Facebook, which has always been against electoral malpractices, is now grappling with an uncomfortable new scenario: what should be done if the president tries to manipulate the results.
The New York Times reports that the social media giant is now working on something new to prevent users from interfering on its platform during the coming election. It’s not clear exactly what steps Facebook may take, but the fact that the company is moving through various scenarios suggests it intends to act should Donald Trump try to intervene with the results.
“Facebook employees are laying out contingency plans and walking through postelection scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimize the results,” The New York Times reports. Facebook is also planning on what to do if Trump uses Facebook to “wrongly claim on the site that he won another four-year term,” or if he “tries to invalidate the results by declaring that the Postal Service lost mail-in ballots or that other groups meddled with the vote.”
Trump has made false accusations about mail-in ballots and election fraud in recent months. Experts have warned the comments could trigger a nightmare scenario on the day of the election as it’s likely that results won’t b official for at least several days after polls close.
The company’s executives have previously said that they may be ready for such a scenario. Facebook said last week that it was “actively speaking with election officials about the potential of misinformation around election results as an emerging threat.” The post didn’t mention the president, but hinted that “a prolonged ballot process has the potential to be exploited in order to sow distrust in the election outcome.” Facebook also said it would rely on its voting information center to share authorization information about the election results.
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