After 2016 Debacle, Facebook Ramps Up Election Security Efforts for 2020

With just over a year left until the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Facebook is stepping up its efforts to ensure it is not used as a tool to interfere in politics and democracies around the world.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “Elections have changed significantly since 2016 and Facebook has too.”

The efforts outlined Monday include a special security tool for elected officials and candidates that monitors them for hacking attempts such as login attempts from unusual locations or unverified devices. Facebook said Monday it will also label state-controlled media as such, label fact-checks more clearly and invest $2 million in media literacy projects.

The company also announced it has removed four networks of fake, misinformation-spreading accounts based in Russia and Iran. These networks sought to disrupt elections in the U.S., North Africa and Latin America, the company said. In the past year, Facebook says it has taken down 50 such clusters of accounts, a sign that efforts to use its services to disrupt elections are not letting up.

“Elections have changed significantly since 2016 and Facebook has too,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call Monday. The social network was caught embarrassingly off guard during the 2016 election, having let others use its platform to spread misinformation, manipulate voters and meddle with democracy.

The company says it will also add more prominent labels on debunked posts on Facebook as well as on Instagram. It will put labels on top of what are deemed “false” and “partly false” photos and videos. But Facebook will continue to allow politicians to run ads containing misinformation.

Critics say Facebook’s measures don’t go far enough and argue that the main problem is its business model, which depends on targeted advertisements and making sure that users stay engaged and entertained. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading Democratic presidential candidate and one of Facebook’s biggest critics, has proposed breaking it up.

Facebook also says it will add more information about the people or groups who establish or manage Facebook pages. The company said Monday it has noticed groups and people “failing” to disclose the organizations behind pages so people think it is run independently. Starting with large pages in the U.S., Facebook says it is adding a new section about “organizations that manage this page.”