In what many believe is a case of “locking the stable door after the horse has bolted” Facebook has today announced a raft of new security features ahead of the 2020 US presidential elections. Those who follow Facebook will be well aware that alleged middling by Russian parties in the 2016 US presidential election may well have allowed Donald Trump to claim victory. Whether or not this is true, there is no doubt that foreign bodies have been attempting to influence voters in the US, and even the UK, ahead of crucial elections.
New safety features
While we await further details, Facebook has today confirmed that postings related to the US presidential elections, as one example, would be more transparent. This comes after the company announced that a number of Russian and Iranian based Facebook networks had been taken down as a consequence of “coordinated unauthentic behaviour”. The company, a champion of freedom of speech, was very quick to point out that these networks were taken down as a consequence of their behaviour not their content.
False information
In a rather bizarre development, the company also announced that in future it would label posts that include false information. The information, photos and videos which are deemed “false” will be grey blurred on the screen with a label “false information”. This begs the question, why would the company take on such business in the first place?
It is interesting to learn that the company will also label state-controlled media content so for example those looking at the US presidential election 2020 would be able to see Russian adverts attempting to sway their opinion. There will also be more vigourous verification processes for those pages attempting to conceal their origins. These are just a selection of numerous services being introduced by Facebook to reduce fake news.
Is this all too little too late?
The reality is that Facebook could and should have introduced such security services some time ago. We can only estimate the millions of advertising dollars the company took in during the US presidential election 2016. There is likely to be yet another pot of gold for the company in 2020 with hopes that these security measures announced today will entice more advertisers. Is it all about the money or protecting Facebook members from false and misleading information?
There is a feeling that Facebook has acted on historic concerns as a means of protecting the company’s reputation going forward. Political advertising is huge when it comes to elections with many parties looking to influence voters and the outcome of elections. Surely there is only so much Facebook can do to protect members? How will it be able to determine whether news is true or misleading? How could misleading information initially pass the stringent advertising tests the company carries out?
Conclusion
The timing of today’s announcement is a perfect PR coup. Amid suggestions that Donald Trump could be impeached, as we move towards the 2020 US presidential election, many advertising agencies will be looking to allocate their budgets for 2020. Interestingly, Facebook has also announced plans to introduce a spend tracker which will sure how much each political candidate has spent on Facebook adverts. Like so many great ideas from Facebook, quite how the tracker would work is unclear at this moment in time.