SALEM A Facebook representative told Oregon elections officials and county clerks Wednesday that the social media giant will implement stricter protocols for elections ads in 2020 but doesnt intend to take down misinformation.
Eva Guidarini, Facebooks manager for politics and government outreach, outlined new protocols and security efforts at a Salem training session organized by the state elections division. State and federal officials and researchers spoke about current challenges that threaten to undermine the integrity of U.S. elections.
They laid out a somber new reality undermining election security: the vast and unwieldy realm of online misinformation. People and organizations can and do infiltrate digital media and leverage it to promote discord, they said.
Many of these efforts are the result of foreign actors deliberately working to divide the nation, and Russia, China and Iran are among the biggest threats, FBI officials warn.
They want to rip America apart at the seams, said Matt Yeager, FBI special agent at the Seattle Field Office.
Misinformation is an umbrella term, said officials, encompassing websites pretending to be news publications and propagating deliberately misleading news, doctored tweets and images, and fake social media accounts. All can spread inaccurate content or seek to polarize people.
Guidarini was on-scene to explain how misinformation can spread on her companys platform and outline new company efforts to address it.
Specific to elections, Facebook has introduced an authorization process for political and election ads, as well as ads for anything that is socially divisive or controversial, she said. To run those ads, advertisers will be required to upload their identification and receive mail at a physical U.S. address.
Election ads will also be flagged with a disclaimer noting that theyre paid for, she said.
The company has also introduced a voter suppression and intimidation policy that prohibits content with inaccurate information about voting, such as false information about locations, dates, or eligibility requirements. Content that threatens voters will be removed, she said.
Facebook is making new efforts in light of backlash following the 2016 elections. The company was criticized for not regulating content and allowing foreign interference during the election.
But the company has also said it will allow questionable and even factually inaccurate content to stay on its site. Content that fact-checkers determine is inaccurate will be flagged, but not taken down. And users will still be allowed to share it.
According to Guidarini, Facebook took down 45,000 posts providing inaccurate information about election dates, locations or requirements during the 2018 midterms. Facebook removed more than 90% of them before they were reported, she said.
Anything that violates the policy will come down from the platform, said Guidarini.
Through the end of the 2020 election cycle, she said, the company will have an incorrect voting info button available that users can click to flag content that seems inaccurate.
So, if you see content that incorrectly represents how you vote here in the state of Oregon, you can report that information directly to Facebook, Guidarini told dozens of elections officials and a few potential political candidates.
Facebook is partnering with elections officials in every state to train them and raise awareness about a 24-hour election reporting channel for state elections authorities. It has also launched enhanced security programs to help government, campaigns, agencies and advocacy groups to secure their Facebook accounts.
The company has hired third party fact checkers to search for and review flagged content in all types of posts, not just those related to politics, Guidarini said. If content is found to be false, it will be demoted lower in Facebooks news feed so its harder to find and surfaces less, and users will be notified that content has been flagged as inaccurate.
According to the sites own publicly available statistics, Facebook ran more than 6.5 million pertaining to politics, elections or socially divisive issues 2018. Advertisers paid more than $1 billion to run them.
Within Oregon, officials are stepping up engagement with county elections offices, including efforts to educate about phishing and misinformation, and federal officials will conduct individual county assessments to assess potential vulnerabilities, said Steve Trout, Secretary of State elections director.
Much of the training session emphasized the voluminous risks of misinformation, and while Facebook provided practical help, the broader problem is one officials say will take cohesive effort and an informed public to combat.
A whole of society response needed to combat this, said Yeager.
-- Piper McDaniel; amcdaniel@oregonian.com; 503-221-4307; @Piperamcdaniel
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