UPDATED 02:38 EST / OCTOBER 19 2020

APPS

Facebook rejected 2M+ ads for attempting to obstruct US voting

Facebook Inc. rejected 2.2 million ads designed to obstruct voting in the U.S., the company announced over the weekend.

Nick Clegg, the social network’s vice president for global affairs, said 120,000 posts were also taken down and warnings were posted on about 150 million posts that provided incorrect information related to voting in the upcoming U.S. election.

Speaking to the French weekly Journal du Dimanche, Clegg said that Facebook currently has 35,000 staff dedicated to security on the platform who are dealing with all matters related to the election. He added that the company is partnering with 70 media organizations to ensure the information that appears on Facebook is factual.

Artificial intelligence has helped to weed out much of the misinformation, with Clegg saying that the company’s AI led to the deletion of “billions of posts and fake accounts, even before they are reported by users.”

After the 2016 election and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook introduced a number of measures to prevent the spread of misinformation on the platform. One of those measures included ensuring that all political ads need to be approved by Facebook and that they adhere to transparency rules. Clegg said all such ads are stored by Facebook for seven years.

Last week, the company found itself the target of President Trump’s ire after it limited the distribution of a New York Post article. Republicans cried foul, saying that the move was another example of Facebook’s bias against conservatives. A report last week by The Wall Street Journal suggested otherwise, implying that Facebook has actively been choking traffic of left-leaning news media.

Photo: Kelley Minars/Flickr

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