Facebook has announced a host of steps to protect US Presidential candidates for the 2020 elections and reduce foreign interference in the elections. With Facebook Protect, it will offer candidates, elected officials, federal and state departments and agencies, party committees, and their staff stronger account security protections such as two factor authentication. Facebook will also monitor accounts of people who opt-in to this service for potential hacking. These new policies come at a time when Facebook has been criticised for not fact checking political advertisements, and a leaked audio call of CEO Mark Zuckerberg talking to his employees has surfaced where he promises to fight back against any calls for breaking up the company. Ad-spend tracker, confirmed page owner among policy changes Confirmed page owner: Pages will now have a new “Organisations That Manage This Page” tab, featuring its “confirmed" owner, including the organisation’s legal name and verified city, phone number or website. If Facebook finds a Page to be concealing its ownership, it will be required to successfully complete the verification process and show more information in order to stay up. Labelling state sponsored media: From November 2019, the company will start labelling media outlets that are wholly or partially under the editorial control of a government as state-controlled media. Ad-spend tracker: This transparency feature includes a U.S. presidential candidate spend tracker, more geographic spending details, information on which apps an ad appears on and programmatic access to downloads of political ad creative. Labelling false/incorrect content: Over the next month, content…
