Facebook could soon slow down users’ ability to share posts in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the election, The New York Times reports. The changes “could be rolled out as soon as Thursday,” and would add “friction” to the social network’s sharing features.
It wasn’t immediately clear what exactly Facebook would change about its sharing features, but it could “an additional click or two,” according to The New York Times. Twitter has also introduced updates to slow the spread of viral tweets and combat election misinformation. Until now, Facebook has relied on its voting information center and labels within its app, but these notices are easily-dismissed and don’t prevent users’ from sharing inflammatory posts.
Facebook is reportedly worried about the potential for violence and wants users to “cool down.” Separately, BuzzFeed News reported that an internal metric Facebook uses to track potential for violence had sharply risen over the last day. According to the report, it “indicates that the company's own internal metrics have found Facebook posts are contributing to an unstable situation around the counting of ballots in the US presidential election as President Donald Trump and his supporters attempt to inject unfounded doubts into the process.”
There are other signs that Facebook may be more attuned to activity on its platform spilling over into potentially violent circumstances. Earlier in the day, the company shut down a group with hundreds of thousands of members due to “worrying calls for violence.” Facebook said the move was “in line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension.”
Prior to the election, Facebook officials confirmed there were policies in place should there be violence following the election. Nick Clegg, the company’s head of global affairs, said Facebook might consider “pretty exceptional measures to significantly restrict the circulation of content on our platform.”
via https://AiUpNow.com November 5, 2020 at 07:45PM by , Khareem Sudlow,
