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Social Networks Communications Facebook Network The Internet United States Politics

Facebook To Ban Misinformation On Voting In Upcoming US Elections (reuters.com) 245

"Facebook will ban false information about voting requirements and fake reports of violence or long lines at polling stations in the run-up to and during next month's U.S. midterm elections," reports Reuters. The latest efforts are to reduce voter manipulation across its platform. From the report: The world's largest online social network, with 1.5 billion daily users, has stopped short of banning all false or misleading posts, something that Facebook has shied away from as it would likely increase its expenses and leave it open to charges of censorship. The ban on false information about voting methods, set to be announced later on Monday, comes six weeks after Senator Ron Wyden asked Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg how Facebook would counter posts aimed at suppressing votes, such as by telling certain users they could vote by text, a hoax that has been used to reduce turnout in the past.

The information on voting methods becomes one of the few areas in which falsehoods are prohibited on Facebook, a policy enforced by what the company calls "community standards" moderators, although application of its standards has been uneven. It will not stop the vast majority of untruthful posts about candidates or other election issues.

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Facebook To Ban Misinformation On Voting In Upcoming US Elections

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  • How about just banning ALL posts about such information, right or wrong. Allow users to point to reliable sources of such information (say the state or county's website), but just don't let anything stay that hints at what the rules are..

    So... A "Remember to get registered before it is too late!" (with a pointer to the local county's elections page) is Great, but "It's too late to register after the 9th!" is not.

    "You can vote starting TODAY!" is NOT OK, but "Check out when and where you can vote!" (With

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • oh, wait, sorry, that was fake.

    meanwhile, real states allow you to register to vote in person even up to election day, and to vote in person if you didn't get a ballot yet, and use paper ballots and vote by mail.

  • It seems to me that if people haven't left Facebook already, they certainly aren't going to leave it because Facebook cleans up some of the trash.

    What users are going to leave en masse because Facebook doesn't show them legitimately false information? This entire argument is entirely in the ether.

    I can only fathom this really comes down to them not wanting to open the "moderating" can of worms by actually trying to be responsible. Its expensive to care.

    --
    “People don’t care about what you say

    • The thing that confuses me about the whole debate is that I simply cannot see anything put up on Facebook impacting anyone. There's no way any post from anyone of any political bent will impact the political leanings of anyone else on Facebook.

      Similarly fake news about voting is not going to impact anyone actually going to vote. Why would anyone be checking Facebook anyway for polling status? I would be looking at my county website for polling information and probably just pick the closest one. Even if

      • Similarly fake news about voting is not going to impact anyone actually going to vote.

        Actually, this is a well-known effect, and many people, myself included, wish that the national media would just shut the fuck up about election results from the East coast until the Hawaii polls close. Boo hoo if people can't hear how the Florida vote turned out within five hours of the polls closing. We used to have a country where nobody knew the answer until after the middle of December when the Electoral College finally met, and after the Pony Express carried the newspapers west.

        Yes, people in the wes

      • Similarly fake news about voting is not going to impact anyone actually going to vote. Why would anyone be checking Facebook anyway for polling status?

        I see you've gone smoothly from "it's not fake" above to "it doesn't matter" to "no one reads it anyway". Gotta stop those "liberal fascists" (your words from earlier in the thread) getting in at any cost, eh?

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday October 15, 2018 @04:47PM (#57482480)

    Ban politics from Facebook. Totally.

    • The Founders originally wanted to ban political parties altogether, but could not work out a way to do it that didn't stomp on freedom of speech and freedom of association.

  • Facebook basically already bans your political posts. I imagine you have probably noticed that you see fewer of them lately. Your political posts are being served to a few select, like minded friends, just to make you think they are not censuring you, but that's it. Basically almost no one is seeing your political posts anymore.

  • by liquid_schwartz ( 530085 ) on Monday October 15, 2018 @05:07PM (#57482596)
    I hope that the conflation of illegal immigrant vs legal immigrant data gets policed. That debate has seen enough falsely trying to characterize illegals, who largely are bad news almost regardless of metric, with legal ones, who are largely good along most metrics.
  • by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Monday October 15, 2018 @05:17PM (#57482664)

    such as by telling certain users they could vote by text, a hoax that has been used to reduce turnout in the past.
    Someone who would fall for that is someone I probably wouldn't want voting in the first place. Voting via text is so insecure on so many levels it boggles the mind.

    • For someone who doesn't understand the technology, text messaging is no different than any other online channel.

  • by DallasTruaxxx ( 4880195 ) on Monday October 15, 2018 @05:17PM (#57482674)
    “When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings. No more lies, no more 'shadow banning' no more pretense. Facebook is showing their true colors. Now that people have seen the kind of values that Facebook demonstrates, they can make their own choices to continue to associate on the Facebook platform, or not.
  • by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Monday October 15, 2018 @05:33PM (#57482782)

    But not all misinformation, only that which steers people away from their own political views.

  • "Talking about politics? That's a banning.
    Lookin' to share political content? That's a banning.
    Staring at funny political meams? That's a banning.
    Linking to past political facts? Oh, you better believe that's a banning.

    No freedom of speech on social media.
    No account after speech on social media.
    • How many times do you need to be told that a private entity is not obligated in any way to provide you with a platform?

      You can drop that nonsense now.

  • Facebook will ban false information

    So, FB are trying to be the Ministry of (Current) Truth. I would fully support the ban on lying — if only a way to reliably distinguish truth from lies (outside Mathematics) could be devised even in theory.

  • Would be to ban ALL negative advertising on candidates period.

    It is bad enough the ads for âoe How amazing I am and I approve this message âoe , but the negative attack ads probably outnumber them three to one.

    Hell, one is playing as I type this and hitting the mute button the moment one starts has become second nature now.

    It is amazing our system of voting includes this level of bullshit. After a few decades of this and nothing ever changing ( in the grand scheme of things ) is it any wonder why

  • If someone is going to believe they can vote by sending a text message to some random phone number because they saw a post on Facebook saying so... ... Do we really want that person voting?

  • And replace the site with instructions to get to the closest voting booth.
  • Facebook is an abomination ... yet it's difficult to avoid it.

    E.g. a local institution had a disaster happen to their building, days ago. Their Facebook page had immediate photos, videos, information. Their web page, as of last night, no change.

    It's unbelievable how many businesses and orgs consider their Facebook their "real" presence, and their website (if they even bother with one) as their redheaded stepchild.

    So I would suggest "avoid it completely" but sometimes you can't ...

  • I once read a review of a book about a visit to Florida. The part that caught my attention, and that I remember, was:

    "Reading this book will do more to deter the reader from visiting Florida than anything except an actual visit to Florida".

    Facebook is getting just like that.

  • We'll just ban misinformation and misunderstandings! Peace and harmony will follow!

    Why didn't I think of that??

"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell

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