Facebook to crack down on early 'victory' declarations in US Election
Facebook will issue warning labels on any posts by Presidential candidates who declare “victory” prematurely on the platform ahead of official results in the US presidential election.
The platform’s move follows a blog post by Guy Rosen, Facebook’s President of Integrity, who said in October that the company would not abide by early declarations.
"If a candidate or party declares premature victory before a race is called by major media outlets, we will add more specific information in the notifications that counting is still in progress and no winner has been determined," Rosen stated. "If the candidate that is declared the winner by major media outlets is contested by another candidate or party, we will show the name of the declared winning candidate with notifications at the top of Facebook and Instagram, as well as label posts from candidates, with the declared winner's name and a link to the Voting Center."
According to a newly published statement by the Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media giant, the company is pledging to add “more specific information” to posts that declare victory, as well as in “top-of-feed notifications.”
It will state: "Votes are being counted. The winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election has not been projected." Facebook posted a series of images on Twitter to inform users what that will look like.
If a presidential candidate or party declares premature victory, we will add more specific information in the labels on candidate posts, add more specific information in the top-of-feed notifications and continue showing the latest results in our Voting Information Center. pic.twitter.com/PBpWQFhlos
— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) November 3, 2020
The company will be depending on details released by the National Election Pool via Reuters, the Associated Press, and “six independent decision desks at major media outlets.”
The company said that it will remove any content that attempts to “suppress participation, intimidate voters, or organize to do,” and is cracking down on pages and posts that do so throughout the day.
On Facebook and its mobile app’s Voting Information Center, the company will add a link to redirect users to sites with legitimate updates, including latest results.
The company’s decision to crack down on early declarations of victory follow an anonymously-sourced report on Axios that informed the publication that Trump planned to declare victory early if the results pointed towards a Trump win ahead of the official results on Tuesday night, Newsweek reports.
Trump has since denied the report, stating that his campaign is “going in with our lawyers” on election night.
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