Facebook Is Prepping Itself For Trump Lying About Election Results
Remember the whole Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data breach back in early 2018 whereby millions of Facebook users’ personal data was harvested without consent by Cambridge Analytica to be used for political advertising? Yeah, Facebook really wants to avoid being used as a tool when it comes to political propaganda.
The company has come under intense scrutiny recently for refusing to put checks on political speech but if reports are to be believed, Facebook is now preparing for what would normally be an unthinkable scenario: The president of the US interfering with election results.
According to a report by The New York Times, the social media platform is working behind the scenes in preparation for any sort of political interference from Donald Trump on its platform. Facebook employees are apparently “laying out contingency plans and walking through post election scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimise the results,” the report says.
They are also addressing the possibility that Trump uses the social network to wrongly claim that he’s won another four year term or that the US Postal service screwed up with the mail-in ballots, thus meddling with the votes.
At first glance, you’d think that Facebook may be going overboard but if you take a look at Trump’s track record, it’s hardly surprising that Facebook are reportedly resorting to such measures. The US president has repeatedly made false claims about mail-in ballots and election fraud in the past, and that’s only ramped up with the election fast approaching.
Given that election results likely won’t be official for a few days after polls close at the very least, experts have warned that false comments could lead to a nightmare scenario on election day. This isn’t the first we’re hearing of Facebook prepping for such scenarios, with executives at the company previously hinting that they’ll be ready should something like this happen.