Tech firm, Facebook, said it has rejected a total of 2.2m ads on its platforms and removed over 120,000 posts for attempting to “influence voting” in the upcoming US presidential election according to a statement by it’s vice president of global affairs and communications, Nick Clegg.
In addition, 150 million examples of false information have been posted on the internet, Clegg told reporters.
Facebook had faced stiff criticisms for allowing politicians to lie in ads (until election night), and has been accused of overruling fact checkers to appease politicians and their supporters.
These new steps are taken, Facebook said, to forestall a repeat of similar incidents where Facebook was used by Russian agents to influence the US election in 2016.
There were similar problems ahead of Britain’s 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union.
“Thirty-five thousand employees take care of the security of our platforms and contribute for elections,” said Clegg, who is vice president of global affairs and communications at Facebook.
“We have established partnerships with 70 specialised media, including five in France, on the verification of information”, he added. AFP is one of those partners.
Clegg added that the company also uses artificial intelligence that has “made it possible to delete billions of posts and fake accounts, even before they are reported by users”.
Facebook also stores all advertisements and information on their funding and provenance for seven years “to ensure transparency,” he said.
President Trump on Wednesday blamed Facebook and Twitter for blocking links to a New York Post article suggesting that corrupt deals were exposed by election rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.
A day earlier, Facebook announced a ban on ads that discourage people from being vaccinated, in light of the coronavirus the pandemic that, according to the social media giant, emphasized “the importance of preventive behavior in health”.
