Facebook Preparing To Handle Misinformation If Trump Casts Doubt On Election Results, Report Says

Already working to stem the tide of lies in the lead up to November, Facebook is also preparing to handle misinformation in the wake of the election, according to a New York Times report. The social media giant is working on a plan should President Donald Trump cast doubt on or try to actively interfere with the election, the Times said.

Sources close to the situation told the outlet that employees at Facebook are actively developing plans to handle a number of different scenarios. This primarily includes attempts by the Trump campaign to use Facebook’s platform to falsely claim that the president won reelection, or to claim that the Postal Service lost a large quantity of mail-in ballots.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to be involved with daily meetings to discuss the matter. Another possibility discussed has been a sort of “kill switch” to deactivate all political advertising on Facebook around Election Day. Because Facebook does not fact check political ads, many conservative entities have abused the platform’s advertising system to spread misinformation.

Since the revelation that Russia used online platforms to spread misinformation and support Trump’s candidacy in 2016, platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook have been working to prevent a repeat of that scenario. The 2020 election is said to prevent new challenges for tech companies, as domestic sources of misinformation, including QAnon conspiracy theorists and the president himself, have become increasingly widespread.

While other platforms have recently begun taking Trump and his supporters to task for their lies, Facebook has attempted to remain neutral. Zuckerberg does not want his company to be “the arbiters of truth,” he has said. Despite claims by conservatives that social media is biased against them, Facebook has been accused of preventing right-wing entities from being punished for spreading misinformation.