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from the why-wait-until-AFTER-the-election? dept.
Facebook Braces Itself for Trump to Cast Doubt on Election Results:
Facebook spent years preparing to ward off any tampering on its site ahead of November's presidential election. Now the social network is getting ready in case President Trump interferes once the vote is over.
Employees at the Silicon Valley company are laying out contingency plans and walking through postelection scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimize the results, people with knowledge of Facebook's plans said.
Facebook is preparing steps to take should Mr. Trump wrongly claim on the site that he won another four-year term, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Facebook is also working through how it might act if Mr. Trump tries to invalidate the results by declaring that the Postal Service lost mail-in ballots or that other groups meddled with the vote, the people said.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, and some of his lieutenants have started holding daily meetings about minimizing how the platform can be used to dispute the election, the people said. They have discussed a "kill switch" to shut off political advertising after Election Day since the ads, which Facebook does not police for truthfulness, could be used to spread misinformation, the people said.
The preparations underscore how rising concerns over the integrity of the November election have reached social media companies, whose sites can be used to amplify lies, conspiracy theories and inflammatory messages. YouTube and Twitter have also discussed plans for action if the postelection period becomes complicated, according to disinformation and political researchers who have advised the firms.
[...] The preparations underscore how rising concerns over the integrity of the November election have reached social media companies, whose sites can be used to amplify lies, conspiracy theories and inflammatory messages. YouTube and Twitter have also discussed plans for action if the postelection period becomes complicated, according to disinformation and political researchers who have advised the firms.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 25 2020, @01:13PM (2 children)
He is the President of the United States. The holder of that office gets to do all kinds of things you and I don't, like order military strikes, veto legislation, and a whole bunch of other stuff like saying things you don't like.
But I would rather flip what you're saying and assert that Facebook et al. shouldn't be censoring anyone at all, even Trump.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2020, @04:18PM
I think that is how they started.
Then people complained about all the videos of porn, violence, child abuse, etc.
You can't please everyone.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday August 25 2020, @09:42PM
Those power are granted explicitly by the constitution. Where in the constitution does it say that private enterprise must be compelled to provide the president with their platform, with no ability to restrict how that platform is used?
It's possible that there is no way to moderate public officials on private platforms that is not subject to political bias. The solution is that the office of the president should not be delivering its announcements through public networks like Facebook and Twitter, instead relying on government publications being reported on by a free press.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?