Facebook beefs up anti-misinfo efforts ahead of US election

 Beginning Thursday, U.S. Facebook users who post about voting may start seeing an dendum to ir messs -- labels directing reers to authoritative information about upcoming presidential election.

It's social network's latest step to to combat election-related misinformation on its platform as v. 3 election nears — one in which many voters may be submitting ballots by mail for first time. Facebook began ding similar links to posts about in-person and mail-in balloting by federal politicians , including President Donald Trump, in July.

se labels will link to a new voter information hub similar to one about COVID-19 that Facebook says has been seen by billions of users around world. labels will re, “Visit Voting Information Center for election resources and official updates.”

Despite such efforts, Facebook continues to face widespre criticism around how it handles misinformation around elections and or matters. company has generally refused to fact-check s by politicians, for instance, and a two-year audit of its civil rights practices faulted company for leaving U.S. elections “exposed to interference by President and ors who seek to use misinformation to sow confusion and suppress voting.”

effectiveness of such labels will depend on how well Facebook’s artificial intelligence system identifies posts that really need m, said Ethan Zuckerman, director of Massachusetts Institute of Techlogy’s Center for Civic Media. If every post containing word “vote” or “voting” gets an informational link, he said, “people will start igring those links.”

Facebook expects voter hub to reach at least 160 million people in U.S., said Emily Dalton Smith, who serves as he of social impact at company. primary focus is registering people to vote, she said, but information people see will evolve throughout election season.

“This is a unique election and a unique election season," she said. “Certainly we have never gone through an election during a global pandemic."

Or tech companies, Twitter and Google, which owns YouTube, have undertaken similar efforts around vember election. Twitter said it is working on expanding its policies to dress “new and unique challenges” related to this year’s elections, including misinformation around mail-in voting.

Looking ahe to vember, Facebook said it is “actively speaking with election officials about potential of misinformation around election results as an emerging threat."

company did t give details on potential threats, but said that a prolonged ballot process where results are t immediately clear “has potential to be exploited in order to sow distrust in election outcome."

“One way we plan to fight this is by using Voting Information Center and US Elections digest in Facebook News to make sure people have easy access to latest, authoritative information and news on and after Election Night," Naomi Gleit, vice president of product manment and social impact, wrote in a blog post.