Facebook may introduce emergency measures to regulate viral content in case of election-related conflicts and unrest in the US, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing sources. According to the report, Facebook intends to calm the possible violence with tools that were specially developed for so-called countries at-risk. The tools that have already been used in Myanmar and Sri Lanka allow holding back the spread of viral content and lower the threshold for the identification of potentially inflammatory posts.
“We’ve spent years building for safer, more secure elections… We’ve applied lessons from previous elections, hired experts, and built new teams with experience across different areas to prepare for various scenarios,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Facebook will implement such measures only in case of a critical situation that may cause election-related violence, the report said, adding that if the company decides to use those tools it will transform the information that millions of Americans receive.
The report also said that this plan has been criticised by some members of the Facebook team and the representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties, who believe that the implementation of content regulation measures will hamper political discussion.
The US presidential election, in which US President Donald Trump is facing off Democratic nominee Joe Biden, is set for November 3. Early voting has already started in some states.
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