed. To avoid encountering unwanted content, users can decide to hide the political announcements of a certain candidate so as not to see them anymore.

information Center voting

The information Center of the vote, that Menlo Park describes itself as the “ largest effort of information on voting in the history of the United States “ will keep its users informed about everything regarding the presidential election: methods of voting, methods of recording, location of seats, dates, details on voting by mail . Users can also enable alerts so that they will remind you to go to the polling station.

Mark Zuckerberg explains that the desire for his company is to help 4 million americans to register to vote (compared to 2 million helped in 2016) because the vote is the most powerful expression of democracy ”. Zuckerberg predicts that “ over 160 million people in the United States will see on Facebook authoritative information on how to vote in general elections ”.