WASHINGTON – (AP) With just over a year left until the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Facebook is stepping up its efforts to ensure it is not used as a tool to interfere in politics and democracies around the world.
The efforts include a special security tool for elected officials and candidates that monitors them for hacking attempts. Facebook said Monday it will also label state-controlled media as such, label fact-checks more clearly and invest $2 million in media literacy projects.
The company says it will add more prominent labels on debunked posts on Facebook as well as on Instagram. It will put labels on top of what are deemed “false” and “partly false” photos and videos.
Critics say Facebook’s measures don’t go far enough and its main problem is its business model, which depends on targeted advertisements and making sure that users are engaged and entertained.
As part of its efforts outlined on Monday, Facebook says it will add more information about who is behind a page. This comes after the company said it noticed groups and people “failing” to disclose the organizations behind pages so people think it is run independently. Starting with large pages in the U.S., Facebook says it is adding a new section about “organizations that manage this page.”