US presidential 2020: Facebook opens a one-stop shop to encourage voting

Sylvie Claire / August 13, 2020

The American social network Facebook announced on Thursday the launch on its platforms of a information center on the presidential election in the United States, as part of its efforts to encourage citizens to participate in the polls and reassure about its actions against disinformation.

“This new product allows all Facebook and Instagram users to access precise and easy-to-find information on voting, wherever they live, which helps them empower their elected officials,” the group said. on his blog, assuring that it was a "non-partisan effort".

“With many states having made changes to the electoral process due to the coronavirus pandemic, the center is also designed to help people navigate this muddled electoral process,” he added.

In concrete terms, American citizens will be able to check through this tool whether they are correctly registered to vote in their state, and will be referred to the correct website if they are not. They will also be able to directly consult the rules of their State concerning postal voting.

Facebook is also launching an "alert" feature allowing authorities to quickly contact voters in the event of last-minute changes to these rules, a "factual" information section on voting, and an assessor recruitment tool for organize the elections.

By providing the public with clear, precise and authoritative information, we will continue to reduce the ability of malicious networks to take advantage of the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic to interfere with the elections, ”writes Facebook, which promises more information to come. on his live coverage of the results.

As the US presidential election approaches in November, Facebook and other internet giants are stepping up efforts to protect their platforms from manipulation and disinformation campaigns, especially foreign ones, and avoid repeating the scandals that surrounded 2016 the referendum on Brexit in the UK and the US presidential election that same year.

Facebook, like Twitter, recently decided to report state-controlled media accounts. The two social networks had previously intervened on Donald Trump's posts accusing postal voting of promoting corruption. Finally, they regularly delete accounts to stop the widespread spread of rumors and other disinformation campaigns, especially among user groups.