Facebook will only implement such measures in a critical situation.
Washington:
The American tech giant Facebook may introduce emergency measures to regulate viral content in the event of election-related conflicts and unrest in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing knowledgeable sources.
According to the media, citing sources, Facebook intends to calm any violence with tools specially developed for so-called at-risk countries.
“We have spent years building safer and more secure elections. … We applied the lessons of the previous elections, hired experts and built new teams with experience in different fields to prepare for various scenarios, ”Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said as quoted by the newspaper.
The tools, which Facebook plans to roll out, were previously designed for “at risk” countries and have already been used in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. They help slow the spread of viral content and lower the threshold for identifying potentially inflammatory posts.
Facebook will only implement such measures when there is a critical situation that could lead to election-related violence, the newspaper wrote, noting that if the company decides to use these tools, they will transform the information that millions of people ‘Americans are getting.
The Wall Street Journal added that the plan had been criticized by some members of the Facebook team and representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, who believe that the implementation of content regulation measures will hamper political debate.
The US presidential election, in which Trump faces Democratic candidate Joe Biden, is scheduled for November 3. Advance voting has already started in some states.
