This Is How Facebook Will Keep 'Fake News' Under Control During Lok Sabha Elections 2019

Social media giants Facebook are leaving no stone unturned to let fake news affect the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. In early 2018, Facebook was involved in a massive political data scandal with British data mining firm Cambridge Analytica. To prevent a repeat of such aberrations, Facebook has decided to monitor threats to the upcoming Indian general election from an operation in Singapore, a report in Quartz stated.

On January 28, Facebook, in a blog post, discussed measures that the company is taking to tackle fake news and ensure the integrity of elections across the world.

The post states that Facebook is ¡°planning to set up two new regional operations centres, focused on election integrity, located in our Dublin and Singapore offices.¡±

Reuters

The Quartz report said that Facebook¡¯s Singapore office will be a hub for the team managing intimidations to the Lok Sabha 2019 elections.

Facebook¡¯s blog post says having regional centres that focus on election integrity ¡°will allow our global teams to better work across regions in the run-up to elections, and will further strengthen our coordination and response time between staff in Menlo Park and in-country.¡±

Also Read: Ahead Of 2019 Lok Sabha Polls, Facebook & Google Unite To Scrutinise Political Advertisements

The centres in Singapore and Dublin, the post specifies, ¡°will work cross-functionally with our threat intelligence, data science, engineering, research, community operations, legal and other teams.¡±

Not just Facebook, but search giants Google, too, has vowed to fight fake news in India as the elections approach.

AFP

Facebook will maintain total transparency in political advertising and has beef up third-party fact-checking.

On December 6, 2018, Facebook said that anyone who wants to run political ads in India will must disclose their name and location.

¡°By authorising advertisers and bringing more transparency to ads, we can better defend against foreign interference in India¡¯s elections,¡± Sarah Clark Schiff, product manager at Facebook, said in a post announcing the move.