How Facebook and Instagram fight disinformation ahead of the US elections

In order not to repeat the mistakes made in 2016 with the next US presidential elections, MArk Zuckerberg's social media has launched its tight control campaign as announced in recent months

(Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images) After the squeeze by the US and European authorities in recent weeks on Facebook's monopoly position in the world of social networks, the platform, in the past ended up at the center of numerous controversies for the dissemination of posts and advertisements that would have influenced the electoral campaign of the American presidential elections in 2016, he decided to strengthen his commitment to counter new possible interference on the vote expected in the United States for next November 3.

In the past few hours, the vice president of Facebook for communication and global affairs, Nick Clegg, announced that 2.2 million ads on Facebook have already been rejected and Instagram, and more than 120,000 posts have been removed that would have tried to "obstruct the vote".

In the effort put in place to prevent the scenarios seen in the election of Donald Trump from being repeated, with Russian interference, or those on Brexit, Facebook says it has fielded over 35 thousand employees employed to ensure the security of the platform. In addition, over 70 collaborations with different media have also been activated for information control and these centers will collaborate with the Voting Information Center that the Menlo Park company created in 2018.

Such a deployment of forces is also in line with what Nick Clegg himself announced about a month ago in an interview with the Financial Times, when he declared that the company was ready to implement "measures extraordinary "precisely to block possible unrest and interference by foreign countries during the electoral campaign and this year's elections.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced in early September that the company could go so far as to ban electoral advertisements even during the week before the vote, also eliminating posts inviting to boycott the vote.

And the commitment to counteract the spread of false news and election advertising it is destined to continue even after election day. The social network has in fact announced its intention to impose a temporary block on all political advertisements relating to the results of the elections to prevent confusion on the news.