Facebook devises a plan if Trump does not accept defeat in the elections

The social network considers blocking all advertisements of a political nature after the November 3 vote to avoid disinformation on the net

(Photo by Arun Sharma / Hindustan Times via Getty Images) An emergency switch to block the political advertisements in the United States after the election day: it would be one of the hypotheses under consideration by Facebook to address the disinformation campaigns after the presidential elections. According to rumors gathered by the New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg's team of experts has already foreshadowed 80 critical scenarios for the period prior to November 3. But the real focus would now be on the post-election period: following the recent statements by Donald Trump, the hypothesis has arisen that the president himself may try to use the platform to delegitimize the result of the vote. How to manage it then?

Mindful of the Russian interference of 2016, in Menlo Park they prepared first of all measures for the "before": a leak of documents favored by hackers led by foreign state organizations, or a disinformation campaign by part of a foreign nation to discourage voting at the last moment. One hypothesis is to mark these posts with the "state media" brand, while between March and July 110,000 content contrary to election policies has already been removed. The platform recently eliminated 790 groups, 100 pages, and 1,500 ads linked to the Qanon conspiracy theory.

From a post-electoral perspective, however, the recent statements of Trump, who opened the republican convention in Charlotte, declaring that the Democrats can only win with fraud. He had previously questioned the proper conduct of the Democratic primary in New York and the legitimacy of postal votes. One case, the latter on which Twitter intervened, limiting the interactions of the presidential tweet.