(Menlo Park, CA, Thursday, September 3, 2020) – Today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new steps Facebook will take to help secure the integrity of the US elections by encouraging voting, connecting people to authoritative information and reducing the risks of post-election confusion. Understanding there are concerns about voting during a pandemic, as well as deep political divides, these additional actions aim to provide everyone with accurate information, and continue efforts to ensure everyone can vote safely and securely.
New steps Facebook is taking:
- Facebook won’t accept new political ads in the week before the election.
- Facebook will remove posts that claim people will get Covid-19 if they take part in voting, and they will attach a link to authoritative information about the coronavirus to posts that might use Covid-19 to discourage voting.
- Facebook will attach an informational label to content that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of the election or discuss the legitimacy of voting methods, for example, by claiming that lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud.
- If any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the final results are in, Facebook will add a label to their posts directing people to the official results from Reuters and the National Election Pool.
Previous efforts to support voter participation continue. In just three days last month, the company drove close to 24 million clicks to voter registration websites. And later this month, Facebook will run a national drive to recruit poll workers and provide ad credits to election officials so they can run ads to recruit poll workers where they are most needed.
You can find additional information in Mark’s post here or in Facebook’s newsroom post.