In what it is calling election “safeguards” ahead of the 2022 midterms, Facebook will not allow editing of ads related to political, electoral, and social issues approved to run in the week of the midterm elections.
In a press release, the company’s Global Affairs President Nick Clegg said that the platform is one of the most popular ways of spreading news and that is why it needs to “protect elections online.”
“Meta invests a huge amount to protect elections online — not just during election periods but at all times. We spent approximately $5 billion on safety and security last year alone, and have hundreds of people dedicated to this work permanently embedded across more than 40 teams. With each major election around the world — including national elections this year in France and the Philippines — we incorporate the lessons we learn to help stay ahead of emerging threats,” the press release said.
Other measures the platform will take include removing content encouraging people not to vote, questioning the legitimacy of the elections, and “misinformation about the dates, locations, times, and methods of voting; misinformation about who can vote, whether a vote will be counted, and qualifications for voting; and calls for violence related to voting, voter registration, or the administration or outcome of an election.”
The company also took the opportunity to boast about the content it has censored for containing “hate.”
“Our teams fight both foreign interference and domestic influence operations, and have exposed and disrupted dozens of networks that have attempted to interfere with US elections. We’ve banned more than 270 white supremacist organizations and removed 2.5 million pieces of content tied to organized hate globally on Facebook in the first quarter of 2022. Of the content we removed, nearly 97% of it was found by our systems before someone reported it,” it said.
