Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, has removed over 120,000 posts in it’s effort to fight election misinformation and attempt to prevent a recurrence of what happened in 2016 when the site was exploited by Russian agents looking to sway the results of the presidential race.
In an interview with the French weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, the vice president of Facebook, Nick Clegg, said the company based in Menlo Park also rejected 2.2 million ads that were not able to pass the site’s authorization process.
The tech company is relying on artificial intelligence tools as well as thousands of employees to vet content that relates to the November 3rd election.
Clegg urged the French newspaper that the company had greatly improved since the 2016 presidential election.
In an English translation of his comments Clegg said, “At the time, absolutely no one expected foreign and Russian interference. This experience was traumatic for us and for American democracy.”
Clegg pointed out that Facebook had joined forces with 70 different media outlet, including five in France, in it’s efforts to root out misinformation on its platforms.
The initiative that Facebook has taken on fact-checking has received mixed assessments. The program has grown since it was introduced in 2016 and now includes extensive reviews of Facebook groups.
Clegg’s conversations with Journal du Dimanche include a series of policy changes the company put into place over the summer such as the implementation of an independent Oversight Board in response to growing scrutiny.
Besides prohibiting new political ads in the week before the election, it will also reject ads from either candidate if they try to prematurely claim the victory.
