Facebook has tried to maintain its claims that it is not going to become a source of misinformation related to election processes and the political campaigns prior to the upcoming US Presidential Election. In fact, the company has even made some changes in its removal policies for the posts containing misleading information related to the election results or about the mail-in-voting system. Apart from this, the company has been trying to be quite strict regarding various political ad campaigns, so much that it has removed more than 48 ads that were a part of President Trump’s political campaign based on the fact that they were violating the company’s policies.
Another accusation that the conservative politicians and right-wing media always plaster on Facebook is that the company employs censorship policies to stop the voice of the conservatives.
However, two separate reports have surfaced recently, and they point out several interesting things about Facebook and its key role in the upcoming election campaigns, despite all its attempts to remain ‘indifferent’ this time.
The first report is from Media Matters, and it nullifies the censorship claims and accusations by the right-wing media and politicians by highlighting that the Pages belonging to the conservative group are actually earning more interactions in comparison to the liberals and ideologically nonaligned pages on Facebook.
The second report is by NewsGuard, and according to their study, despite Facebook’s attempts at stopping the spread of misinformation, many Facebook pages are still becoming a source of spread of misleading information around the political campaigns and the mail-in-voting process.
This report also highlights that these Pages have more than a million followers, and Facebook was found to have removed only three out of fifty-three of these misinforming posts which already had a reach to more than 22.9 million followers.
This means that Facebook is still playing a key role in providing the users with a platform where not only general politics can be discussed, but sensitive topics like the voting process in the upcoming election are also being discussed.
These reports also clarify one thing that Facebook is not showing any bias towards any political group, and the accusations from the right-wing media and conservatives are baseless. It is also good to know that Facebook is not stopping anyone from expressing their point of view, but maybe a stricter approach for check and balance must be employed by the company to curb the spread of misinformation too.
Another accusation that the conservative politicians and right-wing media always plaster on Facebook is that the company employs censorship policies to stop the voice of the conservatives.
However, two separate reports have surfaced recently, and they point out several interesting things about Facebook and its key role in the upcoming election campaigns, despite all its attempts to remain ‘indifferent’ this time.
The first report is from Media Matters, and it nullifies the censorship claims and accusations by the right-wing media and politicians by highlighting that the Pages belonging to the conservative group are actually earning more interactions in comparison to the liberals and ideologically nonaligned pages on Facebook.
The second report is by NewsGuard, and according to their study, despite Facebook’s attempts at stopping the spread of misinformation, many Facebook pages are still becoming a source of spread of misleading information around the political campaigns and the mail-in-voting process.
This report also highlights that these Pages have more than a million followers, and Facebook was found to have removed only three out of fifty-three of these misinforming posts which already had a reach to more than 22.9 million followers.
This means that Facebook is still playing a key role in providing the users with a platform where not only general politics can be discussed, but sensitive topics like the voting process in the upcoming election are also being discussed.
These reports also clarify one thing that Facebook is not showing any bias towards any political group, and the accusations from the right-wing media and conservatives are baseless. It is also good to know that Facebook is not stopping anyone from expressing their point of view, but maybe a stricter approach for check and balance must be employed by the company to curb the spread of misinformation too.
H/T: SMT.
