US Election: Is Facebook Election Ready?

Amidst the platform being used for political propaganda in the 2016 US Elections, Facebook claims that the site is now ready for the upcoming election this year.

Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist of Silicon Valley and also an early investor in Facebook now a critic, said that he was terrified about the election. "At the company's current scale, it's a clear and present danger to democracy and national security," he added.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg also regularly addresses potential outcomes that in 2016 could not have been anticipated- such as future civil unrest and probably a contested Facebook election - as threats that the platform is currently facing.

Seeing as opportunists as well as Russian agents have misused their platform in an effort to exploit the 2016 US presidential race, Facebook has insisted, on many occasions, that it has learned lessons and is no longer a platform for electoral propaganda and disturbance.

"This election is not going to be business as usual." In September, Zuckerberg posted in Facebook in which he described Facebook's attempts to promote eliminate misinformation from its operation. "We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy."

However, for the social network it has been a lengthy and slow journey. The company's attempts to review its rules and to tighten up its protections remain wholly insufficient despite having spent billions on the project, according to the critics as well as Facebook's own personnel. This is because of the consistent reluctance of the corporation over much of that period to take action.

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However, for years, when their network was being used for sinister intentions, Facebook personnel seemed to be caught by surprise. Over the years, Zuckerberg has given numerous apologies, as though no one could have expected that anyone will use Facebook to live-stream suicides and murders, encourage cultural genocide, endorse fraudulent treatments for cancer, or try to steal electoral votes.

The company recruited external fact-checkers and introduced more constraints on political ads as well as shut down hundreds of profiles, pages and groups that it identified to participate in "coordinated inauthentic conduct." That's Facebook's terminology for fake profiles and groups in countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe that intentionally threaten political dialogue.

In the case of posts containing false information about elections, warnings have also been added and often measures have been taken to restrict the dissemination of false content.

This makes Facebook undeniably better than it used to be four years ago. This does not indicate, however, that it is completely prepared. Amidst stringent rules prohibiting them, the platform is still being utilized by violent militant groups. This has recently included a botched attempt to abduct the Michigan Governor.

Whereas some platforms such as Twitter and YouTube have attempted to counter disinformation and hateful content, Facebook sticks out by its reach and size as well as its approach to the problems encountered in 2016 has been slower than any other platforms.