Mark Zuckerberg Outlines Facebook's Plan to Fight Russian Election Hacking
Facing criticism that Facebook published Russian-bought divisive ads during the election season, the company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the social network to outline its plans to ensure election integrity moving forward. Speaking to the public via a Facebook Live post, Zuckerberg listed these 9 steps that the company has taken or will undertake moving forward.
1. Actively working with the US government on its ongoing investigations into Russian interference
Zuckerberg said Facebook initially found no evidence of fake accounts linked to Russia running ads. But after uncovering such activity recently, the company briefed Congress and turned information over to special counsel investigators.
2. Continue investigating what happened on the social network during the 2016 presidential election
3. Make its political advertising more transparent
4. Strengthen its political ad review process
Zuckerberg noted that most ads on Facebook are bought without an advertiser “ever speaking to anyone at Facebook.” The company’s chief says the company can do more, but did not outline how or to what extent, except to reiterate that it would happen “even without our employees involved in the sales.”
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you we’re going to catch all bad content in our system. We don’t check what people say before they say it, and frankly, I don’t think our society shouldn’t want us to,” said Zuckerberg. “Freedom means you don’t have to ask permission first, and that by default you can say what you want. If you break our community standards or the law, then you’re going to face consequences afterwards.”
5. Increase its investment in security and election integrity
Zuckerberg said Facebook will more than double the team working on election integrity, without revealing how many staffers that currently does or would eventually entail. Instead he said the company would add more than 250 people across all of its teams that are focused on security. Presumably these teams cover many issues, not just elections.
6. Expand its work with election commissions worldwide
Outlining the work Facebook already does in registering people to vote and to inform them about local issues, Zuckerberg said the company will establish a new channel for informing election commissions of the online risks the social network has identified in specific elections.
7. Share threats and information with other tech and security companies
Facebook is already working with programs like ThreatExchange to share information, said Zuckerberg, but it is also exploring other ways to alert its peers about election interference. That is good because Twitter is also feeling the heat for its role in how foreign users and bots influenced the election.
“It is important that tech companies collaborate on this because it’s almost certain that any actor trying to misuse Facebook will also be trying to abuse other internet platforms too,” said Zuckerberg.