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Facebook says they rejected 2.2 million ads meant to interfere with US election

Oh hey, look, Facebook finally does its job for once.

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Image: KnowTechie

In a recent interview for a French news outlet, Nick Clegg, VP of Facebook in charge of communication and public affairs, said they rejected over 2.2 million ads designed to interfere with the upcoming US elections. They also deleted more than 120,000 posts that collide with their voter interference policies. He also added that no one wanted to relieve the “trauma” from the 2016 elections.

In his interview, Clegg spoke about the 2016 Russian interference. He touched on topics such as what they’ve seen and learned from over 200 elections worldwide. Most importantly, he talked about their actions to prevent potential foreign interference in the upcoming US presidential elections.

He said that Facebook invested billions of dollars in protecting its social networks Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Facebook has enrolled 35,000 employees to stop spreading fake news and preserve the vote’s integrity and platforms. Then Facebook partnered with 70 media outlets to help with the same goal – prevent fake news from spreading.

Facebook also established collaboration with the FBI, YouTube, and Twitter to find potential threats as fast as possible across platforms.

AI moderators also do their part in the struggle against fake news and election interference. According to Clegg, AI moderators so far deleted billions of fake accounts and fake news, even before users flagged them.

Furthermore, Facebook plans to not allow any new political ads seven days before the US presidential election. Once the polls are closed, Facebook won’t allow any political ads either.

After the 2016 election, Facebook was under many investigations for being idle amid the massive election interference and spread of fake news. Just a week ago, a new study revealed that fake news on Facebook is three times more potent than it was in 2016.

A report from the German Marshall Fund Digital reveals that fake news websites increased by 242% from October 2016 to October 2020. It’s even more fascinating that only ten outlets, labeled by researchers as “manipulators” and “fake content creators,” were responsible for 62% of all Facebook interactions.

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