{"id":9329,"date":"2017-09-21T23:37:20","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T23:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/thoughts-on-facebooks-9-plans-to-curb-election-interference.html"},"modified":"2017-09-21T23:37:20","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T23:37:20","slug":"thoughts-on-facebooks-9-plans-to-curb-election-interference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/thoughts-on-facebooks-9-plans-to-curb-election-interference.html","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Facebook\u2019s 9 plans to curb election interference"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Election meddling is Facebook\u2019s next adversary, and it\u2019s got a plan to attack it just like it did with fake news. Solutions to both these scourges come too late to prevent tampering that may have aided Donald Trump winning the presidency \u2014 but at least Facebook is owning up <\/a>to the problem, working with the government and starting to self-regulate. Here\u2019s the nine-point plan<\/a> Zuckerberg has devised to combat election interference, plus our commentary on each strategy\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n

One: Providing Russian-bought ads to Congress<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWe are actively working with the US government on its ongoing investigations into Russian interference. We have been investigating this for many months, and for a while we had found no evidence of fake accounts linked to Russia running ads. When we recently uncovered this activity, we provided that information to the special counsel. We also briefed Congress \u2014 and this morning I directed our team to provide the ads we\u2019ve found to Congress as well. As a general rule, we are limited in what we can discuss publicly about law enforcement investigations, so we may not always be able to share our findings publicly. But we support Congress in deciding how to best use this information to inform the public, and we expect the government to publish its findings when their investigation is complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 Facebook initially shared more information with Special Counsel Robert Mueller than Congress, but after checking to make sure it won\u2019t violate privacy laws, it\u2019s giving the Russian-bought ads to Congress too<\/a>. This could aid their investigation while preventing them from legally extracting the information from Facebook in a messy public ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Two: Continuing Facebook\u2019s own investigation<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWe will continue our investigation into what happened on Facebook in this election. We may find more, and if we do, we will continue to work with the government. We are looking into foreign actors, including additional Russian groups and other former Soviet states, as well as organizations like the campaigns, to further our understanding of how they used our tools. These investigations will take some time, but we will continue our thorough review.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 Facebook\u2019s depth of access to its systems means it could surface evidence of election interference that Mueller or Congress can\u2019t get from just the data Facebook provides. Facebook needs to review not just its advertising systems and fake news in the News Feed, but also use of Events, chat, user profiles, Groups and its other apps like Instagram and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Three: Political ad transparency<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cGoing forward \u2014 and perhaps the most important step we\u2019re taking \u2014 we\u2019re going to make political advertising more transparent. When someone buys political ads on TV or other media, they\u2019re required by law to disclose who paid for them. But you still don\u2019t know if you\u2019re seeing the same messages as everyone else. So we\u2019re going to bring Facebook to an even higher standard of transparency. Not only will you have to disclose which page paid for an ad, but we will also make it so you can visit an advertiser\u2019s page and see the ads they\u2019re currently running to any audience on Facebook. We will roll this out over the coming months, and we will work with others to create a new standard for transparency in online political ads.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 Facebook has held that ads are user content and therefore it could violate privacy to disclose the content and targeting of all ads. Businesses see their ads and targeting schemes as proprietary secrets. But when it comes to election and political advertising, the public good may need to be prioritized above corporate privacy. Building this transparency system may be complicated, and most users might not take the time to use it, but it could assist investigators and provide peace of mind.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Four: Political ad reviews<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWe will strengthen our ad review process for political ads. To be clear, it has always been against our policies to use any of our tools in a way that breaks the law \u2014 and we already have many controls in place to prevent this. But we can do more. Most ads are bought programmatically through our apps and website without the advertiser ever speaking to anyone at Facebook. That\u2019s what happened here. But even without our employees involved in the sales, we can do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 The lack of stronger oversight of political ad buying given the contentious 2016 U.S. presidential election may have been one of Facebook\u2019s most obvious mistakes. It needs to do a better job of understanding when scale isn\u2019t an excuse for weak monitoring of this highly sensitive type of advertising. Facebook has long touted its ability to influence people, but didn\u2019t put sufficient safeguards in place to prevent unethical or illegal influence campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

\"\"Bonus<\/strong> \u2013 Facebook admits it can\u2019t block all the interference<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cNow, I\u2019m not going to sit here and tell you we\u2019re going to catch all bad content in our system. We don\u2019t check what people say before they say it, and frankly, I don\u2019t think our society should want us to. Freedom means you don\u2019t have to ask permission first, and that by default you can say what you want. If you break our community standards or the law, then you\u2019re going to face consequences afterwards. We won\u2019t catch everyone immediately, but we can make it harder to try to interfere.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 It\u2019s good to see Facebook being honest about its limitations here. It\u2019s built a community too big to perfectly police, and accepting that is the first step to getting closer to satisfactory protection.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Five: Hiring 250 more election integrity workers<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 \u201cWe are increasing our investment in security and specifically election integrity. In the next year, we will more than double the team working on election integrity. In total, we\u2019ll add more than 250 people across all our teams focused on security and safety for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 Again, this is something Facebook should have known to do before the 2016 election. It\u2019s earning more than $3 billion in profit per quarter, so it can easily afford this staff increase. It\u2019s merely a matter of Facebook foreseeing the worst-case scenarios of how its products could be used, which it\u2019s repeatedly failed to do.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Six: Partnerships with election commissions<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWe will expand our partnerships with election commissions around the world. We already work with electoral commissions in many countries to help people register to vote and learn about the issues. We\u2019ll keep doing that, and now we\u2019re also going to establish a channel to inform election commissions of the online risks we\u2019ve identified in their specific elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 Rather than simply reacting to election interference, it\u2019s smart for Facebook to proactively seek to provide information to election commissions while also educating the public in order to inoculate them against malicious influence.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Seven: Collaboration with other tech companies<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 \u201cWe will increase sharing of threat information with other tech and security companies. We already share information on bad actors on the internet through programs like ThreatExchange, and now we\u2019re exploring ways we can share more information about anyone attempting to interfere with elections. It is important that tech companies collaborate on this because it\u2019s almost certain that any actor trying to misuse Facebook will also be trying to abuse other internet platforms too.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 Facebook already does this to protect people across the internet from terrorist propaganda and child pornography. As the largest social network, it has the opportunity to serve as a central hub for connecting services like Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and Google to ensure strategies for blocking election interference are propagated across the web.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Eight: Protecting political discourse from intimidation<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWe are working proactively to strengthen the democratic process. Beyond pushing back against threats, we will also create more services to protect our community while engaging in political discourse. For example, we\u2019re looking at adapting our anti-bullying systems to protect against political harassment as well, and we\u2019re scaling our ballot information tools to help more people understand the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 Beyond broadcast forms of interference like ads, fake news and events, Facebook users are vulnerable to being shouted down for voicing reasonable political opinions. While these attacks deal with a person\u2019s viewpoints rather than their inherent identity, like most bullying, Facebook can efficiently repurpose existing technologies to suspend accounts that try to disrupt civil discourse.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Nine: Monitoring the German election<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 \u201cWe have been working to ensure the integrity of the German elections this weekend, from taking actions against thousands of fake accounts, to partnering with public authorities like the Federal Office for Information Security, to sharing security practices with the candidates and parties. We\u2019re also examining the activity of accounts we\u2019ve removed and have not yet found a similar type of effort in Germany. This is incredibly important and we have been focused on this for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

TC<\/strong> \u2013 For Facebook to start earning back public trust, it needs to show it can block a significant amount of the attempted interference in elections. This weekend\u2019s German election is a good opportunity for this. If Facebook is seen as inadequately defending democratic processes after being put in the spotlight, it risks even more stringent backlash.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Overall, Facebook\u2019s plan is sensible, even if it comes a year later than needed. Hopefully its mistakes and the general naivet\u00e9 of tech companies and the public toward election interference will lead to a swing far in the other direction as the world wakes up to how sophisticated attacks on democracy have become.<\/p>\n

You can watch Zuckerberg\u2019s announcement video of this new initiative below:<\/em><\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Jonathan Shieber<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/0zuHS3rhscM\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Election meddling is Facebook\u2019s next adversary, and it\u2019s got a plan to attack it just like it did with fake news. Solutions to both these scourges come too late to <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-9329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t