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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:36AM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:52PM (1 child)

    by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:52PM (#1041750)

    Except he didn't say that he wouldn't accept the results. He just said that he won't commit to accepting the results before they are in. How is that in any way unreasonable, especially considering that there are plans to make major last minute changes to voting procedures in several states?

    Heh, no, he didn't JUST say that.

    "I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win..."

    Now you're right, he did say that he'd accept a 'clear election result', but CNN reported that so I dunno if you'll believe it. ;) Now I say that teasingly but I do want to point out that he frequently talks out of both sides of his mouth, this is likely intentional so we can wast time with this stupid pedanticism.


    The big news for the last coupla weeks is that the USPS is being deliberately slowed down leading up to the election, something that SHOULD be drawing bipartisan criticism but I guess first we gotta argue about which quote of his is 'canon' before we can get into that. 🙄

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by slinches on Tuesday August 25 2020, @07:42PM

    by slinches (5049) on Tuesday August 25 2020, @07:42PM (#1041766)

    We are likely to have a huge increase in mail-in ballots and I agree that we should try to make sure that the USPS can support that. There should also be universal support for cleaning up the voter rolls prior to mailing out ballots (especially in the states that are switching to universal mail-in for the first time). Although, I don't know that either can really happen before the election in a secure and unbiased way.

    At this point, I think the best way to handle the election is to not change the voting systems in place except to allow those who wish to vote by mail due to covid to do so. That way the postal service isn't unnecessarily burdened with extra ballots that won't be used. It would also make it less likely that those who are unfamiliar with mail-in voting would have their vote invalidated due to not knowing the procedures and requirements. It would also address a lot of the potential for mistaken double voting and/or fraud. On top of that, we should add more polling places to aid in limiting the number of people congregating in lines.

    Since there's every indication that multiple States are making big changes and the USPS was already limited in its capability to handle the ballots before Covid or any cuts, I fully expect this election to be a mess. There's a real possibility that it might not resolved prior to January 20th, which would be a disaster.